If you are looking for a way to surf the Internet anonymously in your country, you have more than one option. The most reliable and popular methods to change your IP address are Tor, VPNs, or proxy. Tor and VPN are the most common method. Of course there are differences between Tor and VPN despite of their basic usage of both.

Firstly before we begin talking about Tor and VPN, we will define each one of them and their benefits.

Tor

Tor stands for “The Onion Router” which is an anonymity service. Tor enables you of surfing the Internet without any fears to trace your activities via Internet such as financial deals. Tor is free to install and use.

Your internet traffic is routed through Tor’s network of randomly selected relays (by volunteers) which is prevalent all over the world.

Via Tor’s network while all traffic passes via relays, it gets encrypted and re-encrypted many times till it ends to the exit node.

The main idea of using Tor is distributing all your transactions over various places in order to get rid of anybody try tracking you during surfing. By this method you can link to your destination from more than one spot and then periodically removing your footprints.

No one can find the complete path from your PC to the website you are connected to. Only each node can see the front and behind IP address of other nodes.

Basically each completed path is good for a few minutes, after that new random paths are generated. This is what features Tor there is no tailing during visiting any websites.

VPN

VPNs are virtual private networks which give you a new virtual IP address. VPN protects your privacy and encrypts you traffic on internet. While you request a specific website, website cannot see your IP address but it only seesthe IP address of the VPN server you had via VPN service. VPN can protect your private information from hackers and threats.VPN differs a bit than a proxy which is another method to access restricted websites and keep safe from tracking.

Tor and VPN: advantages and disadvantages

Of course as we mentioned above both of Tor and VPN work in the same vein to encrypt your private information via Internet. But there are top advantages of using Tor and VPN as follows:

As for Tor’s advantages:

You will be secure from any tracing processes and hackers during surfing the Internet.

While Tor’s network is established, no one of any organizations can turn it off.

As for Tor’s disadvantages:

Because of your traffic passes through a number of relays, it makes the connection speed is very slow, so it is not good to use for live streaming geo-restricted video content.

Some ISPs can find out these relays and block it like what China does.

Since the traffic in the last node is un-encrypted, anyone of government and police can link to your destination and see your internet traffic. It is easy for anyone to setup a Tor exit node and they can spy your activities.

As for VPN’s advantages:

Connection speed during using VPN is faster than using Tor because there are no many links between your network and requested websites. Just the VPN server and destination

Security is very higher than that in Tor

There are some of VPN services provide malware protection for you.

As for VPN’s disadvantages:

Some of VPN providers are very expensive; there are free VPNs if you prefer, but it has annoying ads.

Now you can choose between Tor and VPN according to your needs.