Brave has an option to open a Private Window over TOR but is it really?
The reason I ask is that if you use a TOR browser, it takes a while to establish a TOR connection but Brave is almost instant… How is Brave able to (almost immediately) start a TOR network connection yet a TOR browser takes time trying to set up the actual connection?
is Brave “Private Window over TOR” actually using TOR?
Well I noticed some misinfo like it saying Brave comes with HTTPS everywhere and NoScript preinstalled? Doesn’t seem like a good source of information and also has nothing to do with OP’s question about the Tor private tabs.
I’ll delete the comment with the link. Surprising Windscribe has misinformation - what does it say about the service? Many here love the service but anyways.. I’ll remove it as I don’t want people going through it no matter.
I didn’t see your link, but I think it might be due to the fact that when you go into the section on Brave that still holding up the reanimated corpse of MV2 chromium for as long as they can, there’s a little section there with some of the more popular MV2 versions of extensions like NoScript, uBlock, Adguard, etc, that they recommend. There’s a little on switch for it. Maybe that’s what they meant.
You should be able to check if it really is a TOR exit ip from here https://whatismyipaddress.com/
From what I tested on my end, Brave and Tor Browser connect at similar speeds. Might just be a network speed thing? Not sure. But even then, you can confirm you are connected to Tor like so:
You can use this too, from Tor themselves. Using Tor in Brave will show that you are in fact connected to Tor.
It’s recommended to avoid using Tor in Brave for the following reasons:
Brave is not as resistant to fingerprinting as the Tor Browser is, and far fewer people use Brave with Tor, so you will stand out. If your threat model requires strong anonymity, use the Tor Browser.[1]
It seems very trivial to detect who is not using a Tor Browser, which is bad for fingerprinting because you are not blending in with the crowd.
For the record, whoever reads this: it is Tor, not TOR.
Tor it is:)
“whatismyipaddress” returned the fact that I am using a VPN and the location of that VPN server, not anything identifying a TOR exit ip………
(using Brave Private Window over TOR)
I just tested the Tor Browers and it shows a “Tor Exit” but Brave’s Tor Window does not.
My hope is that others will test this to verify my findings.
This is quite interesting to be honest. I will be speculating but maybe the website also checks the user agent to determine if it is a Tor exit ip? Since Brave’s user agent is different that official Tor Browser’s fingerprint it might be a determining point. Have you tried the official Tor Project’s ip check as well?
I did and it shows I am using Tor, but not the Tor Browser. As expected.
Half of Tor Browser’s privacy comes from your browser looking like all the other Tor Browser users. Swapping just the IP address with Brave Tor tab isn’t probably going to anonymize you properly. Also, last time I checked, the Tor tabs leaked the timezone information to https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
If I could ask, what link did you use to validate? Does it show a Tor exit?
Understood. Thanks for this advice.