Is orbot better than Tor?

Can I use Tor on my Android phone?

A Tor user's guide

Yes, you can!

Tor is free and safe to use, as long as you have good privacy policies. Using Tor on Android. You can install Tor software on your Android phone. In fact, you're probably already doing that. But if not, there are easy ways to install it:

Visit the Play Store and search for tor. Or download the Tor Project Mobile Apps app (it's always the latest version, even if you're not connected to the network).

If you have an iPhone or an iPad, you may already know about the Tor Browser for iOS. You can install the Tor browser, too, as a free app.

You can also install Tor on your computer. That's usually the only option for people who don't have an Android, and it has the advantage of being easy to do when you need it: Visit the Play Store and download the latest Tor app, from the Tor Project. Install the app by following the instructions that appear on screen. It will ask for your permission to access your computer's data, and allow you to download settings, if needed. This process is much simpler than installing the app on Android.

The Tor apps are designed to give you basic privacy protection so you don't need to make any extra choices before downloading them. But you can use them in lots of other ways. We'll see some of those in the pages that follow.

What Tor is, and how it works. (1) How does Tor protect your information? Tor is free software which lets you communicate with people outside your immediate network without compromising the security of your connection. (The Tor Project website) When you use Tor, your computer sends its own IP address when it connects to other computers on the Internet. That doesn't mean Tor gives you anonymity, because Tor is anonymizing network, not a privacy tool (see our definition in the next page). However, Tor does add another layer of security: since other people and organizations can't tell where you are, they can't target you or censor your messages unless you actively share your identity with them.

(2) Why should I use Tor?

Is it legal to go on Tor?

If you're under 18, it is illegal to use the Tor network and services.

And if you are under 18, you can't even get access to the Internet, by any means. Even if you use parental controls to keep your under 18 under your parental control, you are still breaking the law if you use Tor.

If I'm a terrorist, can I use Tor? No. In fact, there is no way you could use Tor to commit terrorist acts. Tor hides the locations of computers running on it, not the users of those computers, so they don't make it possible for the FBI to link you to your real identity.

How many people use Tor? Tor is not used by everyone. Its exact numbers are not available, but we do know that Tor is the most used anonymity network in the world, and it's been growing every year. The most recent numbers we have from 2026 show that 631,000 Tor users were active, and around 350,000 non-users of Tor were active. It is likely that Tor users now outnumber non-users.

How safe is using Tor? People who use Tor say that it's much safer than going to websites as they normally do. Many people use a program called Orbot to surf the web through Tor instead of directly accessing websites. Orbot is free and it is used by many people. We think that with Orbot and other alternatives, Tor is much safer than regular Internet browsers and operating systems.

Can I trust you? We at EFF do not condone child abuse or terrorism. We think all children should be protected from such activities, and we want the government to investigate the people who are involved in child abuse and terrorism and to prosecute them for their crimes. We also recognize that child abusers and terrorists are often able to hide themselves in the dark corners of the Internet, and that is why we work on ways to fight child abuse and terrorism online.

Does Tor hurt anyone else? No, it does not hurt anyone else. But there are some things we need to consider.

With Tor, we need to trust a third party, which is the Internet service provider (ISP).

Which Tor should I download for Android?

I've been researching various Tor packages for the last few months.

There are so many! First I used Android 4.3 on a Galaxy S4 Mini and that worked well, but now I have an Android 4.2 phone running on a Samsung SGH-i237ZM and I am struggling with the new issues that I'm seeing on various posts on the web. Some of these posts refer to an old Tor client being included in the Android source code. So I wanted to use an old version instead. The problem is I'm finding that some versions of the Tor software are built for a specific architecture (ARM, x86, etc), but that Tor has been built for many different architectures, and none work properly on my phone. I have tried various versions, all of which seem to fail in subtle ways.

Some information: Tor 0.25 seems to have the largest userbase, so that is what I've downloaded.

I use the AdFree version of uBlock Origin. The most recent bug report on the Android issue is from 2026. So the situation is probably not as bad as the posts seem to make it out to be.

Also the only time I'm seeing some activity on the Tor project is when there are new downloads or releases, so the chances of there being something newer than what I have available is quite slim. Does anyone know which version of Tor works well on their Android phone? Or, is there another way that I should be using Tor? I don't want it to make me completely anonymous online, but it's nice to be able to have free, un-censored communication with friends. The article mentions the current stable build being 0.29. How can I find this out for myself?

Well, I'm trying to find the package name from the output of the command. So how do I know which version number to look for? What other choices are there? (Note: I really appreciate any recommendations you have. The one I posted is just the first I saw on Google.)

If you use Firefox you can click Download Tor Browser Bundle on the main website and use the latest Tor Browser that works with that version of Firefox.