TOR vs VPN - Which is Better? TRADEOFFs Explained! 🤔

hey guys what is up welcome back to

another video today we're going to be

talking about tor and vpn

do people kind of uh dramatize how good

tourists do they make it seem like the

ultimate solution when it's really not

i'm going to be talking about some of my

experiences with tor some of the

downsides and pros as well as some of

the pros and cons of vpn as well helping

you decide which one to choose and kind

of bring some realistic um ideas to the

table so let's talk about that

[Music]

so guys what exactly is the tor network

the tor browser well essentially the tor

browser is a firefox based browser where

you connect to the tor network you can

also connect to the tor network through

brave because it has a tor integration

in it and it also has some applications

on mobile like orbot and some other ones

so that's the way to connect to the tor

network and the tour network itself

is kind of like a relay system basically

uh if this is you you might connect to a

tor server in something like seattle and

then that connects to something in texas

and then that connects to something in

the eu and then that would connect to

something in china and then that itself

would connect to internet so it's kind

of like an onion and that's kind of

where the name

tor comes from it's called the onion

router and essentially it's like a

peeled network of relays that anonymizes

and encrypts your internet connections

so the source of the location cannot be

uh found or discovered essentially

so what are some of the advantages of

tor

well some advantage r is that it's free

anyone can use it connect to it and

there's no cost at all another advantage

is that it's easy to use simply download

the browser for free connect to it on

brave or download one of the

applications and it's pretty easy to

start browsing with it another good

thing about it is that it is pretty

anonymous it's probably one of the best

ways to become anonymous on the internet

very quickly journalists political

aspects and stuff like that can use it

there is like some controversies around

endpoints and stuff like that and if

people make malicious notes um so there

is

an element of

danger to it in some ways

that you kind of have to think about but

most people generally in the privacy

community regard it as a pretty good way

of becoming anonymous online

pretty quickly

now some of the disadvantages of tor is

that the speeds are awful so we are

initializing tor right now we are

connected and let's go to speedtest.net

so here we are with brave going to

speedtest.net and let's see what kind of

speeds we can get

so like i said usually i get around 900

for download 900 for upload and around 5

ms 13. the amount of the slow speeds

makes me feel like i'm like 15 years ago

back in dial-up when you're connecting

to the internet it's like me

[Music]

yeah

and this is a live speed test by the way

we are just waiting for that connection

which is probably why

look at that ping 380

and look at that download rate

it's gonna be in the single digits which

is not very good

um

yeah

so this is what you're gonna get could

you imagine using this on your phone i'm

using an ethernet gigabyte connection

right now so if you use this on their

phone it's gonna be even slower than

this

borderline unusable in my opinion

so this is a serious downside and it's

not really one that people on youtube or

on the internet really talk about that

often so for most people this is a huge

cost and it makes it tor itself not even

worth using at all some other

disadvantages of tor besides the sow

speeds are that a lot of websites hate

it if you try to create a reddit account

when using tor it's pretty much going to

shadow ban you instantly and this is not

an uncommon occurrence try using any

other website you're going to encounter

problems with the tor network because

it's flagged there's going to be

captchas stuff like that and there could

be even a legal trouble with tor as well

um if someone is participating in legal

activity and you're on the and you're

the exit relay uh the traffic could be

tracked to you and there could be some

legal trouble there i'm not too sure

about this one but it's a possibility at

least with the technology now let's go

ahead and talk about vpns and vpns in a

lot of ways are you know not considered

the cool thing in the privacy community

um at least people who like tor you know

they say things like they're not

anonymous and stuff like that and

they're they're made by centralized

companies and that they cost money and

some of this is true vpns do cost money

um that said they aren't that expensive

especially if you pick the right plan

you keep track of your subscriptions and

you make sure you're not over paying for

your vpn service

they also are centralized as well but

because they are centralized that means

you're going to get really good server

access and good speeds some of the vpns

i get and test give really good speeds

all right so let's go ahead and do a

speed test with nord and compare it to

tor show you what kind of speeds you can

get with a vpn versus tor for example

so here we go

we have 5 msp which is pretty much

unchanged much better than taurus 330 ms

and downloads are almost to 800 and like

i said without vpn i could get around

900 usually maybe a little bit slower on

a slow day but this is pretty much as

good as you're going to be able to get

tor guard also gets good speeds just

like this these are probably the fastest

ones i've been testing lately nord and

tour guard excellent speeds here um so

these are good speeds and way way better

than tor so the advantage of using a

company is that they're using these good

servers and the centralization gives you

those good speeds so is it going to be

quite as anonymous as a tor network with

all these different relays and bouncing

all the way across the world well maybe

not

but vpns they do have promises to their

customers they promise not to collect

logs and they promise to keep your data

safe and when the vpn fails at doing

this there is going to be a shitstorm

on the internet and people are going to

stop using that vpn so until that has

happened your vpn is probably mostly

safe and it kind of depends on what

you're doing with the vpn as well if

you're just using it to protect your

anonymity from internet service

providers to protect some of your data

that way and protect your internet

generally while browsing online it's

gonna be a good enough layer of

anonymity to protect you and keep your

privacy safe so when people say that

vpns aren't anonymous

it kind of begs the question you know

who really is anonymous

no tool really makes you completely

anonymous not even tor but vpns i think

do give you a good enough layer of

anonymity as is

so as long as you pick a pretty good vpn

service

pay attention to the pricing models and

try to get a good deal you could do that

by clicking on my links they should give

you the best deals on vpns and be aware

of the limitations of vpns and that they

are owned by companies and you might

need to change one

change your vpn service one day you

should be pretty good i think tory is

just simply too slow and while it is

very anonymous

there are still some questions with it

and it's just not very useful seeing how

most major websites will get mad at you

for using it as is not only that but on

your phone it's going to be incredibly

slow i think vpns win against tor i

think they're more usable and while you

might have to pay ultimately they give

you a better experience online and

that's really what where most of us i

would say are after at the end of the

day anyways guys that's just my thoughts

and i'll see you again very soon