TOR browser and why you should stop using it

What is TOR browser you say?

TOR is a browser like Firefox which you can surf the web anonymously by using TOR network, you will be able to get anonymity while browsing (obviously all of this goodness won’t come without some drawbacks, right?)NO, obvious drawbacks are there which are like:

Performance will suffer, it's one of the major disadvantage. Anyone who use TOR for few minutes will definitely see the major difference of bandwidth usage in regular versus using TOR, as during TOR the bandwidth will get low.

Low latency anonymizers are prone to traffic analysis. Especially if someone can observe your traffic and your targets traffic, they can correlate with that. Services like Anonymous re-mailers are able to avoid this problem by adding longer delays, but still it's still limited as the interactive applications like browsing the web will not be possible.

So why should we sacrifice performance to use this so-called TOR browser?

If you're not securing TOR using any security protocol, then passwords or any confidential information can be sniffed at the exit node. It should work securely with the help of SSL or SSH but it's important to validate the certificate/fingerprints.

What is the catch? Basically TOR was created in conjunction with the U.S. Navy and it's used till date by several government agencies. Apart from this, TOR is mostly used by political dissidents, journalists, even cyber-criminals, so due to this governments are quite watchful for the TOR users. It means, you can be seen as a criminal and your online activity can be monitored.

If you still trust Tor to keep you safe, you’re out of your damn mind son and here is why:

A hacker group known to hacking the Play station network and the Xbox live appears to be attempting to dominate Tor's relays to the point where it can comprise anonymity. Tor keeps you anonymous by bouncing your communications around a network of volunteer nodes. But if one group is controlling the majority of the nodes, it could be able to eavesdrop on a substantial number of vulnerable users. Which means the hackers could gain the power to track Tor users if it infiltrates enough of the network. So far, they have already established over 3000 relays, nearly half of the total number which has become dangerous for any user.

Tor promotes itself as a way for dissidents and whistle blowers to keep safe from hostile governments. As a result, thousands of users around the world rely on the network's integrity to keep men with guns from their door.

Tor's developers are asking those users to continue trusting their lives to a network that we now understand can easily be compromised by a small group of hackers or a handful of G-men with a warrant. Moreover, no one in the Tor community seems to fully understand where the network's vulnerabilities lay, nor do they have any concrete plan for fixing them.

For all those reasons, as it currently stands, I would hesitate before trusting the security of Tor to organize a surprise party, let alone anything more important. It staggers me that any intelligent person would continue to trust it with his or her life.