Twitter launches its Tor Project onion address

Twitter may now be accessed via its dedicated Tor Project onion website. Tor users may point their browsers to https://twitter3e4tixl4xyajtrzo62zg5vztmjuricljdp2c5kshju4avyoid.onion/ to access Twitter directly.

Twitter follows a handful of major sites, including Facebook and the BBC, in launching a dedicated onion website.

The official supported browsers support page on Twitter confirms that Tor Project onion domains are now supported.

Access to the Tor network is available in several different forms. Users may download Tor Browser, which is based on Firefox ESR, to browse any site including onion sites. Some browsers, Brave needs to be mentioned here, support Tor as well. Tor Browser is available for desktop operating systems and for Google's Android operating system.

Tor uses encryption and other privacy and security features to protect user anonymity; this is done by routing the connection through a series of network nodes instead of connecting to sites directly. Tor is a popular solution when it comes to bypassing censorship or other attempts at blocking access to certain Internet sites and services.

Additionally, it may unlock access to sites that are blocked when accessed via a regular browser.

Twitter has been accessible via Tor already, but support for a dedicated .onion website takes it to the next level. Alex Muffett, who helped Twitter create the onion website, published details on the benefits of providing an onion site over allowing connections to a site via Tor on his personal website.

According to him, onion websites improve authenticity and availability of sites. Clicking or typing the onion address guarantees that the correct site is accessed via Twitter. Muffet explains that onion sites mitigate attacks carried out on rogue Tor exit notes.

The use of onion sites has other benefits, including the ability to bypass regional or national blocks of websites, protect against DNS censorship and TLS man-in-the-middle attacks, and SNI filters.

In short: the new Twitter onion website mitigates several attack types when using the Tor network to access websites.

Closing Words

The launching of a dedicated onion website improves Twitter access and security for Tor users.

Now You: do you use Tor to access sites?

Twitter launches its Tor Project onion address