How Tor and onion services work, explained from scratch
Plain-language guides for people starting from nothing. Every term defined the first time it appears, every step shown, and no assumption that you already know how any of this fits together.
The path through the material
Each stage assumes you have finished the one before it. If something is unclear, the earlier stage is where the missing piece usually is.
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Understand the basics
What the thing actually is, what problem it solves, and the handful of terms you need before anything else will make sense.
Read the introduction -
Set it up yourself
A walkthrough you can follow on your own machine, with the common mistakes called out at the point where people usually make them.
Follow the setup guide -
Use it well
The habits and settings that separate a working setup from a good one, and the mistakes that quietly undo the work you have already done.
Read the practical guide
Topics covered here
Every guide sits under one of these. Start anywhere; each one is written to stand on its own.
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Tor basics
Start here. What Tor is, how to install it, and what it does and does not protect you from.
4 guides
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Onion services
How onion services work, why their addresses look the way they do, and how to run one yourself.
2 guides
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Staying safe
The mistakes that undo everything else: deanonymisation, cloned sites, weak threat models, and what Bitcoin really reveals.
2 guides
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How it works
The mechanics underneath, explained without hand-waving: relays, circuits, layered encryption, and how private browsing tools compare.
1 guide
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Reference
Definitions, background and things to look up rather than read straight through.
1 guide
Recently published
Guides are revised when the material changes. The date shown is the last revision, not the first publication.
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Developing good habits: using Tor well over time
Installing Tor is the easy part. The habits that actually keep you private are the ones nobody puts in the setup guide.
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What using Tor was like in 2013, and what actually improved
Twelve years of changes: what got genuinely better, what quietly got worse, and which problems are exactly where they were.
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The scams that keep coming back
The same handful of frauds have been catching people on Tor for over a decade. They recur because they work. Here is what each one looks…
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The Hidden Wiki, then and now
It began as a community index of onion sites. Today almost every copy carrying the name is a phishing operation. How it decayed, and why it…
Questions people ask first
Do I need any background knowledge to start?
No. The introduction assumes nothing and defines each term the first time it appears. If a guide uses a word without explaining it, that is a mistake on our side.
How long does it take to get through the material?
The introduction takes about fifteen minutes. The full sequence, including the setup walkthrough, takes most people two to three hours spread over a few sittings.
Is any of this out of date?
Each guide shows the date it was last revised. Anything that has not been checked within the year carries a note saying so.
Can I use these guides somewhere else?
Quote a paragraph with a link back and that is fine. For reprinting a whole guide, get in touch first.
Who writes this
Written and maintained by a small group who kept answering the same questions and decided to write the answers down properly. Corrections are welcome and get credited.