Setting up Tor with Privoxy and Proxomitron

[z12]

Hi notageek

I looked around the site and didn't see any tips on how to optimize speed.

From http://tor.eff.org/cvs/tor/doc/tor-doc-server.html

Quote:If you have at least 20 kilobytes/s each way, please help out Tor by configuring your Tor to be a server too.

Not exactly a blazingly fast transfer rate. If you end up going through a server that is rate limited like this, things will slow down considerably.

http://tor.eff.org/overview.html

Quote:For efficiency, the Tor software uses the same circuit for connections that happen within the same minute or so. Later requests are given a new circuit, to keep people from linking your earlier actions to the new ones.

So it would seem that the throughput you get at any give time will be a real crapshoot.

Due to the way the network works, I really don't see anything you can do to optimize speed.

I suppose there are a few things you can do to minimize the time you spend waiting for a page to load via tor:

Tor only when needed.

Disable images & scripts for sites you torify.

Play Minesweeper.

The main feature tor provides is anonymity, not speed. I think if you need both, you'll need a pay service to get it.

Mike