this might be a very amateurish question but I would appreciate somebody helping me out: Do I still need a VPN even when I use Brave Browser with Tor? Isn’t that kind of double protection?
Brave’s Tor mode will make you easily fingerprintable
Brave is botnet, don’t use.
Use the official Tor browser that is baked into Firefox, never use Brave for anything.
As others have said, there’s cases where you’d want to stack both, cases where you only need one or the other, etc.
The best kind of mask is the one that everyone uses. An up to date Tor browser alone on safest mode is the the best option for browser safety and anonymity.
I have heard good things about brave, but the tor system works partly with the tor browser to achieve a certain “face” that everyone who uses the same system has, and that is what makes it so powerful.
VPNs also provide a point of possible monitoring/logging as it’s a third party node you don’t control, and it makes you again, look different from the rest of the tor net for hardly any extra security Can I use a VPN with Tor? | Tor Project | Support
Your system is doing plenty of traffic other than your use of Brave. You want a VPN to protect that other traffic (hide it from your ISP, hide your home IP address from web sites). Brave/Tor only protects the traffic from Brave.
I use Brave and it’s really good browser but also i’m supporter of VPN services.
I prefer TrueVPN + Brave
This. Brave’s Tor mode can fall to easy fingerprinting. Thus, use Tor browser instead of Brave for that purpose. However, to say as above that Brave is a botnet is not true. Their code is open source. Brave is a legit privacy browser. I get the chromium/Google concerns - but their code also contains no Google APIs. Sure, you can argue chromium in general is bad, but when I need to use chromium I use Brave. This from a 12 year hardened Firefox user who hopes FF can stay in business. 93% of FF revenues is from Google being their default search engine. They just renewed a 2 year contract. Google pulls that in two years and FF is toast, sorry to say. If that happens, I hope and non-chromium browser can replace FF and get traction.
what does that mean?
Question: for just general browsing and downloading, is Tor enough or should I go for VPN + Tor?
Brave is configured differently than Tor Browser. The point of Tor Browser is to blend in with the crowd. Plus, I wouldn’t trust Brave to be in the favor of the consumer compared to a nonprofit like Tor Project
A botnet is kinda what it sounds like - a program, malicious or otherwise, designed to be a “bot,” as in a robot, that can be programmed to do whatever you want, and the “-net” part means that it’s a widespread program that effectively makes other people’s computers into bots to network together (sorta like how you have your home internet network with all it’s computers and routers). There can be as many bots as there are computers in the world, or at least however many the hacker can gain access to, but are obviously limited by things like OS and hardware differences and internet speeds.
A lot of botnet programs are used to do bad/sketchy things such as taking down websites (DDoS), flooding things that require voting (for example, political polls or even Likes/Upvotes on social media), using the host computers’ computing power to get more computing power, making fake accounts that look like real humans. Most people don’t even know that their computer is being used to do such things because the programmer designs it into the program to be hard to detect, and designs it into a well-known program such as Brave - or it can be contracted via infection (viruses/malware) or targeted attacks. Even if your computer is pretty safe, if your router is on an outdated firmware it would be very easy for a hacker to infect your router and use it to gain easy access to your computer, then use both to do whatever they want, especially run a botnet undetected.
TL;DR a botnet is basically Skynet from Terminator.
A vpn is better for downloads, as tor isnt meant for using a large amount of bandwidth, and it’s decent for privacy if your vpn is trusted.
Tor with no javascript, 100% alone or with bridges is great for browsing, as it keeps anonymity very well
I get that, but wouldn’t the Brave Browser fingerprint you as one of many other brave browser users? Sort of like the same principle?
Yeah I have it on max security, no JavaScript or WebRTC, with NoScript + Decentraleyes + Privacy Badger + uBlock.
Yes, but you want to look like a Tor Browser user when using Tor, else websites can go: look, a Tor user that uses brave. It also doesn’t have Tor Browsers patches and other enhancements, so you can fingerprint on all that.
Ok so, you’ll want to remove those extensions, if not give tor a fresh install
Having extra extensions also gives you a unique I’d compared to regular tor users. Javascript disabled and max Security will be fine on its own with a fresh tor install. Should I install a new add-on or extension in Tor Browser, like AdBlock Plus or uBlock Origin? | Tor Project | Support
If you want to disguise your tor traffic from your isp, you’ll use Bridges, but other than that, tor needs no modifications