😂 😂 😂

OK, so TOR and VPN's have overlap, but they are not the same.

TOR is a public network of relays first devised by the U.S. Navy in the mid 1990's to prevent tracking or blocking of the Internet by oppressive regimes.

VPN's can do this, but they were originally devised as a backhaul to your central office and do not attempt to obfuscate your connection, just the contents.

In theory a VPN can be hacked with enough computing brute force, TOR cannot, it must be hijacked, ideally at either the entry or exit node.

TOR prevents tracking by taking your traffic and passing it through a temporary path which includes 3 intermediary hops, an entry node, a middle node and an exit node. Each node adds a layer of encryption, such that all 5 participants know their immediate neighbours, but not the complete route in the channel.

This provides incredible security, but at the cost of time, compute power and non native support (you must either using a TOR protocol layer, or a TOR supported browser like Brave).

VPNs are a single path between you and the exit node at which point you can access either the local network, or through a bridge, the public Internet. These are usually incredibly fast and efficient and are much more widely supported natively by OS's and devices.

For me, TOR is the ultimate security system, but it comes with tradeoffs, primarily speed and compute power. I am also reliant on volunteers running entry / exit or snowflake, middle nodes.

TOR is also seen as a negative protocol by many ISPs or public bodies, who may pay more attention to your activities as a result of using it. VPNs use standard protocols and can even use non standard, unchecked ports like the NTP port 123.

I manage my nodes with a private VPN included with Umbrel called Tailscale. This implements the wireguard, open source protocol. Using that, I have created a private secure network across all my premises that only I can access.

Using this I can connect my wallets like Zeus meaning I can make lightning payments over my own private network without having to rely on a third party socket provider like Alby or a slow, public, non natively supported network like TOR.

I have, in the past, tried to make public lightning payments using a TOR connected mobile wallet, these often take up to a minute to establish a path and make the experience for both the customer and vendor extremely painful.

More than that, I can embed nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpq68euw93e4cam59llcmydav0akwjk2p4nfy3p85pn22xv9y2jxuzqf35lee inside my nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpqwr5azetlyy80apyxfp6y3eky3j54g0typwh3ceuftwvur4dmqjesuer6g2 setup meaning that in addition to my private global network, I can also use exit nodes outside of my own premises throughout the world to gain local access to services, bypassing geo-blocking restrictions which are aggressively being added by over reaching governments and corporations.