Many people are looking for ways to remain anonymous on the Internet and maintain some degree of privacy. In most cases, they will have to resort to VPN or proxy solutions At the same time, projects such as Tor, I2P and Freenet are all gaining more mainstream traction as of late. That said, Tor remains the clear “market leader’ in this regard.
#3 Freenet
The Freenet project aims to abolish censorship and any form of surveillance that may be in existence today. The peer-to-peer platform allows users to publish content, publish files with privacy protections, and enjoy the Internet the way it should be. Users can hide their identity by using pseudonyms, and content can be published without relying on centralized servers.
Law enforcement agencies claim to have successfully infiltrated Freenet to deanonymize users, but the project team claims these tracking efforts are based on false statistics. On paper, Freenet has the potential to become a competitor for Tor, but it has been a while since the project saw its last major build update.
#2 I2P
I2P is a network that provides strong privacy protection for online communication. The project positions itself as an anonymous overlay network and is used by people from all over the world. Although no protocol can be completely anonymous, I2P wants to make these types of deanonymization attacks more difficult. A scaling network will improve anonymity, and academic review of the protocol is a top priority as well.
What makes I2P so appealing is how the solution works on computers, the Raspberry Pi, and Android devices, among others. It offers secure email, web browsing, blogging, site hosting, chatting, file sharing, and decentralized file storage. Moreover, the project received a big update in December of 2016, which includes various bug fixes and important updates.
#1 Tor
The number one top anonymity protocol is still Tor, and it will remain to be for quite some time. This project is much more than just the Tor Browser, as various other projects are actively developed as well. However, the top priority of the entire Tor project is to defend users against traffic analysis and surveillance.
It is possible to use virtually any online service or communication form while using Tor. Moreover, the project has been around since 2006, and still receives regular security updates and improvements. One could say Tor has become somewhat of a household name among privacy advocates and activists all over the world.
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