When you access a website on your smartphone, your cellular carrier, network operator, and government all know you accessed that website. If you’re in a country that blocks websites, like China, you may not even be able to access certain websites. Tor allows you to browse anonymously and bypass web censorship on your desktop. Orbot brings Tor to Android, so you can do the same from your smartphone.

Whether you’re connected to a cellular data connection or Wi-Fi, Orbot works the same. Like the Tor browser bundle for PCs, it connects to the Tor network and allows you to browse the web anonymously.

How Anonymous is This, Really?

We’ve covered how Tor works in the past, so read our introduction to Tor and our explanation of how Tor’s onion routing works for more in-depth information.

In a nutshell, Tor uses onion routing to disguise your location. When you access a website, you don’t connect directly to that website — you pass your encrypted data packet to an intermediary node, which encrypts the data and passes it to another node, and so on until it reaches the exit node. The exit node decrypts the data and sends it to the destination, which sees you as being at the exit node’s location. The website talks to the exit node, which encrypts the data and sends it back through the nodes until it reaches you. Your data won’t take the same path every time, but will go through different nodes.

In practice, it’s very difficult for the end service to determine your location when you’re using Tor to browse anonymously. It’s also practically impossible for people monitoring your Internet connection to see what you’re doing — all they see is encrypted data. They may be able to deduce you’re using Tor, but they won’t be able to see what you’re doing with Tor.

Why Would You Want to Do This?

If you’re a dissident in a country like Iran, this means that the government can’t track you down for posting information critical of them. It also lets you bypass web censorship and access websites, which is particularly useful in countries like China that censor the Internet. If you’re in the US or anywhere else in the world, this means that your web browsing won’t be linked to you and stored in a massive database thanks to PRISM and similar programs.

In the past, this functionality was restricted to people using Tor on their computers. However, you can now connect to Tor on Android so you can use Tor while mobile. In addition to preventing your cellular provider, network operator, and government from snooping on you, there are other advantages to having mobile Tor access. For example, you can use Twitter on Android over Tor. Some authoritarian governments have blocked access to Twitter so pro-democracy protests wouldn’t be able to get the word out, but Twitter on Android could be set to use Tor. Twitter would remain accessible even if a government blocked access to it.

Connect to Tor With Orbot

Orbot is the most important piece of this puzzle. This Android app connects to Tor and creates a local proxy that other apps on your smartphone can use, allowing them to connect through Tor.

Setting up Orbot is easy. Just install the app, open it, and walk through the setup wizard.

If you have root access on your smartphone, Orbot can function as a transparent proxy. In other words, it can automatically force all network traffic to go over Tor. If you do this route, bear in mind that some apps could leak your real IP address. To really browse anonymously, you should use a browser that’s designed to hide your IP address. If you don’t have root access, that’s fine too — you can still use Orbot with Orweb and other apps.

Long-press the Orbot icon and Orbot will connect to the Tor network. The icon will glow green when connected to Tor.

Browse Anonymously With Orweb

Once Orbot is installed and running, you can use the Orweb browser to browse anonymously. Orweb is set up to function well with Orbot and Tor. For example, Orweb doesn’t store any browsing history or other information about the websites you visit. Orweb also disables JavaScript and Flash by default, just as the Tor Browser Bundle does on the desktop. JavaScript and Flash could theoretically be used by a website to determine your smartphone’s real IP address.

To launch Orweb from within Orbot, just tap the globe icon at the top of the Orbot screen. Orweb will open and display a message saying it’s connected to Tor if everything is working properly. You can now use the Orweb browser to browse anonymously.

Other Orbot-Enabled Apps

Orbot can also be used as a proxy for other apps. Any app that supports proxies could theoretically send its traffic over Orbot’s Tor proxy. However, Orbot contains a list of other apps that can be configured to work with Orbot. For example, you can use Gibberbot to chat securely, the DuckDuckGo app to search over Tor, browse with Firefox for Android and the Proxy Mobile add-on, or set Twitter’s proxy to “localhost” and port 8118.

If you have root access and set up a transparent proxy, other apps should theoretically work with Orbot — but you’re safest if you use apps specifically tested to work properly with Tor.

Bear in mind that Tor is significantly slower than a standard connection for browsing, as the routing process adds some overhead. However, if you need to browse anonymously or bypass web censorship, this reduced speed is a small price to pay.

Do you have any other tips for using Tor on Android? Leave a comment below!

Image Credit: Tor diagram via Electronic Frontier Foundation

A few months ago, we covered five great VPN services that you can use without having to pay a single cent. If you’re new to Virtual Private Networks, you should check out that article as it has a quick crash course on what they are and why people find VPNs useful. But for those of you who are acquainted with VPNs, did you know that they aren’t only for computers? There are VPNs for mobile devices as well, and they are just as important.

In the Google Play Store, you’ll find a whole lot of VPN clients for Android devices, but few of them are as up-to-date and robust as SurfEasy. The same goes for iOS. All that’s required of you is to download and install this single app, toggle it on, and you’ll be good to go. But SurfEasy isn’t only a mobile VPN – it’s also available for Windows and Mac computers – so, really, there’s no reason not to be interested.

SurfEasy offers a 3-tier account structure: Free, Mobile VPN, and Total VPN (more on that later). The Total VPN plan is available for USD $49.99 for a 1-year subscription covering 5 devices, but we’ve got an offer for you: we’re giving away 10 1-year subscriptions for SurfEasy’s Total VPN plan worth a total of $500 for FREE! Keep reading to find out how to take advantage of this offer.

Review of SurfEasy VPN

Note: Again, SurfEasy is available for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS, but the majority of this review will be dealing with the Android VPN. For more information on the other clients, check out the SurfEasy website.

SurfEasy VPN is a great client for Android, but what can you do with it? What good is it? How can you benefit from it? Well, a lot of the benefit in VPN technology is tied in with notions of privacy and security, but it can also be a feature of convenience depending on how you choose to use it. SurfEasy can do the following:

• Masks your IP address, location, and identity for anonymous browsing.
• Encrypts all incoming and outgoing data on your device.
• HotSpot Shield protection when using public WiFi hotspots.
• Access region-locked content on the web.
• Unblock sites like Facebook, Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, and more.
• Unblock VoIP services like Skype and Viber.
• SurfEasy does not log any data regarding your network usage.

To get started, all you have to do is create a SurfEasy account, log in to the app, and grant it permissions when it asks for them.

The SurfEasy interface is about as simple as they come. On one page, you get to choose which SurfEasy VPN location you want to use. The “Optimized” option will choose the network that SurfEasy thinks is best according to your current location, but if for whatever reason it’s not good enough for you, you can manually select one of the other options.

The other page shows you your connection status for SurfEasy with a quick toggle button for turning it on and off. This page will also tell you where in the world SurfEasy thinks you are (for determining the “Optimized” server above) and how much of your monthly bandwidth allotment you’ve used so far.

Honestly, the most frequent action you’ll be doing with SurfEasy is toggling it on and off. Everything else only requires a first-time setup and you’re good to go. There isn’t much to the interface; most of the goodness of SurfEasy is in what it does with your network connection (protection, privacy, proxy, etc).

If you pop onto the Internet, you can go to the SurfEasy website and sign in to your account there. You’ll then be presented with a web dashboard which you can use to control and manage your SurfEasy account: managing the devices attached to your account, bandwidth usage overview, and billing information for non-Free users.

Speaking of which, let’s return to the 3-tier structure for SurfEasy accounts:

• Free accounts receive 500 MB of bandwidth every month to share between up to 5 devices attached to the account. This is a good choice if all you do is check email and lightly surf the web. Sign up for a free account here.
• Mobile VPN accounts cost USD $2.99 per month and are limited to a single device that is either a smartphone or a tablet. With it, you get unlimited bandwidth and unlimited data protection for that device only.
• Total VPN accounts cost USD $4.99 per month and provide unlimited bandwidth and unlimited data protection for up to 5 devices attached to the account.

Again, we’re giving away 10 1-year subscriptions for the SurfEasy Total VPN plan to all of our loyal and beloved MakeUseOf fans and readers. Remember that SurfEasy works on Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS devices and you can have up to 5 devices per plan. Download the SurfEasy Android client now.

How do I win a subscription for SurfEasy VPN?

You may enter by submitting your name and email address. You’ll receive one entry simply by doing so.

After that, you’ll also be offered various methods to earn additional entries. They range from sharing a link to this giveaway on social networks; to commenting or visiting a specific page. The more you participate, the higher your chances of winning! You will receive 5 additional entries into the giveaway for every successful referral via your shared links.

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This giveaway begins now and ends Friday, August 2nd. The winners will be selected at random and informed via email.