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+<!--
+ Copyright © 2016-2019 Soren Stoutner <soren@stoutner.com>.
+
+ This file is part of Privacy Browser <https://www.stoutner.com/privacy-browser>.
+
+ Privacy Browser is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+ it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+ the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
+ (at your option) any later version.
+
+ Privacy Browser is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+ but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+ MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
+ GNU General Public License for more details.
+
+ You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+ along with Privacy Browser. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. -->
+
+<html>
+ <head>
+ <meta charset="UTF-8">
+
+ <link rel="stylesheet" href="../css/dark_theme.css">
+ </head>
+
+ <body>
+ <h3><img class="title" src="../shared_images/vpn_key_blue_dark.png"> Proxies and Their Limits</h3>
+
+ <p>There are two general categories of bad actors that want to infringe on the privacy of the web:
+ malicious governments with access to ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and mega corporations that run social and advertising networks.
+ Proxies like TOR (The Onion Router) and I2P (the Invisible Internet Project) are useful in protecting privacy from malicious governments (which spy on traffic in transit)
+ but not from mega corporations (which embed malicious code on web servers).</p>
+
+
+ <h3><img class="title" src="../shared_images/language_blue_dark.png"> Malicious Governments</h3>
+
+ <p>Malicious governments often spy on their citizens to punish dissent or human rights activity.
+ They commonly either operate the local ISPs or they can force them to disclose information showing every IP address that is visited by each user.
+ Layered proxies are designed to defeat this infringement of privacy by encrypting the traffic from a user’s device and routing it through multiple servers on the internet
+ before sending it on to the final destination.
+ This means that no individual ISP, server, or website, can know both the <a href="https://ipleak.net">IP address of the user’s device</a> and the IP address of the final web server.
+ Malicious governments and the ISPs they control cannot tell which web servers a user is accessing, although they can tell that the user is using a layered proxy service.
+ In some parts of the world, using proxies could be construed as an evidence of illegal behavior (“If you didn’t have anything to hide you wouldn’t be encrypting your traffic”)
+ and users could be punished because governments assume they are doing something that is prohibited. Thus, proxies can be helpful, but they aren’t a panacea.</p>
+
+
+ <h3><img class="title" src="../shared_images/language_blue_dark.png"> Mega Corporations</h3>
+
+ <p>When a user connects to a web server, the web server can see the user’s IP address.
+ Although it isn’t a perfect science, IP addresses can be turned into physical addresses with a <a href="https://www.whatismyip.com/">fair amount of accuracy</a>.
+ Small web servers typically rely on IP addresses to identify the location of the users visiting their site. Proxies are a good solution to mask the user’s location from these servers.
+ But large mega corporations that own social media and advertising networks use a whole profile of information that is designed to track users across devices and IP addresses.
+ These profiles employ a variety of techniques to identify users, including JavaScript, cookies, tracking IDs, and <a href="https://panopticlick.eff.org/">browser fingerprinting</a>.
+ Because the vast majority of the websites on the internet either load an ad from one of the major networks or embed social media icons with their associated JavaScript,
+ these corporations have built profiles for almost every online user and can track their internet activity across unrelated sites.</p>
+
+ <p>They track every site that is visited, everything that is purchased, every credit card that is used to make a purchase, every address that items are shipped to,
+ and the GPS metadata of every picture that is uploaded to the internet.
+ They build a profile of a user’s age, gender, marital status, address, political affiliations, religious affiliations, family circumstances, number of pets,
+ and everything else they can get their hands on.
+ They even buy up databases of credit card transactions at local stores, so they can track the off-line purchasing patterns of the users in their profiles.
+ Because they already have much more accurate address information about a user than an IP address discloses, proxies provides no real privacy protection against mega corporations.</p>
+
+ <p>The single best privacy protection against mega corporations is to browse the web with JavaScript disabled, followed by blocking ad networks, disabling cookies and DOM storage,
+ and using a browser that is difficult to fingerprint.</p>
+
+
+ <h3><img class="title" src="../shared_images/open_in_browser_blue_dark.png"> Using Proxies</h3>
+
+ <p>Despite their limitations, proxies can be useful in some circumstances.
+ <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.torproject.android">Tor</a> and <a href="https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.i2p.android.router/">I2p</a>
+ have Android apps that make it easy to use their proxy networks. When proxying is turned on in Privacy Browser, the app bar will have a light blue background instead of the default light grey.
+ Because traffic is being routed through several proxy nodes, using a layered proxy is often much slower than connecting directly to the internet.</p>
+
+ <img class="center" src="images/tor.png">
+
+ <h3><img class="title" src="../shared_images/file_download_blue_dark.png"> Downloading Files Via Tor</h3>
+
+ <p>When Orbot is operating in proxy mode, browsing the internet using Privacy Browser will be routed through the proxy, but file downloads will not.
+ This is because Privacy Browser uses Android’s builtin download manager to download files, which doesn’t have a proxy option.
+ Users who want to download files via Orbot need to enable its VPN mode. There is currently no way to download files through I2P.</p>
+
+ <img class="center" src="../shared_images/vpn_mode.png">
+ </body>
+</html>
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