|
[[!meta title="Why is Tor slow?"]]
|
|
|
Users often find that the Tor network is slow. This page describes some reasons that make Tor slow.
|
|
|
Tor circuits lengthen the connections
|
|
|
Tor provides anonymity by building circuits with three relays. So instead of connecting directly to the destination server, a connection is made between each relay of the circuit and this takes more time.
|
|
|
Furthermore, Tor tries to build circuits with relays in different countries which make connection travel more and appear slower.
|
|
|
Quality of the relays
|
|
|
The Tor relays are run by volunteers in a decentralized way. So all relays are not of the same quality. Some are big and fast, while some others are smaller and slower. As a whole, the network could be faster if it had more capacity. To improve the capacity of the Tor network, you can either run a Tor relay yourself or [help existing relays](https://www.torservers.net/partners.html).
|
|
|
Misuse of the Tor network
|
|
|
Some people misuse the Tor network, sometimes on purpose or sometimes by
lack of knowledge. For instance, Tor is sometimes used to conduct
[[!wikipedia Ddos#Distributed_attack desc="DDoS attacks"]]. By
doing this, the Tor relays are the ones who actually suffer from the
attack, instead of the intended target. Some people use [[!wikipedia
Peer_to_peer desc="peer-to-peer software"]] through Tor which
is bad for the network.
|
|
