You cannot access the Internet from Tails until you are connected to Tor. For example, *Tor Browser* displays the error message `Proxy server refusing connections` until you are connected to Tor.
Using a public Tor relay as your first Tor relay makes it clear to your local network that you are connecting to Tor, while still keeping your online activity secure and anonymous.
Use a bridge as your first Tor relay if connecting to Tor is blocked or if using Tor could look suspicious to someone who monitors your Internet connection.
The technology used by Tor bridges is designed to circumvent censorship where connections to Tor are blocked, for example in some countries with heavy censorship, by some public networks, or by some parental controls.
It does so by camouflaging your connection so it cannot be recognized as a connection to Tor. As a consequence, the same technology can be used to hide that you are using Tor if it could look suspicious to someone who monitors your Internet connection.
Tails learns the current time by connecting to the captive portal detection service of [Fedora](https://getfedora.org/), which is used by most Linux distributions. This connection does not go through the Tor network and is an exception to our policy of only making Internet connections through the Tor network.
<p>You can learn more about our security assessment of this time synchronization in our [[design documentation about non-Tor traffic|contribute/design/Tor_enforcement#non-tor-traffic]].</p>
If Tails fails to synchronize the clock because you have to sign in to the network using a captive portal, an error screen is displayed that helps you do so.
<p>Tails uses the [[default <i>obfs4</i> bridges from <i>Tor Browser</i>|https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser-build/-/blob/main/projects/tor-expert-bundle/pt_config.json?ref_type=heads]].</p>
When you choose this option, Tails will only connect to Tor after you configure a Tor bridge. Bridges are secret Torrelays that hide that you are connecting to Tor.
<p>It is impossible to hide to the websites that you visit that you are using Tor, because the <a href="https://metrics.torproject.org/exonerator.html">list of exit nodes of the Tornetwork</a> is public.</p>