How to Securely and Anonymously Share Files of Any Size Using the Tor Network.
Doing anything anonymously on the Internet in 2018 is becoming harder and harder by the day. Just about every website, browser, program, app, game, operating system, and device is tracking your online movements and data, even cryptocurrency which was praised for its anonymity is becoming harder to use with complete stealth. Thankfully there are still tools available that allow you to transfer and share files of any size anonymously free of charge.
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As mentioned above, privacy is under major attack with just about every aspect of Internet and device usage being funneled to companies, organizations, and governments. Most of the time this information is used for advertising and sales purposes but there is no guarantee that all of this information remains with the original gatherer. Usage data is quite often sold numerous times and is being referred to as digital oil in many circles, because of its value.
Thankfully there are ways to reduce how much data can be collected about you and your usage, VPNs, Proxies and of course Tor browser for example. If you haven’t thought about using these options in the past, there’s no better time than now to start. That brings us back to the main topic of this article, sharing files securely, anonymously and just as important, free of charge. To do this, you will need to use Tor browser and a small open source program called OnionShare. Both of which you can download below.
Download Tor Browser.
Download OnionShare.
Anonymous, Secure, Free, Limitless, File Sharing Using Onion Share.
To start sharing files anonymously, you will first need to download and install Tor Browser, which you can get using the link above. If you haven’t used Tor in the past, it’s basically a slightly modified version of Firefox. If you haven’t used Firefox and generally use Chrome, you still won’t have any issues using Tor. However, you won’t really need to use Tor, it just needs to be installed and running for OnionShare to use its connection. Once you have Tor installed, download and install OnionShare.
Now that you have both programs on your computer, open Tor, then open Onionshare. Using OnionShare is super easy, you can drag and drop anything you want to share into the window or use the Add button. When you have the file/files added, click Start Sharing and OnionShare will prepare your files. (how long this takes will depend on the files size and Internet connection)
For another person to acquire your shared content, they will need to have Tor browser installed on their device and the link to your content. If you try to use the link on another browser other than Tor, it will show as an error message. To download the file, simply open Tor, copy the link into the address bar, then click Download.
If you want to increase your level of protection even more, you can click the Settings icon in the bottom right-hand corner of OnionShare and tick the box under Stealth (Advanced). This may cause some connection difficulties, but it’s worth a shot for added protection.