Not sure if it fits in the right category, so feel free to change it if you see it that way.
I’m new to using Tor, but I’ve been using it on different machines with Arch and Whonix, separately.
I’d like to route all my traffic through Tor, but there are two major problems with this, and I’d like you to help me solve them, but also get some sort of official response to it:
Speed.
Loading websites is fine most of the time, but watching videos is not. A simple task like watching a YouTube video in FHD often fails and I either have to refresh the circuit or, even if it works, simply wait a long time.
Trust.
Using Tor with most services today is a complete nightmare. In one way or another, almost every single service requires you to give up some identifying information, such as a real email address, phone number, etc. Even on this very forum I had to use my real email address for approval.
This has nothing to do with Tor, every service provider chooses their log in procedure. It’s true you have to give an email address most of the time, but it is not necessary to give an identifying one, you can use SimpleLogin for aliases, 10minutemail for temporary emails and such.
Tor gives you anonimity and the chance to overcome censorship, but if you choose to give identifying information, there’s nothing to be done.
I first registered using a temporary mail, but since I come in here on a regular basis, I switched to an alias so there’s no chance to lose access.
The Tor circuit uses at least three relays, with the maximum speed being the slowest of them, so your experience watching videos, YouTube or not, will demand bandwidth dependent on the video’s bitrate and/or resolution. The solution is either cycle through circuits until the slowest relay has sufficient bandwidth for your needs, and/or reducing the video’s resolution, usually directly tied to its bitrate, in order to stream with less bandwidth utilization.
@capole addressed your points well. Using the Tor Browser does not prevent the rest of the Internet from requesting and/or requiring identifying information to utilize their services.
In regards to things like youtube, see the whonix documentation on yt-dlp. You can also run a program called Freetube in whonix to keep track of your subscriptions. I recommend using a python virtual environment to install the latest version of yt-dlp. Inside the python virtual environment, use the following in the terminal, followed by the youtube video you want to watch.
2- Sign up to a disroot account using that temporary mail with Closed! .
3- Wait 48 hours for them to approve your account.
4- (Optional) After your account is approved, use the disroot email as your verification email for another email, such as protonmail or whatever you want to use.
5- Sign up to whatever service you want to sign up to, using the email that you created.
6- Repeat steps 1-5 for each service you want to use, in order to avoid your activities on one service being linked to your activities on another service via email address.
You can also try paying for something like protonmail with Monero if you have any. That might allow you to bypass the email verification check. It would also support one of the only privacy-based emails in existence and continue to incentivize them to provide such a service.
you can find various quality options in the yt-dlp documentation. I prefer to do -f b because without it, yt-dlp will download the video and audio separately, then combine them into one file. Given that we are downloading via whonix, there is already the risk of things not working correctly. I prefer not to add more things that could possibly go wrong. But the highest quality video might be worth it for you.