Tor introduces WebTunnel in browser to bypass censorship

Tor has introduced a new kind of Tor bridge in its browser that allows users to bypass censorship. With the so-called WebTunnel, users who live in areas with censorship can still connect to the Tor network.

A Tor bridge is a proxy with a Tor node, with which users can still connect to Tor , even if Tor nodes are blocked. Such censorship takes place, for example, in countries where there are protests against authoritarian regimes. The bridges do not appear in the public Tor directories and are often unknown to censoring parties, so they are not blocked. However, in some countries bridges are still identified.

That is why WebTunnel has now been introduced, which, according to Tor itself, is resistant to censorship. WebTunnel imitates web traffic encrypted via Https. The payload connection is hidden in a WebSocket-like Https connection. This makes it appear that the user is simply surfing the Internet and not using Tor.

The WebTunnel bridge can be used by retrieving the bridge address and manually adding it to the Tor Browser on the desktop. Tor has published a manual for this on its site. WebTunnel can also be used in the Android version of the Tor Browser, by configuring a new bridge and adding the bridge address.