Are you supposed to use Proton Tor server with Onion Browser?

VPN
1

This simple question not answered in two of Proton’s articles on subject.

To access .onion sites in people mostly use Onion Browser because configuring up regular browser to resolve .onion address is a hassle. And Onion Browser has specific security settings that are better for accessing .onion sites.

There are ProtonVPN Tor servers you can connect to. Those provide their own Tor routing. If you connect to Proton Tor server and use Onion Browser it’s very slow, and in about third cases can’t establish any connection at all. I suppose it’s because it wraps Onion Browser’s Tor within VPN servers Tor.

Do I understand it correctly that if you use Onion Browser you should connect to regular VPN server?

2

According to Proton Team

“Its pretty simple, our TOR over VPN would go trough VPN server first and then 3 random TOR nodes. Using TOR browser on top of that, you would go trough 6 random tor nodes, that would leave you like ultimately anonymous but the speeds would decrease drastically.”

Via https://protonvpn.com/support/tor-vpn/

3

Generally it is not recommended to use Tor Browser through a VPN. Use the split tunneling feature to exclude the Tor Browser from the vpn.

If you want to reduce fingerprinting / increase privacy while using a VPN, use Mullvad Browser, a hardened Firefox (Arkenfox) or LibreWolf. On mobile you could use Firefox Focus or even better: Mull (Privacy hardened Firefox for Android).

4

The Mullvad Browser seems to be a good option for the proton onion servers.

5

Thank you for suggestions. These may work for Linux/android but for macOS they don’t. Mullvad only does it’s magic if you’re Mullvad customer.

6

Installed Mullvad browser, and it proudly says “VPN is not Mullvad’s , not using proxy mode!”
And it don’t recognize .onion addresses.

7

Wow, that’s great to know about!