If I use Tor, should I also use a proxy?

I'm trying to add as much privacy protection as possible especially in light of the NSA story.

The proxy I've used in the past is Proxify and I guess it does a decent job. Should I bother routing my web traffic through a proxy if I am using Tor browser? I guess it would provide another layer but it sounds a little redundant to me.

Thanks

 

Some websites ban Tor exits, and using a web proxy with Tor can restore access. Web proxies also give you consistent IP addresses. But they don't generally provide better privacy. Indeed, they reduce anonymity by distinguishing you from other Tor users.

 

After testing Tor for a couple days last week (it certainly is as advertised), I see no real reason for the average WESTERNER to use it. For one, it is extremely slow. Search engines (google) are basically unusable. While it definitely hides the users, there is no real way to determine its security. We have no idea who is running the exit nodes, monitoring the traffic, etc.

I would never access my personal email, use a debit/credit card, etc using tor. Did I mention how SLOW it is?

Furthermore; tor users are deemed as suspicious. While ISP's apparently cannot see the traffic when you're connected to the tor network, they KNOW that you're connected. What if all IP's that connect to tor are flagged by the ISP's? What if the government went to all the ISP's and asked for the names of the accounts of the IP's that continuously connect to the tor network, and all those names end up on 'watch' lists because of 'suspicious' activity? I wouldn't be surprised if this is already happening.

Don't get me wrong, Tor has its uses, specifically for those that live in oppressive regimes (although most of them block, or will block it) and whistleblowers that want to get info out but conceal their identity.

But unless you're a criminal or fall into one of the aforementioned categories, I really don't see a logical reason to use it. I am very internet security/privacy conscious, but going to extreme paranoid lengths to completely hide oneself (such as hiding your ip) will only raise red flags, unfortunately.

 

I've never connected directly to Tor.

 

I certainly see good uses for Tor, but I have to agree with @nerdstein that Tor is very slow. For general webbrowsing, you'll get plenty of timeouts or slow loading times. But I think this is a problem that will resolve itself once more Tor nodes are added.

 

Me either

 

Me either.

I do however find no problem using Tor, speeds are fine for me because my normal connection is very stable.

 

Actually, it's "more Tor nodes" that's the problem. Too many people with slow home Internet gateways run Tor relays to "contribute", be cool or whatever.

 

Gotta love IhazTorBurger 1MB/s relay servers run by pimply teenagers from their parents basements while downloading intermittent torrents while continuing as a relay.

 

Yeah, it can be frustrating. You can go from 3Mbps to 0.3Mbps in the next circuit

 

TOR network should really have some method of shuffling high speed servers to the top and reserving the slower ones for when the network is over populated and actually needs the bandwidth.

 

I've never connected directly to Tor.

+1 Use vpn or similar