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Pornhub Is Now Available as a Tor Site to Protect Users' Privacy

Pornhub decided to create the Tor mirror site to help protect the porn-viewing habits of LGBT users, whose sexual preferences can be criminalized in certain countries.

By Michael Kan
January 23, 2020
Pornhub Tor

Want to keep your adult online activities private? Well, good news: Pornhub is now available on the dark web.

Pornhub has created a Tor mirror site, which is accessible at http://pornhubthbh7ap3u.onion/. Visiting the link will require the Tor browser, which can help anonymize your web traffic and prevent internet service providers and government snoops from tracking your activities.

Pornhub says it created the Tor site to protect the porn-viewing habits of LGBT users, whose sexual preferences can be criminalized in certain countries. "As ill-willed hackers and compromising surveillance practices become growing concerns, it's important that we set up internal safeguards to help anonymize the online activity and communication of our users," Pornhub VP Corey Price said in a statement.

A Tor mirror can also act as an alternative if a government has chosen to block the main Pornhub website. It's why other companies, including Facebook, The New York Times, and the BBC have also launched their own Tor mirrors over the years.

To anonymize your activities, the Tor browser ferries your connection through a network of volunteer-operated servers across the globe. On the downside, web surfing on Tor can be slow since your traffic is traveling over the various network nodes. So it isn't recommended for the impatient.

To protect users' privacy, the Tor mirror has also disabled certain features, including the ability to login as a registered user, and video uploading.

An alternative to Tor is to use a paid VPN service, which can also prevent ISPs from monitoring what sites you're visiting. It can do this by creating an encrypted internet connection with a server run by the VPN provider. Back in 2018, Pornhub jumped on the bandwagon by introducing its own product, VPNhub.

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About Michael Kan

Senior Reporter

I've been with PCMag since October 2017, covering a wide range of topics, including consumer electronics, cybersecurity, social media, networking, and gaming. Prior to working at PCMag, I was a foreign correspondent in Beijing for over five years, covering the tech scene in Asia.

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