To enhance the privacy of your VPN session, and because it's cool, our tunnels give you the option to filter your HTTP traffic through Privoxy and Tor.
Privoxy is a web proxy that's designed to scrub web pages for bad things like tracking bugs, analytics scripts and other things that are generally considered to be privacy violations. It also does some basic ad and other annoyance blocking. It does not cache or store any content that passes through it.
We especially like Privoxy on devices like the iPhone, where there's no official way to block web content. You can read more about Privoxy at http://www.privoxy.org/.
Tor is an anonymity network. That is, Tor allows someone to connect to things (usually websites) in a manner that makes it very difficult for anyone to find their real location. It's encrypted like a VPN, but is very slow due to the deliberately convoluted path your data takes. For a much better explanation of what Tor does, read the Tor Project's Overview.
Basic Tor theory of operation.
Privoxy and Tor make a great team and add two additional layers of protection on top of your anonymous VPN. We offer the option to use Privoxy and Tor together, or because the Tor network can be painfully slow, the option to use Privoxy by itself.
Log into your VPNme account and go to the settings for your VPN tunnel. Make sure you're in NAT mode and choose whether you want Privoxy + Tor or just Privoxy. These settings will take effect the next time you connect.
You can check to see if Privoxy is working by opening: http://config.privoxy.org/. If you try the EFF's Am I using Tor? page, though, it won't work for the reason outlined below.
None of this works with HTTPS (aka SSL). That's because we'd have to intercept your SSL connections and your browser would complain about the certificate being invalid every time. In fact, this kind of tampering is exactly what SSL is designed to prevent. Note that Privoxy and Tor do work with SSL if you run them on your own computer, just not the way we use them.
Not everyone likes Tor. Plenty of websites, forums, etc block all known Tor exit nodes because sometimes people use them to be a nuisance. If this happens, try reloading the page or just turn Tor off temporarily.
Privoxy may break certain pages. Since Privoxy messes with the content of web pages, it's possible that it may do so in a way that breaks a fragile website. If you suspect this is happening, try the page without Privoxy.
