Is all traffic routed through Tor when using TBB?

Question

Consider a computer connected to the Tor network through the Tor Browser Bundle: my question is does the whole internet traffic go through the Tor network like windows update, kaspersky update, vlc update or if I'm watching a video on YouTube in Tor browser does only that video data traffic get encrypted?.

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 02 '15 at 20:56

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When running the Tor Browser, only the Tor Browser connects through the Tor network. Other applications are not affected and will connect in the same way they always do.

answered Jan 02 '15 at 20:56

Jobiwan

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 02 '15 at 22:20

1

Unless you are using special system like Whonix or Tails, then only the Tor Browser connects through Tor.

answered Jan 02 '15 at 22:20

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 11 '16 at 16:46

The answer is NO. Tor is not a routing(i.e. OSI Layer 2 or 3) software, and TBB is just a browser. Tor itself opens a SOCKS proxy service for Layer 3+, and TransPort, i.e. transparent proxy, for Layer 3 alone. You can route all the traffic through Tor, but you need to elaborate by yourself a component to utilize tor's service ports: usually you use a firewall + TransPort for tasks like this. That's actually why you can configure which kind of packet forwarding format it will expect ( via TransProxyType directive in torrc)

Is all traffic routed through Tor when using TBB?

3 Answers3