Difficult to make a connection

Hi,

since some time it’s very difficult to make a connection. Sometimes it can take hous to make a connection (even with a bridge) and even though it can fail easily. I know it’s due to network censorship since I live in a censored state. Does it mean there are too few relays or what else?

  • Operating System: Windows 10
  • Tor Browser version: 11.5.7
  • Tor Browser Security Level: Standard

Hello,

Bridge relays are Tor relays that are not listed in the public Tor directory. That means that ISPs or governments trying to block access to the Tor network can’t simply block all bridges but might block them if they can detect so. So, relatively speaking, you have a smaller set of Tor relays (aka bridges) that can connect you to the Tor network, and it can take some time to bootstrap to Tor once you have successfully configured Tor to use one of these.

Some questions:

  1. If it’s ok to share, what country are you connecting to Tor from?
  2. Have you tried connecting with the Connection Assist? What are your observations?

3 Likes
  1. I live in China, behind the Great Wall.
  2. I always use Connect Assistant to connect but it succeed seldom.
  3. Even when TOR seems to be connected (welcome window with Duckduckgo input) it’s hard to open a website with the typical error: Timeout.
  4. I think it’s due to a smaller set of Tor relays. In the settings I find two bridges.

I don’t know if they are default bridges. Maybe I should update them?