getting in ยท post 07 of 7 in this channel
The Tor Browser security level and what it breaks on WTN market
There is a slider in Tor Browser that most people never open. It changes a lot, including whether some pages appear to work at all.
the three wethenorth market addresses
hn2paw7zfvndw3dovycegeqmvvnf4pl67b3g2p7pohjlzavloosh73id.onionhn2paw7zrgujyhnt6mgxlt2q6uhgbke4itpqitxhyfbumq3wtnckbuyd.onionhn2paw7zadwkcra3qzv5e4q547i7e5lvxm62cfxqftuqdu7moiu2ceyd.onionprinted the way they were handed over. no labels, no numbering, nothing here says which one to try first. this feed never opens them, so it has no status light, no percentage and no date of checking to give you.
what the setting is
Tor Browser offers three levels, usually called standard, safer and safest. It lives behind the shield icon in the toolbar.
Each step up disables more of what a page is allowed to do. The names are honest about the trade: you are exchanging capability for a smaller attack surface.
what each level takes away
Standard leaves things roughly as a normal browser would. Safer turns off scripting on sites served without encryption and restricts several other features. Safest turns scripting off almost everywhere and blocks a good deal more.
At the strictest setting, a page that depends on scripts will simply not do what it is meant to. Nothing warns you clearly. It looks like the site is broken.
why this shows up here specifically
Onion services are reached over an encrypted channel by construction, which changes how some of these rules apply, and the practical effect is not always what people expect.
A market page with an interactive element, a puzzle that redraws, or a form that checks something before submitting, can go quiet at the strictest level while the rest of the page looks perfectly normal.
That is the confusing case: not a blank screen, a page that is present but inert.
how to decide
Start at the strictest setting that lets you do what you came to do, rather than starting comfortable and tightening later. People never tighten later.
If something is inert, step down one level, reload, and see whether the behaviour returns. That is a real test with a clear answer, which is rare on this site.
Then step back up when you are done, so the setting does not quietly stay loose for months.
what not to do about it
Do not go into the advanced configuration and switch individual things off to make a page work. You will not remember what you changed, and you have made your browser distinctive in a way the slider does not.
The slider exists so that the choice is coarse, reversible and shared with everybody else who moved it. Those three properties are the whole value.
A browser configured by hand is a browser only you have. That is precisely the property you were trying to avoid when you installed this one, so undoing it three settings at a time is working against yourself.
If a page needs more than the slider allows, the honest options are to step the slider down for that visit or to not use that page. Hand editing is a third option that quietly costs more than either.
replies
a reader askedWhich level should I use?
the answerThis feed will not pick for you, because the right answer depends on what you need working. It will say that starting strict and loosening deliberately is a better shape than starting loose and never revisiting it.
a reader askedThe captcha will not load. Is that the security level?
the answerIt can be. Step down one level and reload as a test. If nothing changes, the cause is elsewhere and the post on the captcha covers the rest.
a reader askedDoes a stricter level make pages slower?
the answerIt usually makes them faster, because blocked things are not fetched. Speed is a side effect here rather than a reason to choose.
what this post is not Not a recommendation of a specific level. It describes what the setting does so the decision is yours rather than a guess made on your behalf.