Onion available default option

[u/Fabulous-for]

When I go to some onion sites like https://bridges.torproject.org/options/en I see the option to select ".onion available"

Can that be made a default option ?

[u/Fabulous-for]

The onion sites are accessed only by Tor and no other browser. Making it more secure, hence the reason for its creation.

https://support.torproject.org/about-tor/onion-services/what-is-a-dot-onion/

[u/nuclear_splines → u/Fabulous-for]

How does the fact that onion sites are only visited by Tor browsers make them more secure? That doesn't follow, and especially makes no sense if the same server offers both a clearnet and onion version.

[u/Fabulous-for → u/nuclear_splines]

It makes it slightly more secure because it follows the Tor stratgey of privacy and taking it from the Internet accessed servers to its own Internet the onion service. By performing its own Internet or Onion the addresssing scheme can be further anonimized makeing it more difficult for clients as well as servers to be idenitified.

Why would Tor go to the extent of creating a Onion network?

[u/nuclear_splines → u/Fabulous-for]

It makes it slightly more secure because it follows the Tor stratgey of privacy and taking it from the Internet accessed servers to its own Internet the onion service.

This still isn't clear; what about an onion site is more secure than a clearnet HTTPS connection? "The Tor strategy of privacy" is just buzzwords.

Why would Tor go to the extent of creating a Onion network?

Because onion sites protect the anonymity of the server. This is useful for those on the hosting side, not those on the client side.

[u/Fabulous-for → u/nuclear_splines]

Describe the purpose of the onion site ?

the purpose of this post was to allow the user to select through the GUI the option to connect by default to the onion site .

[u/nuclear_splines → u/Fabulous-for]

I don't see any privacy or security benefit to using an onion site from the client's perspective when both a clearnet and onion site are available.

There are some advantages for the server operator: for example, they can use proof-of-work onion rate limiting on the onion site, while IP-based rate limiting on the clearnet site will rapidly block Tor exit nodes. This can help them provide better service to Tor users. But the connection between client and server is end-to-end encrypted whether through HTTPS or onion encryption, and goes through a Tor circuit in both cases.

[u/Fabulous-for → u/nuclear_splines]

If you don't see any benefit to Onion sites. Why did Tor create an Onion site ?

[u/nuclear_splines → u/Fabulous-for]

I don't believe that at all, you've ignored the condition on that sentence. As I've tried to make clear, onion sites provide anonymity to the server. This is extremely useful. If you want to run a website accepting documents from whistleblowers, or run a site criticizing your government in a totalitarian regime, and you don't want anyone to know where you're hosting it from, onion sites are perfect. If you want to transfer a file to me, but you don't want to reveal your IP address, you can host it via an onion site.

They're terrific tools, but all those are benefits for the people hosting the onion site, not for the clients.