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Plain-language guides to anonymity networks and privacy for people just starting out, with the context of the Sinophone (Chinese-speaking) Asia-Pacific built in. You do not need to know what Tor or .onion is, and the whole site can be saved to your phone for reading offline.

Start by role

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These docs are maintained by the anoni.net community. See About for who we are.

Purpose and audience

The guides are written for readers who are new to anonymity tools, by people working inside the region, and cover Mainland China, Hong Kong & Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and the Sinophone diaspora. You do not need to know what Tor is before you start.

For general digital safety guidance written for a global audience, well-established English resources include EFF Surveillance Self-Defense, Privacy Guides, and the Tor Project Support Portal, and we link to them rather than duplicating them. What we add is the regional layer those sites are not set up to produce: how a tool behaves in Mainland China versus Taiwan, and what a local statute changes about the threat model. Our introductions to Tor, Tails, OONI, and CryptPad are written with that context built in rather than as generic explainers.

Researchers, journalists and organisations looking for our measurement work will find Tor Relay Watch and OONI Coverage, along with the guides to running relays and onion services, on the community site. Ways to work with us are on Working with organizations.

Starting points

If one of civil society, a newsroom, independent journalism, open-source development, or general reading describes you, start by role has a reading path for each. To pick a topic directly, start from the four below.

  • What to change first

    For readers who want to know which settings to change today, without reading the theory first. One page is enough to get started.

    What an ordinary person should actually do

  • The basic terms

    How anonymity differs from privacy, what metadata gives away, and how to think about a threat model. The vocabulary to start from if all of this is new.

    Concepts

  • Choosing a tool

    Tor, Tails, OONI, messaging apps and password managers, with what each is for, where it falls short, and the threats it fits.

    Tools

  • The regional picture

    OONI measurements and Tor relays across the region, Taiwan's data protection, virtual asset and whistleblower laws, and the conditions in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau.

    Regional

Recent updates

More at Updates.

Regional coverage

Our depth varies by jurisdiction, and the pages say so. Taiwan, where we are based, is the only place we write about from first-hand experience, and most of the regulatory writing on this site is specific to it. Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau are followed through public sources and contacts in the diaspora. Singapore and Malaysia come in where a scenario needs them, and the diaspora and cross-border travel run through all of the above. Passages that rely on second-hand material are marked on the page. For the wider frame, see Why networked freedom matters.

The same tools, different situations

How a tool is used changes a lot with the situation it is used in. These guides start from a specific person and a specific risk, which makes it easier to work out what you need to protect.

  • What an ordinary person should actually do

    No particular exposure, just no wish to be profiled by platforms and ad networks. Starts with the changes that cost the least.

    Everyday baseline

  • Journalists and source protection

    Every stage from first contact to publication can leave something that correlates back to a source. Covers contact, receiving files, and what happens after the story runs.

    Source protection

  • Device minimization and border crossings

    Device inspection at the border, local networks you cannot trust, and cleaning up after you return. Written jurisdiction by jurisdiction across Asia.

    Crossing borders

  • Anonymous donation channels

    A donor who does not want to be traced, an organization that still has to issue receipts. Covers what fundraising and anti-money-laundering rules allow.

    Anonymous donations

Seven more cover activists, election observers, domestic violence survivors, LGBTQ+ readers, speaking online from Singapore and Malaysia, and posting on mainland Chinese platforms. See Scenarios.

Hands-on tools

  • Interactive

    Tor explained through 3D visuals and playable pieces. Walk a three-hop circuit yourself and watch where two streams meet at a rendezvous point.

    Play

  • Utilities

    Small tools that run entirely in your browser and send nothing anywhere. Strip metadata from images, generate a passphrase, check what your connection leaks.

    Use them

Offline reading

The whole site can be stored on a phone or computer. Open it once in an ordinary browser and pick a reading language, and the core chapters download in the background, so the pages still open when the connection is gone. To carry the entire site, choose which pages to keep, or install it as an app with its own icon, follow the three steps on Offline reading and check the result in airplane mode. Tor Browser and the onion and IPFS editions do not offer this, for privacy reasons.

Offline reading

For a compromised account, money already sent to a scam, a lost device, stalking, or a sudden loss of connectivity, Emergency Help collects what to do first. The helpline numbers on that page are Taiwanese, and it points to the equivalents elsewhere. It does not replace professional help.