What is Tor Browser?

The Tor software protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location, and it lets you access sites which are blocked.

Tor Browser lets you use Tor on Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux without needing to install any software. It can run off a USB flash drive, comes with a pre-configured web browser to protect your anonymity, and is self-contained (portable).

Is Tor Browser Harmful?Are There Any Risk                    Of Using Tor Browser?

Tor is safe to use, if you set it up properly and take the correct precautions. The government and any hackers are not actively looking to completely take over the network as of yet, and it is unlikely that they will, especially the government and government agencies, as they are the ones who created the technology in the first place.

However, people are still playing around and experimenting with Tor and finding the best way to use it. For example, in 2013, there was a bomb scare at Harvard University. A number of emails were sent around stating that bombs had been hidden all over the campus, and naturally the university followed in due course, by shutting down the campus, and sending in the bomb squad to search the entire campus. Once the search was complete, and it turned out to be a hoax, the university turned their attention to the emails in order to track down where they came from. The email was eventually traced back to a server called Guerilla Mail, and from that, they were able to determine the IP address of the original sender, which so happened to be the IP address of the Tor exit node. With some investigation, they were led back to culprit who later confessed. The moral of the story here is that whilst Tor is rather safe, it is not perfect. Certainly there are ways to make it more secure, however, it is not completely impenetrable.

As such, Tor is safe, however, illegal activities can be traced and prosecution will follow.

But there are some risks for it:-

1. Your IP can be revealed when using Tor. If all 3 of the Tor nodes you connect to are owned by the same person/group (it happens but is rare), then your IP can be revealed easily if they are tracking the traffic.
2. Everything you do can be watched. Tor is the same as a proxy, except it has additional servers added in to hide your IP from the proxy server. Keep in mind that, while your IP is indeed hidden, your data is not: the exit nodes can see everything you send to a website, including any forms/messages you send through the network.