Tor is widely used for online anonymity. Tor helps its users in evading the tracking mechanisms of the internet and thus providing acceptable levels of anonymity. To ensure the anonymity while using internet, the IP tracking applications (which needs direct communication to the PC)are by default disabled in Tor. These includes flash based files. This means accessing YouTube thru Tor is disabled by default.

Though Tor is not built for bypassing the restrictions in viewing online video, it can very well used for that. In this post we will discuss on how to view YouTube or any other video websites using Tor proxy. Typically, flash plugin to a browser is completely run independent of the browser and can bypass the proxy configurations thus exposing your online access and as a result ruin the online anonymity. This includes not only bypassing the proxy configurations but also identifying the local IP address, store own cookies (mostly tracking cookies) etc…

However, if you are not concerned about the anonymity while browsing these sites, you could enable these plugins in Tor. You could enable this from Firefox by unchecking the “Disable Plugins during Tor usage” from Torbutton Preferences->Security Settings->Dynamic Content tab and unchecking "Disable plugins during Tor usage" box

It is recommended to use Better Privacy for clearing your Flash cookies.

The Tor Browser Bundle does not work with Flash or other plugins by design. If you wish to run these plugins over Tor, you need to install Tor and configure your own instance of Firefox.

Now you can browse the video sites without much troubles and the trade off you may have to do is a compromise on your anonymity. However, this trade off is not relevant if you are using Tor as just a proxy bypassing your restrictions and is not concerned about privacy or anonymity.

Do let us know if you know similar solutions for online anonymity as well as share your comments