One of the most frustrating parts of Tor, is even if the website wants to allow Tor, often their DNS provider may block Tor's DNS nodes from resolving the domain. Without the website owner (or even the end-user) from being aware.
DNS Providers such as Namecheap, GoDaddy, and Orangewebsite will most definitely restrict high quantity Tor queries. I've seen it first hand with out our project. And upstreams such as Verisign and even Iceland's' .is ISNIC registry may be the real culprits. Everyone will claim it's to stop abuse, which is logical. But the end result is harming privacy.
Even diagnosing this problem is a huge challenge, let alone solving it. But where other people give up, is a good place to start. The fresh HydraVeil release, tries to sync over Tor, if it fails..
a) It first tests if Tor even works against the official Tor Project API.
b) If it does, it checks if DNS is the problem. Will just the domain resolve via a Tor node?
c) If that Tor-node-DNS fails, It resolves the DNS to a non-Tor DNS provider like Quad9 via DoH, but proxied through Tor.
d) Now with the IP address in-hand, it goes directly to the IP address of the web service through Tor, but without ANY DNS. Then pretends it used the domain, when it asks the website for an SSL cert. Finally, HydraVeil manually verifies the SSL cert against it’s own local copy of Mozilla’s tools for Let’s Encrypt certificate authority.
This gives you the benefit of SSL encryption & Tor, but without allowing DNS providers to restrict Tor resolution. And doesn't slow you to 6 hops to do onions just for DNS, to download browsers. Today's release is open source. And this same blueprint can be applied to any app in the future. Web browsers, Monero/Bitcoin wallets, Nostr clients, anything that wants to use Tor but not be slowed to 6 hops by an Onion, just to resolve the domain.
Release notes:
https://simplifiedprivacy.com/tor-sync-and-improved-database/hydraveil-release/v2-5-7.html
SimplifiedPrivacy.com
npub14s…jt5d6
2026-07-21 15:31:25 CEST
Author Public Key
npub14slk4lshtylkrqg9z0dvng09gn58h88frvnax7uga3v0h25szj4qzjt5d6Published at
2026-07-21 15:31:25 CESTEvent JSON
{
"id": "cb6aa789624394faf9f4d9afa62f8535953750f0e23c32875f953b0c9fbff14e",
"pubkey": "ac3f6afe17593f61810513dac9a1e544e87b9ce91b27d37b88ec58fbaa9014aa",
"created_at": 1784640685,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [],
"content": "One of the most frustrating parts of Tor, is even if the website wants to allow Tor, often their DNS provider may block Tor's DNS nodes from resolving the domain. Without the website owner (or even the end-user) from being aware. \n\nDNS Providers such as Namecheap, GoDaddy, and Orangewebsite will most definitely restrict high quantity Tor queries. I've seen it first hand with out our project. And upstreams such as Verisign and even Iceland's' .is ISNIC registry may be the real culprits. Everyone will claim it's to stop abuse, which is logical. But the end result is harming privacy. \n\nEven diagnosing this problem is a huge challenge, let alone solving it. But where other people give up, is a good place to start. The fresh HydraVeil release, tries to sync over Tor, if it fails.. \n\na) It first tests if Tor even works against the official Tor Project API. \n\nb) If it does, it checks if DNS is the problem. Will just the domain resolve via a Tor node? \n\nc) If that Tor-node-DNS fails, It resolves the DNS to a non-Tor DNS provider like Quad9 via DoH, but proxied through Tor. \n\nd) Now with the IP address in-hand, it goes directly to the IP address of the web service through Tor, but without ANY DNS. Then pretends it used the domain, when it asks the website for an SSL cert. Finally, HydraVeil manually verifies the SSL cert against it’s own local copy of Mozilla’s tools for Let’s Encrypt certificate authority. \n \nThis gives you the benefit of SSL encryption \u0026 Tor, but without allowing DNS providers to restrict Tor resolution. And doesn't slow you to 6 hops to do onions just for DNS, to download browsers. Today's release is open source. And this same blueprint can be applied to any app in the future. Web browsers, Monero/Bitcoin wallets, Nostr clients, anything that wants to use Tor but not be slowed to 6 hops by an Onion, just to resolve the domain. \n\nRelease notes:\nhttps://simplifiedprivacy.com/tor-sync-and-improved-database/hydraveil-release/v2-5-7.html\n",
"sig": "54013b09f07b93f705e5097b67111f4125b95d16103cf1f9869f73764926d9c1e97f35476ca20ca5552522a878f98b1cb2d4e7fce387974de3d6b51a9c97f7b6"
}