Firefox parent Mozilla is returning to back the Tor Project, its long-time ally, after it committed to matching all donations made to fund Tor, the open source initiative to improve online privacy which has just started its annual end of year funding drive.
Tor announced Mozilla’s support today, extending the pair’s partnership which last year helped Tor raise over $400,000 from a similar campaign last year. That is a small seed round for a tech startup, but it represents an important source of income for Tor, which began soliciting ‘crowdfunded’ donations in 2015 in a bid to offset its reliance on government grants.
The company’s latest publicly available accounts cover 2015 when Tor received a record $3.3 million in donations. That’s up from $2.5 million in 2014 and it represented Tor’s highest year of income to date, but state-related grants accounted for 86 percent of the figure. That was an improvement on previous years, but Tor Research Director and President Roger Dingledine admitted that the organization has “more work to do” to change that ratio.
Tor hasn’t made its latest (2016) financials available as of yet, but the past year has seen the organization make big leaps in its product offerings, which are still best known for being used by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Tor launched its first official mobile browser for Android in September and the same month it released Tor Browser 8.0, its most usable browser yet which is based on Firefox’s 2017 Quantum structure. It is also worked closely with Mozilla to bring Tor into Firefox itself as it has already done with Brave, a browser firm led by former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich.
Beyond the browser and the Tor network itself, which is designed to minimize the potential for network surveillance, the organization also develops a range of other projects. Around two million people are estimated to use Tor, according to data from the organization.
“The Tor Project has a bold mission: to take a stand against invasive and restrictive online practices and bring privacy and freedom to internet users around the world. But we can’t do it alone,” Sarah Stevenson, who is fundraising director at the Tor Foundation, wrote in a blog post.
“Countries like Egypt and Venezuela have tightened restrictions on free expression and accessing the open web; companies like Google and Amazon are mishandling people’s data and growing the surveillance economy; and some nations are even shutting off the internet completely to quell possible dissidence,” she added.
If you feel suitably compelled, you can donate to the Tor Project’s campaign right here.
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