Tor network speed

[Andrew Henry]

 >The basic requirement for running a server is to "have at least 20
 >kilobytes/s each way" and minimal packet loss, so everything above that
 >could be considered good. Tor isnt really meant for bittorrent or large
 >file transfers.
 >Web browsing is slowed down by Tor itself and then various applications
 >like Privoxy (filtering the website etc).
 >/Thomas

Well, maths has never really been my strong point, but isn't 20 Kbytes/s
equal to 160 Kbits/s?  There is a huge difference between bytes and
bits, and it is confusing to see the Tor server req. as 20 KBytes/s.
when all ISPs advertise the KBit or MBit speeds.  My employers network
has access to the internet at 10 MBytes/s LAN speed and when downloading
files, I usually see a speed of anywhere between 100 KBits/s and 300
KBits/s depending on the remote server speed.  When using Tor, I get 35
Kbits/s to the same servers that moments ago were running at 100 KBits/s
without Tor.

This is not a Privoxy issue as I tested Privoxy without Tor and there
was an almost imperceptible slowdown--nothing in comparison to the Tor
slowdown.

If the minimum Tor server requirement is 160 KBits/s for all volunteer
servers then 35 KBits/s is still quite slow.  Even if there are many
hops between the entry and exit points, I would not have expected there
to be such a big difference between that and normal router paths that
may require several hops to a destination IP under normal circumstances
without Tor.  Plus, I am assuming that Tor is not yet saturated by
mainstream users.

The reason for posting this question was to try to figure out if I can
do some re-configuration to speed things up like specifying the entry
point or something, for a server nearer to my location.  The second
reason was to get some solid facts about the speed capability of the
network, and to try to deduce if there is something that could be optimised.

I do realise the purpose of Tor is to protect privacy during web
browsing, or chat sessions, or whilst using other network clients that
can leak private information.  I realise that transferring files via FTP
or otherwise does not really fit the bill for Tor usage as very little
private info is leaked other than the IP, but it is not likely that an
FTP/Bittorrent (what made you assume I was using bittorrent?) site will
harvest this data for marketing purposes, so using FTP with Tor doesn't
seem to deliver much benefit in my eyes, unless the user is more
paranoid than usual and does not want any IP info leaked whatsoever, but
I gave this file transfer example to demonstrate the speed issue, as I
do not have tools to monitor the speed of web browsing.

--
Andrew

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