[tor-talk] What are use cases made unpleasant by Tor's speed?

[Sebastian G. <bastik.tor>]

Am 27.07.2014 um 04:14 Virgil Griffith:
> I am compiling a list of use cases that Tor's current slowness makes
> impossible/unpleasant.  Roger once said, "Whatever you use Tor for someone
> will use it for something else."
> 
> So with this in mind I'm asking you all for things you (or others) would
> like to do through Tor but slowness makes it too unpleasant to do so."
> 
> Here's two that came to mind:
> * Hidden Services -- these are currently sufficiently slow that they are
> limited by the kinds of sites they can host.  If Tor were faster+more
> reliable, many more kinds of sites would be pleasant.  Sites like Hidden
> Wiki and TorChan come to mind.
> 
> * Streaming video/porn -- I can imagine people in many jurisdictions
> wanting to browse sites like pornhub.com from Tor.  However, due to speed,
> this is largely impossible.

Youtube gets blocked in some countries, too.

Videos are generally a problem if the website doesn't make use of HTML5
video and the user uses the Tor Browser as recommended. Most often it
will require Flash.

Streaming any video/movie over Tor would be slow, I guess.

> I know there are others.  Suggestions?

* Large images  -- cameras make high resolution pictures these days.
That's true for day to day pictures. Those take longer to load over Tor.
Viewing high resolution photos of naked angles or ankles is probably
another use case, since those might be blocked for normal browsing.
There are (professional) photos of the night sky, the fauna, the flora,
buildings and so on. They tend to have a high resolution.

* Uploading files to someplace -- be it photo sharing sites, social
media websites, video hosting platforms. Either because they are blocked
or because what you upload should not be connected with you and your IP
address. Photos, videos or documents of crimes or other wrong-doings,
come to mind.

> -Virgil

There are probably still other use cases that suffer from the speed of Tor.

Best Regards,
Sebastian G.