Tor Project bridge documentation describes them as unlisted entry relays your ISP cannot easily identify. If Tor Browser never gets past "Establishing a connection," bridges are the first fix — before you assume the Drughub link is dead.
Not every Tor failure is an ISP block. If Tor connects fine but a specific .onion site will not load, the problem is usually a bad circuit or a down server — not censorship. Work through connection troubleshooting for those cases first.
Bridges solve one specific problem: Tor cannot reach any relay at all. Symptoms include endless "Connecting to Tor," timeout on first launch, or Tor working on mobile data but not home Wi-Fi. That pattern points to your network provider filtering Tor traffic.
Tor Browser ships with three common options. Start with obfs4; switch to Snowflake if that fails.
The default recommendation. Traffic looks like random noise instead of Tor protocol handshakes. Most ISPs that block Tor leave obfs4 alone. Tor Browser can request fresh obfs4 bridges from torproject.org with one click.
Routes your connection through temporary WebRTC proxies run by volunteers. Slower than obfs4 but hard to block because it resembles ordinary video-call traffic. Good fallback when obfs4 bridges time out.
Tunnels Tor through a major CDN domain so blocking it would break large parts of the web. Very slow, but survives aggressive censorship. Use only when obfs4 and Snowflake both fail.
On first run, Tor shows a connection wizard. Click Configure instead of Connect. If you already dismissed it, open the onion menu → Settings → Connection → Bridges.
Select Tor is censored in my country (the wording varies by version). This unlocks bridge options that stay hidden on uncensored networks.
Choose Request a bridge from torproject.org or pick obfs4 from the built-in list. Tor fetches unlisted relay addresses and stores them locally. You do not need to copy bridge lines manually unless you received them from a trusted source.
Click Connect and wait until the status shows connected — usually 30–90 seconds. Open any page to confirm browsing works, then set security to Safest before opening Drughub.
If obfs4 times out repeatedly, go back to bridge settings and switch to Snowflake. Connect again. Snowflake is slower but routes through a different path that many filters miss.
Tor relies on accurate TLS certificate validation. If your computer clock is off by more than a few hours, connections fail silently. Sync time automatically in your OS settings, then restart Tor Browser.
Some networks block both Tor and bridge traffic at the firewall level. A VPN before Tor can help here — connect VPN first, then launch Tor with bridges enabled.
Tor is fine; the hidden service is not. Request a new circuit (lock icon → New Circuit for this Site), confirm the onion URL on our homepage, and check troubleshooting.
ISPs update filters. Request fresh bridges from torproject.org rather than reusing year-old lines from a forum post. Stale bridge addresses are a common reason people think Tor is permanently broken.
Bridges help Tor reach the network. They do not encrypt traffic before it leaves your device the way a VPN does, and they do not replace Safest mode inside Tor Browser. Use bridges to connect; use Safest to browse.
Official documentation behind the recommendations on this page.