Facebook adds Tor support to its Android app via The Tor Project’s Orbot app

Today, Facebook announced that it is bringing Tor support to its Android app, a couple years after the company decided to make Facebook available directly over the Tor network in October of 2014. Facebook says that “a sizeable community of people” are using the site over Tor, so bringing the feature to mobile via Android seems like the next logical step…

The Tor Project has a couple of apps on the Play Store (including Orbot, the free proxy app, and Orfox, a Tor-enabled version of Firefox), and that’s how Facebook is so easily bringing this feature to Android.  The feature was kickstarted by
“a summer intern,” according to the company, and was more recently picked up by the “Protect and Care” team in London.

Facebook says that it’s releasing the feature “over the next few days” (so don’t expect to see it pop up right away). First, you’ll need to head over to Google Play to download Orbot: Proxy with Tor, and a new option to “Use Tor via Orbot” in the Facebook app’s Settings menu should pop up soon. As a caveat, it appears notifications will be disabled as they can’t be sent over Tor.