OnionShare

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Today we are talking to you about a very effective and interesting method for sharing files and chatting with someone in a super secure but also incredibly simple way. Some of you may remember OnionShare, we had in fact already talked about it in the article on alternatives to WeTransfer.

Progress has been made since we wrote that article, one of the biggest steps was the introduction of anonymous chats ¹.

But let's start, as always, from the basics: what is OnionShare? And why should we care?

OnionShare 🧅

OnionShare is a program that allows your computer to become a real web server with an address .onion. An address with extension .onion it is accessible only and exclusively using the Tor anonymous network. To view a site .onion in fact you will necessarily have to use it Tor Browsers or the anonymous session dedicated to Tor di Brave, although the latter had a serious security flaw in the past, which has now been fixed ².

But why do we talk to you about things that seem very complex on the surface when, as you know, we only deal with alternatives that are simple to use and suitable for everyone? Why OnionShare allows you to do all this incredibly easily. In fact, it can really be used by anyone.

Once installed and run on your computer you will find yourself in front of a screen more or less similar to this:

Share files and chat anonymously

As you can see, everything is very simple and intuitive. You will have four options:

• Share files

• Receive files

• Host a website

• Chat anonymously

By pressing one of these four buttons a new tab will open where you can start the .onion web server. With a simple click. In fact, you will receive a link with an extension .onion which you will have to give to whoever you want. The person who receives that link will only be able to open it, as we said, with Tor Browsers (recommended) or with Brave in anonymous mode with Tor incorporated.

In this way you will exploit the Tor network to send or receive files completely anonymously and since version 2.3, that is, for a few months, you can also chat completely anonymously. All you need to do is send the chat link to someone and you will be able to talk to this person in a very safe way.

The ease of use and its user-friendly style made us fall in love with this software. Bringing security, privacy and anonymity within everyone's reach is a laudable and truly ambitious project.

1. OnionShare 2.3 adds tabs, anonymous chat, better command line support, and quite a bit more[↩]
2. Brave Browsers Was Exposing Addresses in Tor Mode for Months[↩]

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