Who Is Whonix

Okay, What Is Whonix Then, Exactly?

To be precise, Whonix is a self-contained operating system that is Kicksecure��based. In order to protect all network communications, end to end, they are forced through the Tor network.

There are two versions of Whonix available:

Standalone Whonix is a package that's ready to run on every major operating system on the planet. It can also be run through a hypervisor as a virtual machine (VM) on just about every major Cloud provider.

Qubes Whonix is a collaboration and integration of the Whonix networking model with private browsing, and the full virtualization available on Qubes OS. For a home user who is also a Linux enthusiast, this is one of the most secure out-of-the-box operating systems in the world.

What Are The Benefits Of Using Whonix?

Forcing everything through Tor, though a bit slower, provides a level of security that most other types of network communication simply can't handle. Onion routing is a game of telephone where the entry node simply knows nothing about the exit node, and vice versa. This is a good way to add a layer of abstraction to the networking process.

Whonix also has built-in utilities that prevent IP address leaks, time attacks, keystroke deanonymization attacks, and common data collection techniques. In short, Whonix is aware of the most common threats to network security and takes active measures to make such attacks as difficult as possible.

What's The Downside Of Using Whonix?

The learning curve. Simply put, it's not as simple or as familiar as Windows or macOS. For most Linux users, it's fine though - just a slight added level of complexity for private browsing, session correlation, and the like.

It's also not bulletproof against techniques like device and browser fingerprinting. It absolutely makes more of an effort than most! But there is an additional layer of privacy protection to consider if the browser and device fingerprinting are your main privacy concerns, which is perfectly valid seeing how common these tracking methods are in the 2020s.

Using Hoody Against Browser Fingerprinting

On the browser side, taking a note from Qubes OS and their full virtualization methods, a privacy app that makes use of a remote Cloud-based browser is the best defense against fingerprinting.

The Hoody app is just what the doctor ordered. It uses a Cloud-based private network to create fully virtual browser sessions for every tab that you open and every web app that you use. You can easily correlate tabs if you want the information to flow freely across them, or you can leave them as completely independent sessions even if you're logged into a site that has common ownership. For example, you can have YouTube open in one tab without being logged in, and Google Docs at another time while fully authenticated. And Google would never know those two tabs are being used by the same person.

It also protects your IP address, evades censorship, and provides ultra-fast browsing through its private Cloud nodes, located in key countries throughout the world.

A Solution For Everyone

These three resources, Whonix, Qubes, and Hoody, represent a manageable and reasonable solution, no matter what their level of technical expertise might be. From a privacy and security standpoint, these systems and utilities represent the peak of publicly available protection. Use them wisely.