Comcast exec: No, we haven't banned Tor. I use it. You're probably using it Comcast has denied claims that it will cut off subscribers for using the Tor project's anonymizing web browser. "Comcast is not asking customers to stop using Tor, or any other browser for that matter," said Jason Livingood, VP of internet & communications engineering at Comcast in a blog post titled "Setting the record …
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I'm a Comcast user and can confirm that Comcast do not care, at all. They dominate the market, their customer service is horrendous and I'm pretty certain that the bandwidth shaping policies that they have in place will ensure you receive the absolute minimum for your money. The only (lack of) service I have received to rival them is from BT in the UK.
Now for the interesting fact: I get anything up to 4 times the speed when downloading files over a VPN to the UK than straight through the comcast network, same US server, same file, clearly the connection is throttled down by comcast if they can see what the traffic is used for. They seem to specialise in providing as little as possible and with net neutrality being compromised ( which they are paying for ) they can truly ruin your internet experience. So TOR it up, tunnel it over a VPN and give them a harder time trying to shape your bandwidth.
On a side note there is no good internet in the USA apart from Google fiber, hurry up and get to me Google!
This almost certainly isn't the case. The higher speeds are more likely due to the vpn endpoint having a less congested route rather than secret squirrel traffic shaping. There's also a quirk of how flow rate is managed that seems to result in vpn's and other proxies that are uncontested getting higher throughput. I notice that when I download a new distro or similar I get a much higher rate from my servers with the lowest ping to the destination server irrespective of the free network capacity of my server.
Using a VPN may circumvent traffic shaping but it is far more likely it just circumvents a congested route.
Second the Rampant Spaniel's remarks. Been on the same service for 15 years now - Comcast - and other than my wireless hopping onto the xfinitywifi after waking from sleep and dealing with that annoyance, I've not noticed a slow-down or interruption in any of the torrents, file-lockers, Tor browsing.. None of it that I use. I imagine that if I was pulling a file off of a public tracker like piratebay, I might see some throttling if I was grabbing a movie that was still in theaters, but I can't say for sure. There's plenty of other things I'd rather use my bandwidth for.
Meh, a made-up tempest in a teapot.
I'm guessing the source of the confusion is the difference between surfing through Tor and running a Tor exit node. Doing the latter on your home internet connection really isn't a great idea. I did it that for a while a long time ago, but thought better of it after getting my IP address banned on a whole bunch of sites.
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