The Microsoft Edge browser sends the URLs that users visit to the Bing API website. Reddit users first noticed similar privacy issues in Edge last week when they discovered that the latest version of the browser from the "small soft" is sending requests to "bingapis.com" with the full URL of nearly every page the user visits.

The Tor project team say its users fall into four main groups: normal people who want to keep their internet activities private from websites and advertisers; those concerned about cyberspying; and users evading censorship in certain parts of the world.
Tor notes that its technology is also used by military professionals – the US navy is still a key user – as well as activists and journalists in countries with strict censorship of media and the internet. Campaigning body Reporters Without Borders advises journalists to use Tor, for example.

Tor also cites bloggers, business executives, IT professionals and law enforcement officers as key users, with the latter including police needing to mask their IP addresses when working undercover online, or investigating 'questionable web sites and services'.
For more mainstream users, it could mean running Tor so that your children's location can't be identified when they are online, or could mean a political activist in China, Russia or Syria could protect their identity.

After the NSA surveillance revelations in 2013, a new wave of users joined the service. Between 19 August and 27 August alone the number of people using Tor more than doubled to 2.25 million, according to Tor's own figures, before peaking at nearly 6 million in mid-September. It has since slipped back to just over 4 million.