Tor domain name

Question

When will the domain name contain more than 16 characters that are in base 32?
(or when will it change from base 32 to base x?)

Is it still "worth it" to spend time and processing power to generate a custom onion domain?

Answer 1

Implementation is still ongoing, have a look at this ticket to see the status. I'm not aware that the Tor Project or any of the developers ever announced a release date. Yet, based on the implementation status, I'd guess that the implementation may well be finished this year. Also, the milestone is set to 0.3.2.x which is due to be released around that time. Yet, let's not forget that it needs to be tested and there needs to be a transitional period for everybody to switch to the new hidden services. If I'd have to guess, I'd say the new hidden services are going to be available in the stable Tor release towards the end of 2017 or first half of 2018. Removing support for the old hidden services, I wouldn't expect any time soon.

Whether it's worth to spend CPU power on generating a key, you need to decide for yourself. If you ask me, generating readable onion addresses has never been worth spending any CPU time. (Just my opinion.)

Answer 2

The developers are working on proposal 224. According to the notes from the Amsterdam meeting in 2017 it is planned to have an initial release in September 2017 and the stable version should be out in December 2017.