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I am a bit confused about handling streams in Tor. When we visit a website like Youtube the browser sends more than 100 requests to more than 20 different hosts. If we consider each request is for a TCP connection and, for the sake of anonymity, we cannot attach two streams to the same circuit, we need a bunch of circuits just for visiting a website.

I do not know what Tor actually does with streams. Are all streams for a website attached to the same circuit? or are they attached to distinct circuits? or Can we reuse circuits?, I mean, does Tor attach several streams to the same circuit?

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  • Also, your browser will already multiplex several requests into a single TCP connection (HTTP keep-alive, etc.)
    – user578
    Nov 24, 2013 at 10:15
  • Hi there; thanks for joining Tor.SE. Just a quick note: The answer feature is only for answers (not comments). In future, please use the comments feature for non-answers. For more info, on answering question see "How do I write a good answer?" in the help center (I've gone ahead and moved your answer to a comment this time).
    – user5
    Nov 24, 2013 at 23:08

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Tor puts many streams onto a single circuit. If possible, the same circuit is used for up to 10 minutes -- see For how long does a circuit stay alive? for some details.

Accordingly, if you visit a website and it takes a hundred http connections to fetch it all, Tor will use the same circuit for all of that. If you stay on the website for a while and load more things, then after a while you'll move to a new circuit for your requests.

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