The screen everybody waits through. It is doing real work, and there is exactly one variant worth stopping over.
- What it literally says
- That something is being verified about your connection before you are let through.
- What it actually means
- You are being asked to do a small amount of computation and prove you did it. A hidden service cannot see who is connecting, so this asymmetry is close to the only defence available against automated load.
- What it does not mean
- That anything is being checked about you personally. It does not identify you, does not track you between visits, and provides you no protection at all. It protects the service.
- What to do
- Wait. If it sits for a long time, build a new circuit rather than reloading, because reloading under congestion makes it worse.
- If it looks different
- A checking screen that asks you for something is the one to stop at. The genuine one asks for nothing.
CommonVery
Needs actionNone
Warning signOnly if it asks for input
Why not an ordinary puzzle instead
Puzzles assume you can tell repeat visitors apart, which needs exactly the identity signal that does not exist here. They also break at the highest browser security level, and telling somebody to lower their security to pass a security check is an obviously bad trade. Third party services are worse still, because they route a request to an outside party who then learns something about the connection.
How long is normal
| Duration | What it means |
|---|---|
| A few seconds | Normal. Most of the wait is circuit latency rather than computation. |
| Twenty or thirty seconds | Congestion or a slow circuit. Annoying, not meaningful. |
| Never finishes | Usually a dead circuit rather than a stuck check. Build a new one. |
| Loops back repeatedly | Sometimes scripting settings, sometimes heavy filtering. If it persists across all three addresses, wait it out. |
Why the fake version worksIt works as a disguise precisely because people have been trained to wait passively through it and then click whatever appears next. If something presented as a check wants credentials, a wallet phrase, or your browser security lowered, that is not the check.