Coming back to my first article, this is not great stuff, and I would NOT follow this advice as it does not outline reality- it is just here for an archive

Should you use a VPN with TOR seems like a simple question if you know what a VPN is, yes. Unfortunately it is more complicated then that.

Basically how TOR works is there is 3 servers between you and your destination, but if your accessing a .onion there are 6. The first node is the entry or guard node and cannot see where you are going, but knows your ip. The 2nd/middle node knows nothing about you. And the 3rd node/exit node knows where you are going, but not who you are.

People say this is like having 3 VPNs and you don't need a 4th VPN at the start of all this because it would just make you more vulnerable, but having more protection would be better, right?

Before you read this next part, I would like to note that some VPN providers that don't keep logs still view logs in real time if they suspect abuse going on (DDOS, etc).

If you use a VPN the server not only knows who you are, but that you are accessing TOR. If the VPN server gets compromised and logs are kept they are going to see you accessed TOR at X time and could possibly correlate that back to you.

If you already use a VPN, you can keep it on while using Tor. But if you don't use a VPN right now, its not worth it to buy one just for Tor, if you live in a place that doesn't block Tor.

If you are using Tails os, whonix, etc, also don't use a VPN

If you are looking for a good, no log VPNs check out my unsponserd recommended VPNs list But again, if don't just buy a vpn for tor if you don't need to