Onion Services Timeline¶
Last updated on 2024-09-19.
About¶
This document is an incomplete summary of the main milestones in the history of Onion Services.
For a historical overview, check The Once and Future Onion article.
The technology¶
| Year | Technology or relevant event |
|---|---|
| 1996 | The Eternity Service and Reply Onions designs |
| 2003 | Hidden Service draft spec (rendezvous) |
| 2004 | Hidden Service initial implementation on tor 0.0.6pre1 - 2004-04-08 |
| 2005 | New Hidden Service descriptor format on tor 0.1.1.2-alpha - 2005-07-15 |
| 2007 | Hidden Service v2 implementation on tor 0.2.0.7-alpha - 2007-09-21 |
| 2013 | Proposal 224 (Next Generation of Onion Services) |
| 2014 | HTTPS certificates (facebook) |
| 2014 | Vanity addresses (facebook) |
| 2015 | CA/B Forum Ballot 144: validation rules for .onion names |
| 2015 | .onion addresses reserved by the IETF (RFC 7686) |
| 2016 | Onion Services v3 initial development on tor 0.3.0.1-alpha - 2016-12-19 |
| 2016 | Proposal 279 (A Name System API for Tor Onion Services) |
| 2017 | CA/B Forum Ballots 198 and 201: .onion revisions |
| 2017 | Onion Services v3 spec |
| 2018 | Onion Services v3 release on tor 0.3.2.9 - 2018-01-09 |
| 2018 | Alt-Svc (cloudflare) |
| 2020 | Onion-Location (TBB 9.5) |
| 2020 | Onion Authentication (TBB 9.5) |
| 2020 | Onion Names for SecureDrop (TBB 9.5) |
| 2020 | CA/B Forum Ballot SC27v3: version 3 Onion Certificates |
| 2020 | #MoreOnionsPorfavor |
| 2021 | Dreaming at Dusk: NFT Auction |
| 2021 | Onion Services v2 final deprecation |
| 2022 | CA/B Forum Ballot SC54: Onion Cleanup |
| 2022 | DoS and the Onion Services Resource Coalition |
| 2023 | ACME for Onions Internet Draft |
| 2023 | Proposal 327 (Proof-of-Work) merged (#40634) |
| 2023 | Onion Services 20th Anniversary (counting from the draft spec) |
| 2024 | Onion Services 20th Anniversary (counting from the initial implementation) |
| 2024 | Initial Onion Services implementation in Arti |
Applications¶
| Year | Application |
|---|---|
| 2010 | GlobaLeaks |
| 2010 | Ricochet |
| 2013 | SecureDrop |
| 2014 | Onionshare |
| 2015 | Onionbalance |
| 2017 | Briar |
| 2019 | Wahay |
| 2021 | Ricochet-Refresh (first stable release with Onion Services v3 support) |
| 2021 | Gosling |
| 2022 | Quiet |