Facebook just took the surprising step of adding a way for users of the free anonymizing software Tor to access the social network directly. Tor is an open source project that launched in 2002 to provide a way for people to access the internet without sharing identifying information such as their IP address and physical location with websites and their service providers. People who download the free Tor software can visit websites while keeping the actual location of their computer and its make and model secret. While Tor users could previously access Facebook before today, it often loaded irregularly with incorrectly displayed fonts and sometimes didn't load at all, because Facebook's security features treated Tor as a botnet — a collection of computers designed to attack it.

Now anyone with a Tor-enabled internet browser can visit https://facebookcorewwwi.onion/ to get a secure connection to Facebook's servers that provides end-to-end encryption. Ideally, this means that Tor users, some of whom may be using the software to circumvent government censorship or restrictions of the internet in places such as China or Iran, will be able to get onto Facebook reliably and without worrying about leaking their identifying information. This could help Facebook continue to grow and add more users around the globe. We tested the new link out on a Tor browser and it does seem to work better than using Tor to visit Facebook's regular homepage.

The move marks the first time a website with a Certificate Authority — a way of establishing secure connections with users — has certified a connection for Tor users. Facebook itself just turned on default secure browsing for all visitors to the desktop website last year.

The launch of the Facebook Tor hidden service also marks the first time a CA has issued a legitimate SSL cert for a .onion address. — Runa A. Sandvik (@runasand) October 31, 2014

Facebook's new Tor address also comes after it implemented several other anonymizing and security features, such as adding a way for users to login into third-party mobile apps anonymously through Facebook. And just earlier this month, Facebook reversed its much-criticized automatic blocking of hundreds of accounts of drag performers who used pseudonyms on the social network. If you want to ask Mark Zuckerberg himself about these steps, you'll have the opportunity next week in his first public Q&A online.