When is using your own Monero node preferred over connecting to Tor-only nodes?

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

ofrnxmr:

Your ISP can also see which txs originate on your node. (unless your node is configured to use –anonymous-inbound + –tx-proxy and/or –proxy)

This is a good point, thank you.

ofrnxmr:

correlating outputs is from consolidating (or sweeping) them, not from reusing addresses locally. You dont want to “co-spend” outputs to an external source if both ends of the tx (where you sourced them from and where you are sending them to) are being traced by the same entity. See EAE episode of breakingmonero series on youtube.

This is the logic behind “sweeping” your outputs after receiving them, right? Typically if I receive Monero I will sweep them afterwards (and recommend my friends do the same). I will look this up and give it a listen when I have some free time, thank you for the recommendation.

ofrnxmr:

Yes.

At the risk of sounding too self-centered, does opening up my node via Tor only help the network (as in, more people have a trusted node to transact with), or do I gain some benefit too (perhaps by increasing the quantity of transactions I broadcast?)

From what you’re saying, running your own local node that proxies everything through Tor would be the absolute best option, but using Tor-only nodes (via Feather as a “trusted” source, as an example) would be the next best thing?

pika:

i think with respect to your threat model , using feather wallet on tor mode should be sufficient. Although syncing wallet through tor would be very slow. If you don’t have the hardware to run your own node then , feather wallet should be next best option. Although i don’t think any method comes with 100% guarantee on privacy or anonymity.

Thanks for that. In my case, the speed isn’t really an issue and I have made it a habit to open Feather once in a while to sync blocks anyways.