who and what is your threat model? as @macros@feddit.org pointed out this article was probably rather accurate.

if you just want to browse anonymously - it is likely, that even the biggest tech corpos can't de-anonymise you.

if you do small time crime, like buying and selling contraband - likely law enforcement would try to catch you in the real world. you have more vertices and vulnerabilities there, different enforcement agencies are experienced exploiting these.

if you paint a big ass target on your back and get the interest of the CIA or similar - you are probably fucked one way or the other. they may have the ability to de-anonymise you. but if you listen to people that did get caught or do the catching (e.g: darknet diaries), most of the times it is a small mistake. if you only ever play defence, that is enough to loose the game. but what are your options if your adversary is a national agency?

This question is unironically very deep. As it's privacy we're talking, you decide what to trust on your own.

My understanding is that Tor provides anonymity for my threat model (ad-tech corporations).

But trust need to be placed somewhere. Do we trust Mozilla? All their emploees? Do we trust OSS? Does anybody actually review open-source code? What about supply chain attacks?

I am, a nobody, was personally invited to a Contagious Interview (a person, pretending to be a client for consulting was trying to place a rootkit on my machine via GitHub repo).

What about AI-assistet coding that actively tries to eliminate security gates?