The Tor Project is investigating a crowdfunding effort for its Hidden Services range, which allows users to anonymously connect to services such as blogs or messaging.
Under the plans the developers behind the project hope to create several new tools, including an information panel offering help to their users, a means of sacrificing anonymity for speed across public services, and an overhaul of the security of Tor as a whole.
Writing on its official blog, the Tor Project said: "Crowdfunding allows us to engage the broader community in grasping the opportunity that this new technology promises.
"We are confident that we can deliver significant advancements in the hidden services field in the short-term, and that many small donors who understand their context will be eager to contribute."
Throughout the last year Tor has been hit by a series of warnings from the security community, with several academics discovering ways that users could allegedly be unmasked whilst using the service.
Despite this the developers behind the project remain optimistic, and have continued to build and update Tor whilst campaigning for its wider use.
"An internet based on hidden services would be an internet with Tor built in – a feature that users could take for granted," the Tor said in the blog post.
"Think of what this might mean to millions of users in countries like China, Iran, or the UK."
