--- /dev/null
+---
+author: dax
+date: 2019-05-04 00:00:00+00:00
+slug: torv3
+title: freenode Next Gen Tor Hidden Service
+category: freenode
+category: announcements
+---
+
+Over the last few years, the Tor Project has developed a [new Tor Hidden
+Services protocol](https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/NextGenOnions).
+It has a few improvements over the previous version, including better
+cryptography using SHA3 and ed25519.
+
+We've added a new Tor Hidden Service address to [our instructions for connecting
+to freenode via Tor](https://freenode.net/kb/answer/chat#accessing-freenode-via-tor)
+that uses the new protocol. The new address is
+
+ ajnvpgl6prmkb7yktvue6im5wiedlz2w32uhcwaamdiecdrfpwwgnlqd.onion
+
+If you're using a recent version of Tor (0.3.5 or newer) to connect to
+freenode, you should be able to use the new service by changing from the old
+address to the new one in your client configuration. The old address will
+continue to work for the forseeable future, but is likely to be deprecated
+eventually as the Tor ecosystem changes.