I’ve tried Tor in the past but I am left with questions. First and foremost is, the setup comes with a Tor browser...a variant of Firefox. It is a lot slower and klugdey. Does this HAVE to be used or can Tor be set up for use with your browser of choice?
There are Tor-specific plugins for FF and other browsers. Go to TorProject and DL their browser. And yes, it’s going to be slow, it’s deliberately obfuscating your connections, so it’s not a direct connection like usual.