Facebook is offering “experimental support” for the Tor privacy platform to Android users, via a proxy app called Orbot, apparently as a result of demand from Tor users and a project started by an intern.

Tor is designed to improve internet user privacy by routing traffic through a number of relays, making it difficult to track user activity or location.

In 2014, Facebook created a Tor address to make it easier for people to connect to Facebook securely from Tor-enabled browsers.

The social media giant said this increased the security of Tor connections to Facebook by “eliminating steps that required traffic to travel beyond the cryptographic assurances provided by the Tor network”.

The feature became popular and users wanted Facebook to make it more efficient and reliable and offer platform support beyond the browser.

“We’re releasing this feature over the next few days to seek feedback which will help us create a great experience for using Facebook over Tor on Android,” the social networking comapny said in a statement.

“Everybody in the world needs more privacy online and almost everybody is on Facebook. This will allow people to choose whether to share their location or not. For some people, this is convenience. For others it is lifesaving,” Kate Krauss, a spokesperson for Tor, told Reuters.

She added that Tor does not intend to support Facebook’s iOS app.