If you want to know how to access the dark web, you’ll first want to know the differences between the dark web and the deep web, and whether or not the dark web is a safe place to be.
To bring you up to speed, the Deep Web is the vast underground portion of the Internet that encompasses everything that is not crawled by conventional search engines. The dark web is an intentionally obfuscated subsection of this, linked to shady activities but also a useful platform for privacy activists living under oppressive regimes. Here’s how to get to it.
How to access the dark web
What is the dark web?
Created in the mid-1990s by military researchers in the United States, the technology that paved the way for what is now known as the dark web was used by intelligence officers to share files anonymously. That initial platform was called ‘Tor’, which stands for ‘The Onion Router’.
They released it to the public to make it harder for outsiders to distinguish what was a government file and what was simply data sent by an ordinary citizen. In short, the more people use it, the more “noise” there will be, disguising the trail of government messages.
Tor is a fundamental part of the dark web and is home to around 30,000 hidden web sites.
To access the dark web, you will need an anonymous proxy network. The two most popular tools in this particular toolbox are Tor and I2P. You can find a full breakdown of the differences between the two networks.herebut for the purposes of this guide, we will use Tor as it is the most widely used.
What is Tor?
Hill is an anonymous network that hides your identity while you browse the web, share content, and engage in other online activities. It encrypts all data sent from your computer so no one can see who or where you are, even when you’re logged into a website. Tor is an acronym for The Onion Router and was created by the United States Naval Research Laboratory in the mid-1990s.
The most recent figures (metrics.torproject.org) suggest that Tor has around 2.5 million daily users, with Facebook’s dedicated Tor website alone attracting more than a million visitors each month.
What does it have to do with onions?
It’s about layers. Your computer’s data is sent through a series of “nodes” (other computers, also known as “relays”) managed by millions of volunteers around the world, creating layers of encryption like the layers of an onion. Tor gives you a different IP address every time you send or request data, hiding the real IP address and making it almost impossible for prying eyes to know where the data originated.
How do I use Tor?
The easiest way to use Tor is through its dedicated browser, which is available for Windows, MacOS, and Linux (it can be run from a USB stick if you don’t want to install it on your computer). The Tor browser is based on Firefox but disables add-ons that could compromise your privacy and security.
It will not conflict with other software you have installed, but you may need to configure your antivirus program or firewall to allow it to access the Internet.
There is also a Tor app for Android, called Orbot; and an operating system – Cross– which is pre-configured to use Tor.
See related
The dark web: how big, how dark and what’s there?
You can also download everything you need to get started with Tor at the Tor Project website. Simply click Download Tor and follow the instructions.
how CConnect or configure Tor
Download TOR from the official website from any web browser.
The first time you use Tor, a pop-up window will appear asking you to connect or configure the Tor network.
Most people will be able to click Connect, but if you’re on a censored or proxy Internet connection, you’ll need to configure your local proxy settings. If that’s something you need to do, the Tor Project has many manuals into the nitty-gritty of configurations.
As?use Tor to get somewhere
The Tor window will look like a normal browser window, but now you can use it to access sites with the .onion suffix. Finding these sites isn’t a matter of Googling: you’ll need to find specific links.
What’s more, the addresses of these links tend to be a group of seemingly random letters, so it’s not always entirely clear where they take you.
Hidden Wiki is one of the best-known resources for browsing the dark web, where you will find links to sites of various categories. Another useful resource is the subreddit. r/onions. Obviously, please note that both contain NSFW material.
If you are especially interested in maintaining anonymity, The Tor Project includes a number of warnings on what not to do when browsing the dark web. We recommend that you be very careful when using Tor. If you’re concerned about privacy and online tracking, there are easier ways you can take steps to protect your data. From anonymous search engines like Duck Duck to win and oscobo to plugins like ghostThere are easy ways to block trackers used by advertising networks.
Who uses Tor?
The police, the military, medical researchers, human rights groups, abuse victims, whistleblowers, journalists and, increasingly, anyone else who wants to keep their online activities private or is concerned about cyberespionage. He is very popular among people in Internet-censored countries, such as Russia and the United Arab Emirates, and counts Human Rights Watch among his past donors.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is a big fan, saying: “Without Tor, the streets of the Internet become like the streets of a heavily surveilled city. With Tor we have private spaces and private lives, where we can choose who we want to associate with and how.”
But isn’t Tor a bit iffy?
All media, from the printed page to a standard browser, have the potential to be dubious, but web services do not commit “actions”; its users do. As with technologies like Bitcoin (Tor’s preferred currency), Tor does not encourage or tolerate illegal enterprises. On its website it acknowledges that criminal elements exploit anonymity, but notes: “Criminals can already do bad things…they already have many options available.”
For every lawbreaker, there are numerous legitimate users, many of whom use Tor for great social benefit.
So is Tor completely legal?
Yes, completely. The US Navy is not in the habit of creating illegal software and there is nothing dubious about wanting to browse privately. No one has ever been arrested or prosecuted solely for using Tor, solely for the purpose for which they used it, and Tor itself says in the legal statutes of it. Frequently asked questions that “it is not a tool designed or intended to be used to violate the law.”
