Sites like this always deal in Bitcoins and rarely take credit cards. No one wants a $50,000 transaction to hire a hitman to show up on their credit card statement. Instead, the Deep Web contains any gated content that requires user login credentials. Sites like this might include a company’s backend intranet site or a university site where only students can access the content. Organizations that host their own intranet cannot be crawled by Google Bots and therefore are considered part of the Deep Web.
Always exercise extreme caution when using publicly posted onion URLs. If you can’t get a personal recommendation from someone you trust, verify the URL from multiple different sources. The dark web, or dark net, is a small part of the deep web that is kept hidden on purpose. Websites and data on the dark web do typically require a special tool to access. There’s also plenty of practical value for some organizations. Law enforcement agencies keep an ear to the ground on the dark web looking for stolen data from recent security breaches that might lead to a trail to the perpetrators.
DOs and DONTs for your safety
These laws may cover how to use a VPN, proxy server, or Tor Browser to connect to the internet. To learn more, check out our guide to the best countries to connect to a VPN server. Many journalists, alternative news organizations, educators, and researchers are influential in their writing and speaking of the darknet, and making its use clear to the general public. Bitcoin is one of the main cryptocurrencies used in dark web marketplaces due to the flexibility and relative anonymity of the currency. With Bitcoin, people can hide their intentions as well as their identity. A common approach was to use a digital currency exchanger service which converted Bitcoin into an online game currency that will later be converted back into fiat currency.
- Tor is useful in countries where internet access is monitored or restricted.
- This type of government surveillance applies mostly to countries with environments that are hostile to free speech.
- Thanks to the Tor browser’s layers of encryption and IP scrambling, it’s difficult to track people down on this part of the web.
- Suffice to say that too many users think they are safe from the prying eyes of ISPs and governments just because of the way the dark net uses onion routing technology.
- Next-level confidence with identity and privacy protection.
If you want to see if any of your information is floating around the dark web, try running a scan of the dark web. Alternatively, you can sign up for a dark web monitoring service. These tools warn you whenever they find any of your information.
Install TAILS
As a reminder, WHSR is not affiliated with any sites on this list nor do we encourage or condone illegal activities of any nature. Wasabi Wallet is yet another BitCoin wallet that is available for multiple platforms. It also has a .onion URL for those who truly seek the ultimate in anonymity. It treats privacy seriously, so even if you are not using that URL, all their network traffic is run through Tor by default. Knowing that there are tons of things you can buy here, you’ll probably know you have to pay for it as well. This site is sort of like a digital wallet and allows you to transact in Bitcoins.
Crypto has been a hot topic for years, so it should be no surprise that there are exchanges and crypto services on the Dark Web. You’ll find multiple websites offering these services and more – anything related to crypto. Tor is a variant of the popular Firefox web browser, modified to allow users to browse the web anonymously. The browser is designed to block or advise against user attempts to do things that might reveal their identity, such as resizing the dimensions of the browser window, for example.
How To Access Dark Web
Despite its heavy encryption and mysterious nature, getting on to the Dark Web is actually fairly easy. All you need are the right tools and knowledge of where you’ll be navigating. There’s much more to the internet than you might expect on the surface.
The dark web refers to encrypted online content that is not indexed by conventional search engines. As such, most of the attention is placed on online marketplaces for drugs, exchanges for stolen data, and other illegal activities when people think of the dark web. Despite this, there are often very legitimate reasons why people choose to use the dark web, including political dissidents and people who want to keep certain information private. The Dark Web refers to a small sliver of the web that is impossible to access without special software and links. Making sure you’re connected via HTTPS is one solution to this problem, as is using a virtual private network.
Private Internet Access — MACE Feature to Protect You From Ads and Malware on the Dark Web
The “Hidden Wiki” offers a large collection of dark web links, but be careful, as many of those links are to dangerous websites. The same anonymity that publishers enjoy on the dark web can be utilized by users who want to read the available information. Again, people who live in countries where the freedom of the internet is limited, for example in China, can really benefit from using Tor. The majority of the web is called the “deep web” (often referred to as the “invisible” or “hidden” web).
In fact, this hidden web is so large that it’s impossible to discover exactly how many pages or websites are active at any one time. Access our best apps, features and technologies under just one account. Get antivirus, anti-ransomware, privacy tools, data leak detection, home Wi-Fi monitoring and more. A VPN will mask your location and stop the online breadcrumbs that can lead back to you. Connections made while a VPN is active will also be encrypted, helping you stay protected from eavesdropping and Man-in-The-Middle attacks. You can usually select the location you want to appear to originate from and VPNs will use a collection of servers and relays to make tracing your IP difficult.
Illegal drugs — and prescription drugs — are peddled on the dark web. You might also find toxic chemicals that can cause other types of damage. While the deep web is relatively safe, it’s always smart to practice safe internet habits. That level of information would be located in the deep web. Literally read his advice and you’ll be fine if you add a few more safety precautions along side. There are a few reasons why the dark web isn’t stopped or shut down.
