However, note that Dark.fail monitors site uptime status and cannot tell whether the site is safe. To stay safe and private when visiting any listed sites, ensure you have a VPN and anti-malware installed and enabled. Awazon Marketplace is the leading dark-web marketplace that claims to provide a secure destination for anonymous trading.
Use A Dedicated Browsing Machine

Hidden websites often harbor malicious software designed to steal sensitive information, infect devices, or even deploy ransomware. A single careless click can compromise your entire digital ecosystem. The police could use it to solicit anonymous tips online, set up sting operations and explore illegal websites without tipping off their owners. Military and intelligence agencies could use it for covert communications. Tor is currently administered by a nonprofit organization based in Cambridge, Mass., and sponsored by a diverse array of organizations including Google and the Knight Foundation. But as recently as 2011, 60% of its funding still came from the U.S. government.
Darknet Markets
While this is good advice for any type of web browsing, be particularly careful not to offer up any personal details, such as your credit card info or email address. Use cryptocurrency to buy anything, and use a disposable email address for any type of communication on the dark web. Keep in mind what you’re looking for, find that information, and disconnect from the dark web. As enticing as it might be, don’t follow links to other parts of the dark web.
Do Porn Sites Have Viruses?
Sci-hub has more than 80 million research documents, and more than 80% of the database contains journal research articles. Since these pages would otherwise be behind paywalls, it stands to reason that this would go against copyright laws. The developers of ProtonMail recommend using the Tor browser to visit the dark web version of the service. This ensures greater security and privacy, making it much more difficult for snoopers to get in. To send a message or image via ZeroBin, you just need to copy the desired content and paste it into ZeroBin’s editor.
Our innovative service offers a range of benefits that can help you stay ahead of cybercriminals and protect your brand reputation. With early detection of cyber threats, you’ll have more time to respond and prevent potential data breaches or other attacks. Our dark web monitoring can enhance your overall security posture and protect your sensitive data and assets. Lastly, navigating the Dark Web also carries legal risks, as unintentional engagement with illegal platforms or content can lead to severe consequences. Maintaining compliance with legal and regulatory standards is essential for businesses operating in this space. Brandefense’s solutions not only detect risks but also provide a framework to ensure that your activities remain within the bounds of the law, protecting both your brand and your reputation.
Is It Illegal To Visit Onion Sites?
The deep web is rife with sales of illicit drugs, weapons, and goodness knows what else, and steering clear of these nefarious web pages is easier said than done. Tor Metrics highlights that about 22% of daily Tor users come from Russia, while the USA ranks second at 15%. Tor has around 2 million daily users exploring over 65,000 onion sites. Tor Metrics is a dark web site that keeps track of who’s using the Tor network and where they’re accessing it. It’s an interesting resource that translates Tor internet traffic levels into easy-to-digest stats.
Encrypted Communication Tools
They gather on the dark net to buy and sell credit card numbers, weapons, drugs, counterfeit money, stolen online account credentials, malware, and more. Not everyone on the dark web is a cybercriminal or a dissident on the run from a murderous regime. Some visitors simply enjoy the anonymity and might just join an online chess club there or Blackbook, the social networking site exclusively for the dark web. If you try clicking on these links, you’ll get an error message that the site is inaccessible. You can now safely browse dark web websites and hidden wikis, but if you plan to do anything more than that, you’ll need to take several precautions.

Awesome Onion Links
- Be aware, however, that there are sites for absolutely everything, from the benign to the very illegal.
- After connecting to the Tor network, the Brave browser in the bottom left corner, “If your personal security depends on staying anonymous, use Tor Browser instead.” gives a warning.
- To explore it, you need to install Tor and use a dark web search engine or directory to find and visit onion search engine links.
- Cryptocurrency miners and other malicious software often target dark web users.
- Opening the onion links is very easy from the Tor browser, which you need to download and install in advance.
- However, you can find legitimate content and activities here, too.
You will first need to configure your browser to resolve .onion links, but you only need to do this once. It includes everything you need to go through a login page to access, such as webmail accounts, social media pages with restricted access, online banking sites, web forums, and much more. The dark web is often confused with the deep web, but they are not the same. The deep web, also known as the invisible web or hidden web, is simply every web page not indexed by standard search engines. Tor is a free and open-source anonymity tool consisting of thousands of volunteer-run “nodes” around the world.
One of its best features is Anonymous View, which is a free proxy that masks your identity while you’re browsing sites. It also always uses a secure HTTPS connection, so you’re safer on public Wi-Fi networks too. However, make sure you’re careful which links you click on — some of them lead to sites that contain illegal content and services. Simply put, onion sites are websites that are hosted on the Tor darknet that use the “.onion” top-level domain instead of “.com,” or “.gov” for example. All Onion sites use The Onion Router (Tor) protocol to encrypt the user’s connections.

Dark Web Links For Software Downloads
The internet’s favorite alternative to Google made a name for itself by not logging your search activity yet still providing decent results. Not all onion sites are dangerous, but many host illegal, harmful, or deceptive content. Stick to trusted sources and use caution when navigating the dark web.


If you dig deeper, you’ll discover the mysterious world of the deep web and, for the brave ones, the foreboding dark web. As part of the crackdown, German authorities have also intervened 96 times to protect children from ongoing abuse. This was Kidflix—a notorious dark web platform that had grown into one of the largest paedophile platforms in the world.
The keyword in that example is “onioname,” which is right at the start of the .onion link. With a readable site name like that, people will know what to expect when they click on the link. This means that using the dark web may attract attention from your ISP or even law enforcement. To reinforce your privacy while on the dark web, consider adding on a VPN like Windscribe as an extra layer of protection. Chances are you can find it at the Imperial Library, one of the most popular sites on the dark web.