The deep web is also called the dark web. Okay now it is the most controversial and dangerous part of the internet and it can only be accessed with certain browsers such as Tor. It’s generally portrayed as a bad place where criminals gather to communicate away from the law. There are also plenty of good reasons for you to access dark web websites. Let’s know more information about the deep web in this blog.
Table of Content
- What is the deep web?
- How to access the deep web in 3 steps?
- Best Deep Websites
- Deep Net Websites
- Deep Web vs Dark Web
- Understanding the Deep Web
- The Future of the Deep Web
- How the Deep Web Is Different From Traditional Internet
- What is the Dark web?
- Is the dark web dangerous?
- Top 12 tips for avoiding dark web dangers
- The Silk Road
- Conclusion
What is the deep web?
The deep web is the portion of the Internet that is hidden and not shown by conventional search engines. The deep web is an umbrella term for parts of the internet not fully accessible using standard search engines such as Google and Yahoo. The content of the deep web can be located and accessed by a direct URL or IP address but may require a password or other security access to get past public pages.
Examples for deep web: emails, chat conversations, e-banking data, private posts on social media platforms, and electronic health records.
How to access the deep web in 3 steps?
#1. Get a VPN: We recommend ExpressVPN because it’s highly secure, superfast, and offers a combination of privacy features to keep you anonymous on the dark web
#2. Download Tor. Navigate to Tor’s download page and choose your device. You will have the option to configure it or you can connect right away
#3. Browse the dark web! Connect your VPN before you open Tor to ensure the highest level of security while browsing
Best Deep Websites
Ahmia
Ahmia is another secure search engine you can use on the dark web. It helps the users of the Tor Anonymity Network discover different useful websites on the dark web. Moreover, Ahmia can also be used to view statistics, insights, and news about the Tor network.
Facebook Fake Mirror
This is a mirror website of the real Facebook. Facebook likes collecting private data. They do this to eliminate any form of opposition. By using the dark web version of Facebook people can attempt to stay anonymous and speak freely.
Hidden wiki
The Hidden Wiki is a dark web version of Wikipedia that offers different links for websites on the dark web. Being a combin of random numbers and letters for many .onion links might seem nonsensical. This makes it harder to find websites. The Hidden Wiki can do a lot of searching for you. Moreover, they provide informative pages on a range of topics that might be interesting reads.
Deep Net Websites
Websites that exist purely on the deep web have different accessories so there has a level of privacy for the website hosts that isn’t possible on the regular internet. If your website is only accessible through the deep net, tracking down the physical location of your servers is much harder than it would be for a regular website.
The reason why the deep net provides this level of privacy for website hosts is that the onion address that you use to access the website obfuscates the actual IP address of the server. This makes it impossible to track down the physical server under ordinary circumstances.
Deep Web vs Dark Web
What’s the Difference?
- The deep web is part of the WWW whose contents banking are not indexed by standard web search engines. The dark web is the WWW content that exists in darkness, overlay networks that use the Internet but require specific software, configurations, or authorization to access
- The Deep Web is that part of the Internet that is not visible to the naked eye as opposed to the Surface Web. The Dark Web is a network of one of the largest online criminal and terrorist activities in the world
- The Deep web contents are not indexed by regular search engines. The Dark web content is only available on personal encrypted networks or peer-to-peer configurations
- An enormous collection of invisible websites. The web that is not regulated and whose IP addresses are intentionally hidden
- It can be accessed through a valid username and a password and via regular search engines. It can be only accessed with specialized and specified software
- The system or websites which need authentication for login are categorized under Deep Web. Dark Web depends or works on the infrastructure of the Deep Web
Understanding the Deep Web
Understand properly to know about how the deep web works. You first have to understand a few fundamentals of how the regular internet operates especially since it’s all related to search engines.
Crawling
Crawling is the process by which search engines discover updated content on the web such as new sites or pages, changes to existing sites, and dead links. It refers to the scouring of the internet for content, looking over the code/content for each URL they find.
Crawling the Internet is a continual process for a search engine. It never really stops. Search engines need to findd new pages published or updates to old pages. They Don’t want to waste time and resources on pages that are not good candidates for a search result.
Indexing
Indexing is the next level of search engines after crawling. While Broadly is the process of storing and organizing the content found during the crawling process. Once a page is in the index, It’s in the running to be displayed as a result of relevant queries. Storing and sorting this information requires significant space and both Microsoft and Google have over a million servers each.
Serving
Serving as the final process of search engines like Google. Provide the pieces of content that will best answer a searcher’s query which means that results are ordered from most relevant to least relevant. Serving is otherwise called Ranking.
The Future of the Deep Web
There is a demand for the ability to privately browse the internet and most importantly, host websites anonymously, the deep web will exist.
While the future of the dark web, a magnet for criminal activity, is unpredictable in many ways, there are growing trends in both its audience and functionality.
How the Deep Web Is Different From Traditional Internet
So that we are covered how the traditional internet functions, you can start to understand what makes the deep web different. Because these sites are invisible to crawler bots and search engine indexes, they are found out for all intents and purposes.
This means that if you want to access a site on the deep net, you need to know the specific web address beforehand or use a dedicated deep web search engine, as traditional ones like Google won’t be able to help you.
What is the Dark web?
The Dark web refers to the subsection of the deep web that provides illegal services. The dark web is to encrypt online material that is not searchable by traditional search engines. The dark web is a reality that has existed since the beginning of the internet. This unchartered portion of the web is called the dark web.
Is the dark web dangerous?
On the dark web are a much greater risk than usual when compared to your normal day-to-day internet browsing. For example One of the most common ways to access both the deep web and the dark web is through Tor.
We also dedicated a guide to the best VPN for the dark web. It offers onion over VPN servers which you can use UB in tandem with Tor to establish a connection and protect your identity.
Offering illegal access to drugs and weapons. The dark web is also a one-stop-shop for cybercriminals to trade stolen personal or financial information. So as you expect there are many dangers of using the dark web that can compromise your security if you’re not sure about how to protect yourself. It is the most common dark web danger for beginners.
Top 12 tips for avoiding dark web dangers
- Use the correct web browser and tools
- Make sure that you’re using a VPN
- Consider using a Mac
- Don’t visit unsecured websites
- Keep your device up to date
- Disable Javascript in the Tor browser
- Navigate using dark web directories
- Install a robust antivirus
- Don’t disclose your identity, intentionally or accidentally
- Beware of financial and phishing scams
- Use cryptocurrency instead of cards
- Steer clear of illegal content
The Silk Road
The silk road was an online black market where buyers and sellers of illegal or unethical drug transactions used Bitcoin. Silk road as the first darknet market was launched in 2011 and eventually shut down by the FBI in 2013. Utilizing privacy techniques such as the Tor network and cryptocurrency transactions. people were able to transact drugs, hacked passwords, illegal data, and other contraband. The FBI shut down Silk Road in 2013 and its founder Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to prison for life.
All trades on Silk Road were conducted using the increasingly popular digital currency known as Bitcoin. Every Bitcoin transaction is recorded on a public ledger which is easily accessible to legal and regulatory bodies. Due to the transparency evident in Bitcoin transactions, dark wallets were invented with the primary purpose of encrypting and masking all Bitcoin transactions. Silk Road participants who used these Bitcoin wallets to fund their transactions enjoyed an added layer of privacy.
Conclusion
The deep web is the hidden part of the Internet world. It contains the websites and webpages which are forbidden to get indexed by the search engines or it may contain newly created websites that are still not in the range of the search engines.
In sum, the Dark Web poses that accessing the Dark Web to patrol for your personal information is not advisable so being aware of its potential impact in facilitating cybercrime is important in developing a sound cyber-security protocol. Additionally acknowledging the slippery slope of questionable “gateway” sites to the Dark Web can help keep you and your family safe from what the Dark Web encompasses.
Dark Web is inaccessible by the common browsers that we use because they can track the IP address. One needs to have a special browser like “Tor” which allows the users to remain anonymous while entering the dark web. Dark Web is the den of hackers and criminals and almost everything that it contains is illegal.
