10 Tor & dark web links to explore safely in 2026

The Tor network (“The Onion Router”) gives access to the Dark Web. Accessing the dark web may not be illegal in most areas, but you should be prepared for the chance of encountering illegal/harmful content. If you follow these steps, you will have an excellent chance of being able to explore “safe” dark web content that poses minimal risk to yourself. The dark web brings to mind visions of dark deals and shady places to buy and sell things. If you make use of a password manager, then it may come with a feature that monitors the dark web for mentions of your email address and password, or any other personal details. It’s something built into the password management services offered by Apple and Google as well, so you don’t need to trawl through data leaks manually yourself.

Disable JavaScript and Minimize Browser Features

You might want to hide your Tor Browser download using a VPN and your existing browser’s private/incognito mode. Remember that your security is only as strong as your weakest link – one small oversight can compromise your entire privacy setup. However, it’s very difficult and would require extensive resources, meaning that the average person’s identity is unlikely to be uncovered.

Frequently searched

Get the latest in privacy news, tips, tricks, and security guides to level-up your digital security. If you only want to mask your IP address and don’t need to access the dark web, then going online with a VPN is much easier and faster than using Tor. As stated above, we don’t condone any activity—on the dark net or otherwise—that is forbidden by law. Activists, whistle blowers, and journalists also use the dark web to communicate securely with sources and news organizations.

Automated Monitoring Platforms

The many layers of an onion represent the multiple layers of encryption in the Tor network. The websites you visit every day aren’t all there is to see on the internet — not even close. Beyond this “surface web” is the deep web, and within the deep web is the dark web.

Platform Control

If you want to learn all about privacy protection or cryptocurrency, the dark web has plenty to offer. There are a variety of private and encrypted email services, instructions for installing an anonymous operating system and advanced tips for the privacy-conscious. Dark web search engines exist, but even the best are challenged to keep up with the constantly shifting landscape.

Facebook Onion site

Remember that a single security oversight can potentially compromise your entire browsing session and expose your activities to unwanted attention. The Tor Onion Browser is essential for accessing the dark web, designed for user anonymity. Unlike the regular internet, the dark web doesn’t use standard URLs or search engines.

• The Not Evil search engine takes an explicitly unfiltered approach to dark web search.
• Start your free trial now and boost your browsing privacy today.
• In fact, you can even find many government and corporate websites on the dark web.
• Even platforms like Netflix, which require paid access, are technically part of the Deep Web.
• Of course, bypassing paywalls is ethically questionable and may be illegal in some jurisdictions.
• Torch is one of the more established dark web search engines, designed to help users navigate the Tor network and discover onion sites.

Other collection links:

You can find sites like Facebook, Wikipedia, e-commerce sites, YouTube, and more here. The dark web is part of the internet that is not indexed by standard search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. It means you cannot access websites on the dark web with regular browsers like Firefox or Chrome.

ways small to midsize businesses can stay safe in the cloud

• For most people and use cases, using only a VPN will offer sufficient privacy with much faster speeds than Tor alone.
• If a breach is detected, BreachGuard will notify you right away and help you take the steps you need to secure your data immediately.
• We didn’t compile Darknet with OpenCV so it can’t display the detections directly.
• Yes, governments can still monitor onion sites if they really want to.
• During testing, I confirmed it provides the same functionality as the regular site while adding Tor’s privacy benefits.
• It’s an easy and simple way to de-couple your internet usage from Google’s monopoly over the web.
• Deep Web Radio is a dark web–based streaming platform that plays a wide range of music genres around the clock.
• Use your common sense to steer clear of online scams and illegal activity.

It is now one of the most widely used browsers to access the dark web. Meanwhile, cybersecurity experts monitor the dark web, scanning for stolen data and emerging threats. If your information surfaces in these murky depths, there’s very little you can do – but knowing the risks involved is a first step toward defence. Generally known as the dark net, this hidden part of the internet is seen as a playground for criminal activities.

The Hidden Wiki

If you get a reliable vendor, you should procure the services to stay safe when accessing the dark web. You can also run a dark web scan to see if your information has been leaked on the dark web. This dark web monitoring will help you track illicit activities and minimize the risks of cyber-attacks. Many reputable websites and news outlets like ProPublica and SecureDrop often share official domain addresses of onion sites on their pages.

Threats On the Dark Web

That’s where dark web search engines come in — they help you discover hidden websites and make navigating this part of the internet easier. In this guide, you’ll find the top 9 dark web search engines, complete with .onion links. Each one offers unique features, such as better privacy and extensive .onion site indexing. Torch is one of the more established dark web search engines, designed to help users navigate the Tor network and discover onion sites.

Using onion-location headers

However, certain countries outlaw anonymous browsing in general. Countries like Russia, China, and Venezuela actively try to block private browsing. The dark web is just a part of the deep web and it’s much smaller than the surface web. Webpages on the dark web have no darknet markets 2026 connection to the surface web, so you can’t stumble upon them through your regular web browser. The layered and encrypted nature of the dark web makes it a privacy paradise. Onion sites are dark web pages that use the .onion domain (instead of .com, .net, .org, etc.).

It contains millions of scientific research documents from around the world. The site seeks to liberate information by making it free to individuals and institutions. ProPublica is a popular online publication that won five Pulitzers in 2016.

Since you are navigating in uncharted territories with all the myriad threats today, you’ll have to disable them in your network settings to stay safe. You risk being targeted for attacks if you explore the dark web without protection. The threat can extend to your entire network of devices connected to the internet. In some countries, evading government restrictions to seek new political ideologies is punishable. For example, China uses the Great Firewall to block access to Western sites. Accessing blocked content can result in being placed on a watch list or imprisonment.

How to Access Dark Web Websites Safely

However, the darkest parts of it are more akin to a snake-infested jungle. This doesn’t mean the dark web doesn’t have cool parts worth visiting — but you do so at your own risk. Tor is the most popular instance of a darknet,[19] and it is often mistakenly thought to be the only online tool that facilitates access to darknets.

Just Another Library is one such service, with a wealth of books covering computer programming, science, and niche hobbies (sailors’ knots, anyone?). It also offers works of art, course material, and audiobooks for download. Wasabi Wallet is a Bitcoin wallet that not only hides all your data in the Tor network but also allows you to “join” your transactions with others to increase your anonymity. This makes it incredibly difficult to find out who you are paying. Archive.today is considered an important tool to track changes across government and corporate websites, preserve cultural heritage, and keep knowledge outside of autocrats’ reach.

Cryptocurrency services:

It offers features like encrypted communication for chats and file sharing, making it popular with privacy-conscious individuals. Viruses, ransomware, and other types of malware are more common on onion sites than on the normal internet. Many pages have poor encryption standards and no other protections, so simply visiting a Tor site can infect your device. Set Tor Browser’s security level to “Safest” for critical dark web activity.

This environment encourages risky behavior and poor judgment over time. WeTheNorth is a region-restricted marketplace that focuses on Canadian and North American buyers and vendors. By limiting sales to domestic channels, the platform reduces customs risks and cross-border enforcement pressure. U.S. Treasury and FinCEN advisories describe how illicit cryptocurrency services help criminals move ransomware and fraud proceeds.

The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) provides a .onion version of its website, enabling individuals to bypass restrictions to access its content from anywhere. This platform allows visitors to anonymously explore the World Factbook, submit information, apply for jobs, and perform any other actions available on the CIA’s main site. Unless you know where you’re going, there’s always some risk connected to clicking on dark web search engine links.

His goal was to create a decentralized system for information sharing and storage. The deep web is necessary for the surface web to work — the unseen stuff in the background is like the cogs in a machine. According to Kaspersky, the deep web makes up about 90% of the entire internet. With the above dangers, it’s imperative to tread carefully as you step into the dark web. You should replace with the directory where you put the COCO data. You should replace with the directory where you put the VOC data.

Following the lead of other major news organizations, The New York Times also hosts an official, verified .onion mirror of its primary website. Like the BBC and ProPublica, this service is a testament to the Dark Web’s ability to facilitate unrestricted information flow. Haystak is a highly regarded replacement search engine for use on the dark web. In addition to extensive Deep and Specialized Indexing capabilities, Haystak has created an Index of the dark web that may be among the best currently available.

• Ensure you have used prepaid and unidentifiable credit cards when purchasing on the dark web.
• The dark web is a hidden part of the internet you can only access with Tor software.
• Sure, it’s not as secure as the clear web version, but it’s there and totally legal to use.
• Simply put, accessing and browsing the dark web is perfectly legal.
• It’s used by 50+ news organizations, including ABC, Bloomberg News, CBC, and The New York Times.
• This means that the identities and locations of darknet users are hidden from public view and remain anonymous, even when interacting with other users or engaging in any online activity.
• Onion sites are websites on the dark web that use the “.onion” top-level domain instead of “.com,” “.net,” “.gov,” etc.

Deep web content includes anything behind a paywall or requires sign-in credentials. It also includes any content that its owners have blocked web crawlers from indexing. If your ISP is aware you’re using Tor, it could put you under increased surveillance. They might assume you’re using it for no good and keep a closer watch on you. Use a VPN to surf the dark web privately with a Tor-Over-VPN connection. If you connect to a VPN first, your ISP won’t know you’re on Tor.

The Hidden Wiki is an uncensored link directory enlisting all the important .onion links. Users can edit it anonymously after registering, pretty much like regular Wikipedia. Be careful though, the link directory is full of dead, scam, and illegal links.

What you may not know is that you can use Tor browser to access regular HTTPS websites on the surface web. This prevents tracking and fingerprinting, because Tor browser isolates each website you visit, meaning that third-party trackers and ad networks can’t follow you around. This means that the identities and locations of darknet users are hidden from public view and remain anonymous, even when interacting with other users or engaging in any online activity. There are many different ways to access the dark web, but navigating it can be tricky and dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.

It also makes predictions with a single network evaluation unlike systems like R-CNN which require thousands for a single image. This makes it extremely fast, more than 1000x faster than R-CNN and 100x faster than Fast R-CNN. You only look once (YOLO) is a state-of-the-art, real-time object detection system. On a Pascal Titan X it processes images at 30 FPS and has a mAP of 57.9% on COCO test-dev. The Dutch National Police successfully located and seized the server infrastructure hosting Archetyp Market at a data center in the Netherlands, effectively terminating the platform’s operations.

For those of you unfamiliar with this, G-Feud is a clear web game where you have to guess the answers to some random or topic-related search strings. For instance, if you choose a topic (e.g. food), G-Feud will give you a string such as “can I eat…? Tor was initially developed by the US Navy to facilitate secure communication for informants. Similarly, the CIA launched its .onion site to provide worldwide anonymous access to its resources. From Flickr to Facebook posthaste – that would be an accurate description of Dark Lair, an image hosting platform turned social media.

Keep reading for a rundown of the best dark links you might want to check out. The Deep Web includes all content not indexed by search engines.This isn’t necessarily illegal—it’s just private or restricted. Naturally, this makes the dark web a breeding ground for illegal activity. But onion sites can also serve nobler goals, like providing access to information and independent journalism in countries with government censorship. A VPN protects your connection against everyone, not just your ISP and the authorities. It encrypts your connection to prevent outsiders from being able to read your data and masks your IP address with one from a VPN server—so whoever’s looking can’t get any useful information.

Think of it as a curated list of .onion links organized by category. It’s one of the oldest and most referenced starting points for dark web navigation. Tor66 combines traditional search with a categorized directory of .onion sites. Instead of random listings, it verifies and organizes links by category. The Not Evil search engine takes an explicitly unfiltered approach to dark web search. Sometimes called the “no evil search engine,” the operators state they “don’t censor a single byte” and pride themselves on indexing content other search engines exclude.

Lastly, the dark web is the portion of the deep web that is generally inaccessible and is much larger than the surface web. It relies on P2P connections and requires specialized tools and software. Tor and I2P are the two commonly used tools for accessing the dark web to provide anonymity. One option is to try DuckDuckGo’s .onion version, which is great for privacy. Other options include Ahmia and NotEvil, which focus on listing .onion links.

These domain names are not registered with a central authority but are instead derived from cryptographic keys. Following the NYT, the BBC launched a dark web “mirror” of their international edition in 2019. Note that some features of the normal website are not available on the .onion version, including BBC iPlayer. This privacy-focused digital currency has become increasingly popular among darknet operators seeking to evade traditional financial monitoring systems. When you’re done surfing or shopping on the dark web, don’t forget to shut down Tails. The major advantage of using a live OS such as Tails is that, on shut down, the OS wipes itself from the thumb drive you’ve installed it.

Once installed, the browser functions like a regular web browser. However, finding information can be challenging as the dark web doesn’t use a centralized index to locate content. Instead, users rely on dark web search engines like DuckDuckGo or directories, such as the Hidden Wiki and its offshoots, to find .onion websites. But privacy is fragile – using a VPN alongside Tor and maintaining strict security habits is crucial. The deep web makes up approximately 90% of the entire World Wide Web.