What is the dark web?

Most people have heard stories of the dark web and the criminal activity that takes place on it. In most cases, these stories are true. However, there is more to the dark web than drugs, guns, and stolen credit cards.

What is the dark web?

The dark web is a part of the Internet that is not indexed by regular search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. You will not be able to access the dark web through a standard web browser such as Google Chrome or Firefox; instead, you will need a special browser called Tor. Any type of information can be found on the Dark Web. Because of the limited accessibility and anonymity that comes with using Tor, it is only considered "dark".

To better understand what the Dark Web is, it is important to know that the Internet consists of three main parts - the open (or surface) web, the deep web, and the dark web.

The surface web - This makes up about 10% of the Internet and includes everything that can be found through search engines like Google. Things like Facebook, Amazon and Wikipedia are all part of the surface web.

The deep web - Despite the raging name, the deep web is just a part of the Internet that can't be easily accessed without a password, etc. This can include your email account, pages you use for online banking, company servers or even blogs and other content saved as draft posts in WordPress. The deep web makes up the bulk of the web.

The dark web - This is the part of the web that can only be accessed through an onion router like Tor. Sites on the dark web are easily identified by ".onion" domains, and they often contain content that users don't want to be found by Google. This can include anything from drugs and guns for sale to surveillance-minded bloggers or anonymous government critics.

What's the difference between the dark web and the deep web?

It's hard to distinguish between the dark web and the deep web. They are both part of the Internet and are similar in many ways.

For example, they are not accessible by traditional search engines such as Google. However, the Deep Web is any web page that cannot be recognized by search engines, while the Dark Web is a site that can only be accessed using the Tor browser.

Many people use the terms "deep web" and "dark web" interchangeably. In fact, this is where the myth that 96% of the Internet is the "dark web" comes from. In reality, the dark web is much smaller than both the deep web and the open web. The deep web is actually benign and includes everything from blog posts saved as drafts to the pages you visit when banking online.