The Dark Web. It sounds ominous and forbidden. But what is it exactly? And is it really dangerous? Let’s shead some light on this hidden version of the Internet.
The Internet: the Surface Web
When most people talk about “The Internet”, they actually mean the regular collection of publicly available websites as indexed by search engines like Google or Bing. Those are also the websites you can surf to using your favorite browser like Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Edge. This part of the World Wide Web is called “the Surface Web”. All of the information on these sites is freely available.
In reality, the Surface Web is about 5% of the Internet.
The Internet part deux: the Deep Web
No, the Deep Web isn’t anything strange. You might actually be more on it than you realize: “the Deep Web” is the 2nd part of the Internet where information requires a password or login to access. This information is
So, whenever you visit the information on the private portal of your organization, or read the newspaper as a subscriber, or surf on private profiles on Facebook, you are using the Deep Web.
Even secure services like Messenger, Whatsapp, Twitter, Paypal, DropBox or the administration side of your personal website are part of this Deep Web. Also banking transactions and confidential government information are part of this side of the WWW. Thus it will not surprise you that the Deep Web is almost 95% of the Internet.
The undiscovered country: the Dark Web
So, what is it?
The Dark Web is the collection of websites not connected to the regular World Wide Web. It is not indexed by search engines like Google and Bing, and are not accessible by regular Internet browsers (like Chrome, Firefox or Safari).
How do I surf on the Dark Web?
You need a TOR-browser to access these special websites. As a special part of the Deep Web, it is decentralized, a bit like the blockchain infrastructure we know from cryptocurrency like Bitcoin.
The Dark Web does not operate from one specific place and is hard to take down or regulate. it does not work with the known structure of domains ending on .com, .net or .org. However, it operates in a similar way with (almost unreadable) domains ending on ‘.onion’.
What is a TOR-Browser?Is it dangerous to access the Dark Web?
Not everything on the Dark Web is illegal as rumors will make you believe. This means that you can surf safely on the Dark Web, if you take the necessary precautions. These precautions are necessary:(as mentioned) this hidden part of the Internet infrastructure is not regulated.
How to access the Dark Web safely?