

Dark web sites also have URLs that are a mix of letters and numbers, making them hard to find or remember.įor example, the now-defunct darknet black market, The Silk Road, went by the URLs silkroad6ownowfk.onion and silkroad7rn2puhj.onion. com or other common suffixes, dark web URLs typically end in. Furthermore, dark web search engines aren't as effective and prominent as Google. Therefore, users need to know the URL they want to access beforehand. Websites on the dark web have an unconventional naming structure. This type of web browser keeps a user's identity hidden by routing web page requests through a series of proxy servers that renders an IP address untraceable. It can only be accessed with a specialized, anonymous browser, such as Tor or the Invisible Internet Project (I2P). The dark web can't be accessed through your typical browsers, such as Firefox or Chrome. The dark web is a small subsection of the deep web, requiring special tools or credentials to access its pages. Beneath it is the deep web, and then located underneath that is the dark web. If you imagine the web in three layers, at the very top would be the surface web, whose content is indexed by search engines like Google and Yahoo. Deep web pages can be accessed by anyone with a standard web browser who knows the URL.ĭark web pages, in contrast, require special software with the correct decryption key, as well as access rights and knowledge of where to find the content. The difference between them primarily lies in how their content is accessed. Rather, the dark web is a small, less accessible part of the deep web.īoth the dark and deep web share one thing in common: Neither can be found in search engine results. The terms "dark web" and "deep web" are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same. What is the difference between the dark web vs. The anonymity that these networks provide has contributed to the dark web's reputation for housing illegal activity.

Information may be exchanged through an encrypted peer-to-peer ( P2P) network connection or by using an overlay network, such as the Tor browser.

The dark web, also referred to as the darknet, is an encrypted portion of the internet that is not indexed by search engines and requires specific configuration or authorization to access.Īlthough the dark web is sometimes portrayed as a domain frequented by criminal elements, it is also used by people who require privacy for entirely legal reasons, such as the exchange of proprietary business information or communication by political activists.
