How to access the Dark web

Note: This article is for educational purposes only. The author does not take any responsibility of any any action of consequence caused by the reading of this article.

In the last article (The sinister dark net), I spoke about the dark web. If you haven't, I suggest you click that link above to get a complete idea about it before you go any further.

To access the dark net you require a vpn connection and the TOR browser. Let me brief you on what they are.

Virtual Private Network (VPN)

A vpn is like a shield that protects you from prying eyes on the Internet. What it basically does is, it masks your IP address so that people will not be able to procure your local address and subsequently find out your location. There are plenty of vpns on the Internet to choose from. Vpns are used widely for many purposes both legal and illegal.

The Onion Router (TOR)

TOR is a web browser like Google Chrome. However it works in a different way. The important thing when you're accessing the Dark web is your obscurity and TOR does just that. Unlike other browsers it keeps no track of you or your search history. It makes you invisible. It does this by bouncing your IP address through all the computers connected to the TOR network. Your IP address will not be seen by anybody. This gives you protection from hackers within the dark web.

Bear in mind however that this comes at a cost. Your Internet speed will drop when you're accessing these facilities.

The Search Engine

On the dark net, you can't use Google to search. The default search engine DuckDuckGo is what you will be using to surf. DuckDuckGo uses Google's algorithms but doesn't save your data. It also filters the unwanted surface content that's available on Google searches and shows you everything that's beneath the surface of regular internet.

Hidden wikis

The file directory of a site on the darkweb can be found in what is termed as a 'Hidden wiki'. This contains links to many other pages with suffixes like '.onion' or '.tor'. I deeply discourage people from entering there due to the vulnerability of yourself and due to the vast network of illicit hackers who could infest your computer through a single click you make. If you want to know more about this, stay tuned for my next article "Dangers of the dark net."

This article was written by Abdul Adhl Azeez, author of The School Detective Gang. He is also available on Goodreads. Click here to check him out.

Cover image source: www.csoonline.com