What are dark web links? How to find them?
Dark web links can’t be accessed with clearnet browser. To open them, you need to install the Tor browser. Read this article to get to know everything about darknet links!
The dark web functions differently from the general Internet. You need a special browser to access it. You won’t be able to find dark market links in a regular search engine. In this layer of the web, you’ll freely come across products and services that are considered illegal in normal life. If you try to use them, you might be punished. That’s why the dark web promotes anonymity and confidentiality. In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits and the basic principles of this part of the Internet, analyze the specifics of the Tor browser and explain how users find dark web market links provided that they can’t google them.
Dark Web Market Links
If you want to access a dark web market, you should get the exact link that leads to it. There are catalogs of top deep market URLs in the darknet where you can find all the necessary addresses.
The websites that are located on this part of the Internet provide enhanced anonymity to their administrators and users. On the flip side, this makes them vulnerable to DDoS attacks. To protect themselves from hackers, dark web markets have to change their addresses regularly. Don’t worry if you can’t access a specific project using a link that was valid a few days ago — just look for an updated one.
On the regular Internet, the address of a website hints at its contents. For instance, if you type “amazon.com” in your browser, you’ll find yourself on the Amazon marketplace. If you type “food.com”, you’ll be redirected to a website with food recipes.
Darkweb market links are impossible to remember. They consist of random combinations of letters and numbers. For example, an unintelligible link “eajwlvm3z2lcca76.onion” used to lead to a well-known Dream Market.
Before Bitcoin became a widely accepted means of payment, dark web market links were popular only among the members of a close-knit community. Cryptocurrencies gave these people an opportunity to carry out secure transactions without knowing each other’s identities. The demand for such financial operations, in turn, contributed to even further mass adoption of BTC. Altcoins have become popular on the darknet as well.
Newbies often ask: is it safe to use darknet markets? On the one hand, if you’re planning to purchase drugs or guns, it would be much safer to do so on the darknet rather than on that part of the Internet that you use every day. On the other hand, you should realize that everything you do on the dark web, you do at your own risk. Dark markets strive to provide confidentiality and security guarantees to their clients. Nevertheless, you’ll be interacting with people who are reckless enough to violate the law. Today, they might produce a good impression on you. Tomorrow, they might run away with your money and personal data.
Even the most skilled and experienced darknet users might get caught by the police sooner or later. The story of the infamous Silk Road market can serve as a cautionary tale. This project used to be active from 2011 to 2013. It received a lot of media coverage and millions of people got to know the “darknet” term because of it. Its owner got jailed even though he was a pro in anonymity.
The term “darknet” was coined nearly half a century before Silk Road came into life. It was used to denote the machines that were connected to the ARPANET network. The Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) of the US Department of Defense launched this network in 1969. It was the prototype of the modern Internet. The devices that were parts of it were programmed to receive messages from ARPANET. If someone would send an external request to them, they wouldn’t respond —this is why they were called “dark”. Back then, this adjective wasn’t related to nefarious activities.
How to access darknet markets?
To access a darknet market, you need to install the Tor browser first. It’s available for free and you can find the download link through Google. Then, you should type in the address of the desired market in the Tor address bar. This link will consist of a random combination of letters and numbers and the “.onion” suffix at the end. Most likely, you’ll be allowed to explore the product catalog without creating an account on the market. When you decide to place an order, you’ll need to sign in with a login and password. To be allowed to exchange messages with other users, you’ll be required to insert your individual PGP key.
Dark Web Links 2022
Before we begin to talk about darknet links, let’s scrutinize the difference between the three segments of the online space. They’re known as Open Web, Deep Web and Dark Web.
- The Open Web is the publicly visible part of the Internet. Most users don’t even need any other part. On the Open Web, they can read the news, buy products, chat with their friends, play games and so on. This layer of the Internet includes websites that are open to everyone. You can visit them and sign up for them without special tools or personal invitations. Some projects might require invitations — but if you can come across them through such search engines as Bing or Google, it means they still belong to the Open Web.
- The Deep Web is hidden from public view. A large part of it accounts for databases that store information about banking transactions, medical records, hotel bookings and so on. To access a deep web link, you need to be an authorized employee of a certain organization. You can’t find deep web links 2022 through regular search engines. If you have deep web links, you won’t need to install a special browser or any other tools to access them.
- The terms “Dark Web” and “Darknet” are absolute synonyms. They denote a hidden network on the Internet where connections are established only between trusted peers using non–standard ports and unique customized data transfer protocols. It might sound a bit complicated — but you don’t need to be tech-savvy to access the darknet. From the end-user point of view, everything is pretty intuitive.
When you connect to the regular Internet, your computer, smartphone or another device has an IP (Internet Protocol) address. It’s the unique online identity of the gadget and it can be easily revealed. The IP is essential for exchanging information online. When you send a physical package to an offline recipient, you need to know the address where the latter will be able to pick it up. When sending data online, the IP performs the function of the physical address. With the help of your IP, third parties can track and monitor your online activities.
The darknet relies on advanced systems that anonymize IP addresses. It becomes close to impossible to discover the history of your previous activities.
In such a technological landscape, it’s difficult to create an efficient search engine. Such engines exist on the dark web but they’re not as powerful and user-friendly as Google. Were you online in the late 1990s? Do you remember how standard search engines worked during that period? This is approximately how search engines on the darknet work today. The search results might be irrelevant to your query or repetitive.
Link catalogs tend to be more helpful than search engines. But even there, you’ll be regularly coming across 404 errors and timed-out connections.
People tend to look for dark web links 2022 for three main reasons:
- Anonymity. Users might want to hide their real identities to get access to the information that would otherwise remain unavailable to them. For instance, the residents of countries where the freedom of mass media is limited might be curious to read articles written from an alternative point of view. In some states, people might get punished for an attempt to bypass political censorship. Besides, some users might want to better protect their financial transactions. Plus, selected individuals might have already fallen victim to cyberstalking and they want to avoid this problem.
- Access to Onion services, also known as the Hidden ones. The term “Onion” denotes such services where the platform, its administrators and visitors are anonymized by the Tor browser. There is no data available about the location or host of the platform. Its IP address can’t be identified. Onion services come in handy for individuals who’d love to fully confidentially draw the public attention to crimes and other socially important issues. Yet more often, these services contain illicit material. To access them, one might need to get a personal invitation and/or approval from the website administration. Usually, it’s essential to sign up for the system with a login and password.
- Illegal activities. There is nothing illegal in installing the Tor browser or exploring darknet websites. But you’ll be acting against the law if you try to sell drugs, weapons or stolen credit cards on the dark web. If the police officials find out that you do so, they will punish you just as severely as if you were violating the law in real life.
Not all dark web links lead to markets. This layer of the Internet is a great place to exchange ideas and opinions freely, without censorship.
How to get dark web links?
You may get them directly from other darknet users. Alternatively, you can check the catalogs of links on this part of the Internet. Dark web links tend to get updated frequently for security reasons. Don’t worry if you can’t access a darknet website through the link that you already used — it doesn’t necessarily mean that the project was shut down. Maybe, you simply need to find a fresh link.
Onion links
In the open web, sites can belong to various domain zones: .com, .org, .net, .es, .edu, .biz and so on. In the darknet, all the websites share the same domain zone, .onion. If you try to access it through a regular browser, you’ll fail. It’s valid only for the Tor browser.
Let’s briefly explain how the .onion zone differs from standard websites. When you want to send a message to someone through the dark web, the following algorithm will come into action:
- The browser will wrap up your message in three layers of encryption
- Instead of going directly to the recipient, your message will be sent to a node (a node is a computer operated by another darknet user)
- As the first node gets your message, it will remove one layer of encryption from it
- Then, the message travels to the next node which removes one more layer of encryption
- The process goes on until the decrypted message arrives to its recipient
Each node knows only the identity of the previous one and the one that comes next but it isn’t aware of all the other elements of the chain. Such an approach makes it very difficult to track the itinerary of each message. It becomes close to impossible to identify who sent it.
The same happens with search requests on the dark web. They never go directly to their ultimate destination. Instead, they travel from one node to another.
The process of decrypting the information can be metaphorically compared to taking off layers from an onion. This is why the segment that the darknet market links belong to is called the “onion”.
Earlier in this article, we said that the darknet anonymizes its user IPs. However, it can’t provide 100% anonymity. Nodes see the real IP addresses. In theory, this information might be intercepted by law enforcement officials or other third parties. To enhance your anonymity level, it would be wise to combine Tor with special operating systems and a VPN.
How to find dark web links?
It’s impossible to come across them through regular search engines, such as Google or Bing. Instead, you may check dark web links Reddit threads or ask people to share the necessary links directly with you. Besides, you can visit dedicated catalogs of links on the dark web.
Dark Web Browser
To access a dark web link, you need to install the Tor browser. Its name is the acronym that stands for The Onion Router. This browser is available for free and it’s compatible with both stationary computers and portable gadgets. Type in “Tor download” in Google or another regular search engine and the first link you’ll see will be the one that leads to the Tor Project website. When you launch this software, it might require a few seconds to establish the connection. Then, it might be working at the same speed as your regular browser with an enabled VPN.
You can download Tor with minimum effort and without any sanctions because there is nothing illegal in using it. You can visit websites that belong to the Open Web in Tor. You might want to do so for the sake of anonymity. Unlike Google Chrome, Opera, Safari and other alternatives, Tor doesn’t store your private data. It won’t suggest that you should auto-login to the web resources that you use.
Tor is not the dark web itself. It’s a tool that allows you to explore this layer of the Internet. Roughly 2.5 million people use it daily. Tor enables you to modify your location just as a VPN service. Just go to its settings and indicate any country you wish.
If you notice the Tor icon on someone’s device, it doesn’t necessarily mean that this person is involved in nefarious activities. They might consider it a more convenient alternative for enabling a VPN.
If a teenager has installed this browser, it doesn’t increase their chances to fall prey to a sex offender. Offenders generally look for new victims on the open web. In the darknet, they normally communicate among themselves. They discuss which tricks, tools and strategies they use to target teens. They exchange photos, videos, screenshots of text messages and other evidence that proves the efficiency of their tactics. Offenders can’t do so on the open web because it would be too easy for law enforcement authorities to find and arrest them. The dark web, by contrast, is rife with illegal content — but it’s challenging to identify the personalities and the whereabouts of individuals who spread it.
Please mind that Tor is not the only anonymous network on the dark web. It’s just the largest and the most popular one. No one knows for sure how many alternative darknet networks there are. The smallest have only a few dozen users.
Dark Web Websites
Dark web websites operate on the same principles as their open web counterparts. For instance, in online stores, you can explore product catalogs, read the characteristics of products as well as their reviews and ratings and add items to carts, as usual.
However, when vendors and sellers remain anonymous, ratings and reviews become unreliable. The issue of quality control steps into the limelight. Experienced dark web users can tell you an endless number of stories about vendors who would build an impeccable reputation for themselves by working diligently for many years. Then, this seller would steal their clients’ money and vanish into the void. In a few months, this person would launch a new business from scratch, on a new platform and under a new nickname.
To prevent such situations, many darknet markets introduce escrow systems. Their work on the following principle:
- The client places an order and deposits cash.
- The vendor gets the funds only after the buyer receives their purchase and confirms everything is fine with it.
- If something goes wrong, the client can claim their funds back.
At first sight, it might seem to be an intuitive and user-friendly scheme. In fact, disputes are not that easy to solve. The darknet market administration needs to get involved in them. The process might take a lot of time and nerves.
It’s not that easy to exchange messages on the darknet. If you send a text to someone just as easily as you do it on the open web, the recipient might fail to open it. Moreover, they might block you because you neglect the basic precaution measures. The right way of doing things is to encrypt every message and transaction with a unique PGP key that the platform will generate for you. Darknet markets typically feature comprehensive instructions on how to use these keys properly.
Let’s imagine that the client and the vendor are 100% honest with each other. The former pays for the purchase in full compliance with the market’s rules. The latter sends a high-quality product to the recipient in due time. Even in such a situation, there are no guarantees that the buyer will be able to enjoy their purchase. Customs officials might get suspicious about packages that cross international borders. The buyer can be arrested and jailed for ordering illegal goods from the dark web.
Here are a few examples of goods that anyone can purchase on a darknet website and their respective price ranges (just as in the real world, the prices might fluctuate over time):
| Approximate price | Type of products |
| $1 to $60 | Hacked social media account |
| $25 to $35 | Cloned credit card with a PIN |
| $50 to $340 | PayPal transfers from stolen accounts |
| $80 | Hacked Gmail account |
| $120 | Stolen online banking logins with a minimum of $2,000 in the account |
| $240 | Credit card details with account balance up to $5,000 |
| $610 | Hacked Coinbase verified account |
| $1,000 | Hacked eBay account with a good reputation |
As you see, the dark web resembles the open web in most aspects and differs from it in a few crucial parameters. First, the darknet guarantees maximum anonymity to its users. Second, it contains a lot of illegal content: from child pornography to drugs for sale. Third, to access the dark web, you’ll be required to install the Tor browser. You have a right to legally explore this part of the Internet just to satisfy your curiosity. But if you try to offer or purchase illegal goods or services there, you’ll be punished.