The dark web is notorious for being a hotspot for illegal activity, but there are plenty of safe dark web sites to visit as long as you take the proper precautions (like using a VPN and antivirus software). However, it’s not always easy to tell which .onion links are safe and which are potentially risky.

After researching dozens of dark web sites, my team and I shortlisted the top safe dark web sites, including search engines, email services, libraries, news and information sites, and more. All included links are legal, tested, and working.

What are onion sites?

Onion sites (aka Tor sites) are websites only accessible on the dark web; you can’t view them using a regular browser. Their URLs have .onion as the domain, instead of the common surface web domains like .com or .net. Onion sites are considered hidden in the deep web, and they use Tor to encrypt connections to them, keeping visitors and the site creators anonymous.

How do onion sites work?

When you try to connect to a .onion website, your traffic gets routed around the internet, bouncing three times to random servers before it reaches your destination website. Each server adds a layer of encryption, and these layers give rise to the name The Onion Router. This is also why the sites on the dark web are called Tor links.

There are at least three hops your data travels through.

• The entry node, which inevitably knows your IP address
• The middle (or relay) node, which prevents the exit node from finding out which entry node you used and makes it very hard to correlate this information
• The exit node, which knows what site you are connecting to, but does not know who you are

The three nodes separate your IP address from your destination and enable two individuals to communicate without either party, or any middleman, knowing who the other is.

Tor and the Onion Browser

Inside the Tor network, sites cannot use regular domain names. Instead, they use pseudo-domain names ending in .onion. These domain names are not registered with a central authority but are instead derived from cryptographic keys.

You can’t access these .onion sites from your normal web browser—the one you’re probably viewing this page on. Before clicking any of the dark web links below, you’ll need to get the Tor Browser (also called the Onion Browser) or another service that provides dark web access, such as the Brave browser.

Note that connections inside of the Tor network are end-to-end encrypted by default, meaning there is no separate encryption layer necessary as with regular websites. That’s why most onion sites do not have the S in HTTPS. Fear not; the Tor Browser will show an onion instead of the familiar lock icon when your connection is secure.

How to access onion sites

On your computer

1. Download Tor Browser from here
2. Install Tor Browser on your computer by opening the file you downloaded and following the prompts
3. Open Tor Browser
4. Click “Connect” on the Tor startup page
5. Wait for a connection to be established
6. Surf the dark web!

You can also use Brave to access the dark web on your computer. Find the instructions here.

On Android

1. Download the Tor Browser app from here
2. Open Tor Browser
3. Click “Connect”
4. Once a connection is established, you should see an onion icon in your status bar
5. Start exploring!

On iOS

1. Download Onion Browser from the App Store
2. Open Onion Browser
3. Click “Connect to Tor”
4. Once connected, click “Next” to configure your security level:
   • Insecure
   • Moderate
   • Secure
5. Click “Start Browsing”
6. You’re in!

Best onion sites by category

Though the dark web is infamous for hosting all manner of illicit content—dark web marketplaces for buying personal information (find out how much your data is worth on the dark web), illegal drugs, gore sites, and worse—there are plenty of legitimate sites and services available if you know where to look.

Here are some of the best .onion sites on the dark web, grouped by category:

Dark web’s Best Marketplace

Courier Market

Courier Market (hostingersite.com)

Another dark net marketplace that you need to explore is the Courier Market. The entire website is in Germany, but the vendors are present worldwide. It accepts payments through bitcoins and the Escrow system and ensures that your identity remains anonymous during your purchases. It was one of the longest-running dark web business shops.

Dark web search engines

Ahmia

http://juhanurmihxlp77nkq76byazcldy2hlmovfu2epvl5ankdibsot4csyd.onion/

Search engines on the dark web are a bit of a contradiction because dark web sites by definition are not indexed by traditional search engines.

Ahmia, however, is not a traditional search engine. Founded by security researcher Juha Nurmi, Ahmia is essentially a list of “hidden” sites that do want to be found. Onion sites are “crawled” and added to the list provided their “robots.txt” file permits it, and if it is not on their blacklist of sites with abuse material. Site operators can also submit their own .onion sites for indexing.

Haystak

http://haystak5njsmn2hqkewecpaxetahtwhsbsa64jom2k22z5afxhnpxfid.onion/

Similar to Ahmia, Haystak is also an onion search engine that uses a custom dark web crawler and filters out dangerous content.

Haystak also offers a premium version that allows advanced search, access to historical content, and email alerts.

DuckDuckGo

https://duckduckgogg42xjoc72x3sjasowoarfbgcmvfimaftt6twagswzczad.onion

The internet’s favorite alternative to Google made a name for itself by not logging your search activity yet still providing decent results. This focus on privacy makes it the Tor Browser’s default search engine and one of the best onion search engines.

Unlike Ahmia and Haystak, however, DuckDuckGo doesn’t search onion sites. Use it to search the normal internet from the privacy of your Tor Browser.

News, media, and other information organizations

ProPublica

http://p53lf57qovyuvwsc6xnrppyply3vtqm7l6pcobkmyqsiofyeznfu5uqd.onion/

The first online publication that won a Pulitzer became the first major publication with a .onion address.

ProPublica does a lot of things differently. Its source of funding is the deep wallet of the Sandler Foundation and various other similar organizations.

Browsing ProPublica’s work through its .onion site works well, and the site’s very existence is a big win for privacy and free speech.

Archive Today

http://archiveiya74codqgiix​o33q62qlrqtkgmcitqx5​u2oeqnmn5bpcbiyd.onion/

Archive.today (formerly known as Archive.is) is a platform that aims to preserve the web’s cultural and scientific heritage.

Founded in 2012, it stores snapshots of websites, making it possible to “go back in time” and see what websites used to look like and what information they contained.

Archive.today is considered an important tool to track changes across government and corporate websites, preserve cultural heritage, and keep knowledge outside of autocrats’ reach. You can archive any site you want, or retrieve historical records wherever available.

The New York Times

https://www.nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm37qxb44r64ytbb2dj3x62d2lljsciiyd.onion

To make its journalism more accessible to readers around the world, the New York Times launched its onion service in 2017. You won’t find any “hidden” stories here—it’s the same content as the normal web edition—but users in countries with government censorship will appreciate having a secure way to access it.

BBC

https://www.bbcnewsd73hkzno2ini43t4gblxvycyac5aw4gnv7t2rccijh7745uqd.onion

Following the NYT, the BBC launched a dark web “mirror” of their international edition in 2019. Note that some features of the normal website are not available on the .onion version, including BBC iPlayer.

Facebook

https://www.facebookwkhpilnemxj7asaniu7vnjjbiltxjqhye3mhbshg7kx5tfyd.onion

Why would one of the largest organizations known for its invasiveness and controversial clear-name policy have a .onion address?

Facebook is aware of attempts by many governments to restrict access to a tool that allows strangers across the web to talk and collaborate freely. While its .onion address doesn’t make it much easier to maintain an anonymous account, it does make Facebook more accessible in places where it’s censored.

CIA

http://ciadotgov4sjwlzihbbgxnqg3xiyrg7so2r2o3lt5wz5ypk4sxyjstad.onion

The CIA might seem an odd inclusion in a list for privacy enthusiasts, but Tor actually has an unlikely history with the U.S. government: it was first developed by the U.S. Navy to help informants posted in foreign countries to relay information back safely. In that spirit, the CIA launched an onion site to help people around the world access its resources securely.

Email services

ProtonMail

https://protonmailrmez3lotccipshtkleegetolb73fuirgj7r4o4vfu7ozyd.onion

Based in Switzerland, ProtonMail is an encrypted email service that is very popular with cryptocurrency enthusiasts. It’s not free, but it’s extremely secure.

Riseup

http://vww6ybal4bd7szmgncyruucpgfkqahzddi37ktceo3ah7ngmcopnpyyd.onion

Riseup is a volunteer-run email provider for activists around the world.

Founded around 1999 by activists in Seattle, it has since grown to over six million users worldwide. It publishes a newsletter in multiple languages and not only runs onion services for its website but all its email and chat services.

Other privacy tools and services

Keybase

http://keybase5wmilwokqirssclfnsqrjdsi7jdir5wy7y7iu3tanwmtp6oid.onion/

Keybase is an exciting identity service that aims to make it easy for you to link the presence of your online identities together in a cryptographic way. You can upload your PGP key or have the site create one for you, and use it to cryptographically link your Twitter profile, Github account, or Bitcoin address together.

Keybase also offers extremely user-friendly secure chat and file-sharing services through its app.

ZeroBin

http://zerobinftagjpeeebbvyzjcqyjpmjvynj5qlexwyxe7l3vqejxnqv5qd.onion/

Pastebins are text sharing services, useful for sending and sharing large snippets of code or text. ZeroBin offers an extra secure version of this service by only encrypting and decrypting text in the browser, meaning their servers have no knowledge of what is passing through it.

SecureDrop

http://sdolvtfhatvsysc6l34d65ymdwxcujausv7k5jk4cy5ttzhjoi6fzvyd.onion/

A favorite of journalists and their anonymous sources, SecureDrop makes it easy to share confidential information without revealing your identity. Many news publications, like the ones listed above, have a SecureDrop on their .onion sites.

Impreza Hosting

https://imprezareshna326gqgmbdzwmnad2wnjmeowh45bs2buxarh5qummjad.onion

Impreza Hosting is a service that helps you host a site on the Tor network. It provides an .onion URL and an interface for you to manage your Tor site easily. It also boasts that no personal information is required to use the service, and payment can be made with cryptocurrency.

Libraries

Just Another Library

http://libraryfyuybp7oyidyya3ah5xvwgyx6weauoini7zyz555litmmumad.onion/

Offering books for free, shadow libraries face the morality question of copyright vs. access to information and knowledge. Just Another Library is one such service, with a wealth of books covering computer programming, science, and niche hobbies (sailors’ knots, anyone?). It also offers works of art, course material, and audiobooks for download.

But, as is the case with visiting any free book site, you’ll have to decide how OK you are with reading a book without paying for it.

Comic Book Library

http://nv3x2jozywh63fkohn5mwp2d73vasusjixn3im3ueof52fmbjsigw6ad.onion/

Comic Book Library is not just about evading copyright and offering books for free. Because so many of the comic books are vintage and not easily available, it’s more about letting you explore the cultural artifact that is the comic book, going back to the 1930s—the Golden Age of comic books.

Bonus: Sci-Hub

While technically not an onion site, we’re including Sci-Hub (sci-hub.se) as an interesting example of a site you can access via Tor. Sci-Hub gives access to millions of scientific papers, mostly ones from behind paywalls. However, due to copyright infringement, Sci-Hub is considered illegal and banned in many countries. Just like any other site.

What is the dark web?

The dark web contains content that’s only accessible through networks like Tor. Sites in the dark web have .onion as their domain in their URLs. Tor browsers create encrypted entry points and pathways for the user, so dark web activity remains anonymous. The encryption technology routes users’ data through a large number of intermediate servers, which protects the users’ identity and guarantees anonymity.

Because of its anonymity, the dark web is filled with illegal services and is used by numerous criminal groups, including ransomware gangs. It is also used by whistle-blowers, journalists, and other individuals who are not involved in illegal activity but need to protect their communications and identities. Through the dark web, users in places of high censorship can also access information and news.

Difference between dark web and deep web

The dark web and the deep web are often used interchangeably, but they’re two distinct concepts. In short, the major difference between them is that the deep web contains internet content that you can’t find through search engines, while the dark web is a hidden network that requires a special browser to access.

The deep web is the part of the internet you can’t access through search engines like Google and Bing. Also referred to as “non-indexed” content, it’s any content hidden behind some kind of access control such as a log-in or code word. Ever wonder how big the deep web is? It contains 7,500 terabytes of information, compared with only 19 terabytes of information in the “surface” web. To look at it in a different way, it makes up between 90% and 95% of the internet.

The dark web, or the darknet, is a small subset of the deep web. It’s a hidden collective of sites that you could only access through a special browser. Since all activity on the dark web is anonymous by default, it is definitely where the murkiest transactions on the internet take place. A study by researchers at King’s College London that examined the contents of over 2,700 darknet sites found that approximately 60% of them hosted illicit content. With that said, legitimate websites also exist on the dark web.

How to stay safe on the dark web

With the above dangers, it’s imperative to tread carefully as you step into the dark web. Follow these tips.

1. Avoid downloading files from the dark web. The dark web’s dodgy reputation isn’t for nothing. Files on the dark web are likely malware-laden.
2. Don’t click on unfamiliar or suspicious links. While it’s hard to avoid clicking on links when exploring dark web directories and search engines, there are plenty of scam pages on the dark web; it’s best to exercise caution.
3. Don’t submit personal information. Never submit personal information of any kind on the dark web. If you need to use an email address, create a new one, preferably from a privacy-focused email service like ProtonMail
4. Use a VPN. Connecting to a VPN first, then Tor, gets you all the privacy protection of the Tor network, plus added protection that prevents any Tor node from seeing your home IP address.