The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Of The Dark Web

If you have ever heard of the Dark Web, there is a very good chance that it was about the shady part of it that is used by criminals who take advantage of the anonymity that it brings them when surfing online.

Almost all searches on the internet are done by popular search engines such as Google or Firefox but did you know that what we are given access to is about 1/1,000th of the actual size of the internet?

Underneath the internet that we see on a daily basis are tons of unindexed content, databases, intrawebs and a plethora of other stuff that can only be accessed by special browsers such as the TOR browser. This is called the dark web and while there are some obvious areas for concern down there that we will talk about later, there are also some big benefits to using it as well.

Table of Contents

The Good

Before we get on to the bad side of the deep net we thought we would kick things off with the good side. You can enjoy anonymous browser, get around internet censorship in countries such as China and Russia and can also circumvent geo-restricted content of the likes of Netflix or the BBC iPlayer.

We do warn you, however, that while your surfing will be highly anonymous, government agencies will be able to know if you are using the TOR browser. This brings up red flags and you do not want anyone snooping around – so always use a VPN before you use the TOR browser if you are really thinking of taking a look at the dark web.

The Bad

As for the bad, it is difficult to know where to start and we have not even got down to the absolute ugliness of the deep web yet either. Criminals love anonymity and therefore swarm to the dark web to help facilitate their crimes. Of those that are of the bad but not quite ugly nature includes drug dealers, money launderers and fraudsters. They use the web to communicate with each other and close deals with one another.

The Ugly

The ugly side of the dark web is what puts most people off about visiting it and rightly so. Pedophile rings, hitmen and arms dealers are just some that use the dark web to commit their heinous crimes but fortunately, there are task forces the world over that are constantly closing the gap on these disgusting human beings.

Summary

All we can say about the darknet is that it can be a dangerous place if you are not careful about the sites that you visit. You could be just a single click away from some disturbing or illegal content so we strongly advise that you browse with the utmost diligence.

Just make sure you use a VPN if you want to enjoy the anonymity that the dark web brings as just using it alone will spark an interest in your activity by governmental agencies.

Author: Steffy Alen