What Is an Onion Site and How to Access It?

What are onion sites?

Onion sites are basically websites that end with the extension ‘.onion’ and are hosted on Tor for anonymity. They exist on the deep web and are therefore, not listed on search engines and regular users.

Most of these sites deal in nefarious activities and are usually filled with scamsters and trappers who are on the lookout for prey who wish to avail of illegal services and will not be able to report them to the authorities. Some onion sites are also built with the sole purpose of anonymous surfing. For example, if you were a whistleblower or political activist from a repressive regime, the Tor directory is where you would be able to communicate without fearing for your identity to become known.

Accessing onion sites

The only method to access these .onion sites is through Tor. To access them, you will need to install Tor on your computer in the form of the Tor browser bundle. This bundle includes a Tor fix for Firefox and has some other settings already configured for easy use.

Once you have downloaded the browser bundle, run the executable file and double-click on the the “Start Tor Browser.exe” file.

Tor will now start and launch the Tor browser.

Core.onion

You will not be able to automatically start accessing onion sites. It is juts the gateway to encryption so you can access the deep web anonymously. To get to dot onion sites you will have to already know of them and their locations. One simple point of entry is the Core.onion, located at eqt5g4fuenphqinx.onion – this will also require you to use a tor or onion browser for access.

The Tor Directory

The Tor Directory link will enable you to browse a directory of .onion sites by category or search. You will also be able to carry our anonymous discussions on the talk.Masked forum with its respective link.

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