When you think of the internet, keep the image of an iceberg in your head as it will help you understand it much easier that way. What we all majorly use is the surface web which analogically, is the part of the iceberg above the water. The part under the water on the other hand includes the further levels of the internet.
You must be familiar with the terms, deep web and dark web; at times must have been confused about whether the two things are similar or not. To put it simply, the deep web is a portion of the internet in which deep web links are a part of.
What Are Deep Web and Dark Web?
A lot of people often confuse the terms deep and dark web so we’ll try to clarify the concepts about what makes the two different from each other.
Deep Web
Starting of with the deep web, it’s the major chunk of the internet. Right after the clear web level which contains the basics such as social media platforms comes the deep web. This part of the internet contains sites that require an account before you can access them such as Gmail, medical records, social security, educational records, etc.
However, the deep web is majorly safe as its security tools like firewalls are present behind which all the data is protected and can be accessed only by ones who are authorized. You’ll rarely come across any harmful content on the deep web, unlike the dark web links which are famous for all the illegal activity.
Dark Web
Dark web links are those sites that come under the category of deep web but differ from it in a lot of ways. You can access the dark web links only through specific browsers built for them. The dark web actually holds a very less percentage of the internet in total but that being said, because of how unmonitored dark web links are, it’s hard to know the extent of it.
The content present in the dark web cannot be indexed at all by web crawlers due to high levels of security tools. The thing that attracts users to dark web links is the complete privacy they get. You can do absolutely anything you want on there because it’s all anonymous however because of that very reason, it’s known to be a criminal hub.
However, even though known for illegal stuff, dark web links are not only just for that. There are certain legitimate things like journalists giving or getting important information or accessing new channels which are banned in some areas, etc.
You’ll find a fair share of criminal stuff on the dark web links as well although it’s not that easy to stumble upon them. The content you’ll find can be anything from people selling drugs, weapons, and hacking to more hardcore stuff like the hiring of hitmen, banned porn, etc. Majorly what you’ll find is a scam, it’s very easy to trick people, especially beginners so ensure that you never put in personal details anywhere nor try to buy anything from the dark web links.
What Is the Difference Between Dark Web and Deep Web?
The terms may seem similar but there is plenty of difference between the dark and deep web. We’ve talked about the major five differences:
- Size
- Dark Web:
As mentioned before, no one really knows exactly how vast the dark web is but according to the current data, the dark web links consist of 5% of the internet approximately.
- Deep Web:
As the deep web is more easily accessible than dark web links, it’s known to be the biggest part of the internet. Its content surpasses both the surface and dark web. The number of websites present on the deep web is more than 200,000 along with billions of documents.
- Operations and Scope
- Dark Web:
Dark web links are just a small part of the deep web hence their scope is narrow. Another difference between the two is that the dark web needs a special browser to be accessed.
The most widely used browser is Tor and even though there are other dark net browsers, their use is limited. Tor browser is the number one choice and all the dark web links on its end with “.onion” instead of the usual “.com”.
Tor provides privacy to the owners as well as the users by hiding the location of the servers used. Although it’s safe to use and gives you complete anonymity, it is still possible to be traced albeit not easily.
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