What’s more, the addresses of these links tend to be a cluster of seemingly random letters, so it isn’t always entirely clear where they’re leading you. Tor gives you a different IP address every time you send or request data, disguising your real one and making it nearly impossible for prying eyes to know where the data originated. The data from your computer is sent through a series of ‘nodes’ (other computers, also known as ‘relays’) run by millions of volunteers around the world, building up layers of encryption like the layers of an onion. The most recent figures ( ) suggest Tor has around 2.5 million daily users, with Facebook’s Tor-only website alone attracting more than a million visitors every month. Tor is an acronym for The Onion Router, and it was created by the US Naval Research Laboratory in the mid-Nineties. It encrypts any data sent from your computer so that no one can see who or where you are, even when you’re logged into a website.

Tor is an anonymity network that hides your identity as you browse the web, share content, and engage in other online activities. You can find a thorough breakdown of the differences between the two networks here, but for the purpose of this guide, we’ll go with Tor as it’s the most widely used. The two most popular tools in this particular toolbox are Tor and I2P. To access the dark web, you’ll need an anonymized proxy network.

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