Useful Resources: Legal Dark Web Sites Worth Visiting

Why this list does not print onion addresses

Onion addresses change. Operators rotate keys, services migrate, and the older 16-character format stopped working entirely. A list that hard-codes addresses starts going stale the day it is published, and stale entries are exactly where phishing clones appear.

Pointing to the official surface-web page instead has three benefits. The address you get is current as of the moment you look. It comes from the organization itself, not from an intermediary. And you can see the surrounding page, which usually explains how the onion mirror is meant to be used.

The workflow is: open the surface page in any browser, copy the onion address it publishes, paste it into Tor Browser, and confirm the onion icon appears in the address bar. Two minutes per site, and every address is trustworthy.

It also means this page stays accurate without daily maintenance, because the authoritative copy of each address lives with the organization that controls it.

News organizations with onion mirrors

Several major news outlets publish onion versions of their sites so that readers in countries where they are blocked can reach them, and so that anyone can read without exposing what they read.

• BBC announced an onion mirror of its international news site. The address is published in the BBC's own announcement and help pages.
• The New York Times operates an onion service and describes it in a page on its site.
• ProPublica was among the first major outlets to launch an onion mirror and documents it on its site.
• Deutsche Welle publishes an onion address for its international news.

For a first visit to the dark web, a news mirror is the ideal destination: familiar content, a known organization, and a clear demonstration that onion services are ordinary websites reached a different way.

Each outlet explains on its own page why it offers the mirror, which is worth reading as context.

Whistleblower and secure submission platforms

Newsrooms and NGOs run onion services so that sources can submit documents anonymously. The most widely used software is SecureDrop, maintained by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which publishes a directory of organizations running it along with each one's verified onion address.

These services are not for browsing; they are intake systems. But the SecureDrop directory is one of the few places where onion addresses are verified and maintained by a third party with a reputation to protect, which makes it a useful reference for how a well-run directory looks.

If you are ever in the position of needing to contact a journalist securely, the directory and its instructions are the place to start, and the instructions emphasize using Tor Browser and not your workplace network.

The directory also shows, for each organization, the landing page on its own domain that confirms the address, which is the two-source check this page recommends everywhere.

Privacy tools and infrastructure

The projects that build the network also use it.

• The Tor Project publishes onion addresses for its own website, so you can download and read documentation entirely inside the network.
• DuckDuckGo runs an onion mirror of its search engine, which is the default search in Tor Browser. It searches the regular web anonymously; it does not index onion sites.
• Proton publishes an onion address for its encrypted email and related services, documented on its support pages.
• Riseup, a collective providing communication tools to activists, lists onion addresses for its services.
• Keybase and several other identity and messaging projects have published onion access at various times; check each project's current documentation.

These are useful when your goal is to use a service without revealing your location, which is the core use case the network was built for.

As always, take the address from the project's own documentation page rather than from a list.

Libraries, archives and reference

• The Internet Archive has published onion access to parts of its collection; details are on its blog and help pages.
• Ahmia is a filtered search engine for onion sites, with a surface-web front end that lists its own onion address.
• Debian, the Linux distribution, publishes onion mirrors of its package repositories and website, a good example of infrastructure use.

Note what is not on this list. Shadow libraries of copyrighted books, and "uncensored" wikis and directories, are omitted because their legality varies by country and because they are common vectors for phishing and malware. This page is limited to services whose use is lawful everywhere the site's readers are likely to be.

Where a project's onion access has lapsed, its surface page will usually say so, which is another reason to check the source rather than an old list.

Mainstream platforms with official onion services

A handful of large platforms publish official onion mirrors so that users on hostile networks can log in without being blocked or monitored at the connection level. Facebook was the first major platform to do so and documents its onion address in its help center. Twitter (now X) announced an onion service, though its status has changed over time, so check the platform's own pages.

These mirrors illustrate a point worth remembering: logging in to a personal account through an onion service protects the connection, not your identity. The platform knows who you are because you told it. The value is in reaching the service from a place that blocks it, not in anonymity from the service itself.

The same caution applies to email providers and any other service where you authenticate.

Check the platform's help center for the current address, since these have changed over time.

Context and caveats

• The Freedom of the Press Foundation's SecureDrop directory verifies each listed onion address against the organization's own claim, which is the standard a trustworthy directory should meet.
• Tor Project documentation recommends obtaining onion addresses from the service's own trusted channels rather than from third-party lists, which is the principle this page follows.
• Academic measurements of onion services report high churn and a large share of unreachable addresses at any time, which is why even official mirrors occasionally go offline. A failed load is usually a temporary outage rather than a sign the service has vanished.
• Security-vendor reports on phishing have documented cloned versions of exactly the kinds of services listed here. Copying the address from the official page, and comparing the full string, is the step that defeats those clones.

These are the reasons this page looks different from a typical link list: fewer entries, no addresses, and a source for everything.

How to use this page

Choose one category, open the official surface page for a service, copy the onion address it publishes, and load it in Tor Browser at the Safer security level. Confirm the onion icon in the address bar. That is a complete, safe first visit to the dark web.

Bookmark the official surface pages rather than the onion addresses. When an address changes, the surface page will have the new one, and you will never depend on a directory again.

If a service's surface page no longer lists an onion address, assume the mirror was discontinued rather than searching for it elsewhere; a directory that still shows one is showing a stale or cloned entry. This page is updated when organizations change their published addresses or add new ones, and suggestions for lawful services that meet the criteria above are welcome.

Nothing here requires more than a browser and a few minutes.

Frequently asked questions