[tasqa]

While the advice is okay, the title is a huge turn off. There is no such thing as the Darknet. Please stop referring to the TOR network this way. It is harmful to the community and encourages journalists to write about TOR in a negative way!

[soneca]

I have a negative view of the Tor network, actually the name I use is indeed Darknet (or Deep Web).

My take is that it is valuable to use Tor to (try at least) to escape companies tracking and government spying.

But to visit any website only available on Tor network is not worth any effort on my part, as I have no doubt (currently) that it is all about illegal porn or illegal drugs and sinister scams.

Anyone care to give some counter argument to why this Tor Network deserves a positive light?

[arca_vorago]

"s I have no doubt (currently) that it is all about illegal porn or illegal drugs and sinister scams."

You have come to your conclusion based upon nothing more than feeling, because if you had done any searching at all you would understand the answer to your question.

Everyone has heard the metaphor about leading a horse to water. In this case, it's more like the horse refuses to even be lead to the water but wants someone to go get a bucket of water and bring it to them. No one should or is gonna do it for you, especially since you have demonstrated a clearly exemplary amount of laziness in both effort and thought...

tldr

Tor sites != illegality

tor != darknet/deep web (eg, the darknet/deep web is much broader than just tor...)

[awqrre]

To me, deep web means any website not indexed by major search engines... most of the deep web is accessible using a standard browser if you can find a link to it (many times, those links can be found by using the search engine of that website because most of their pages are not indexed for whatever reason)

[soneca]

So you are saying that there is a Darknet, only that it is different from Tor network, which use is solely to maintain someone anonymous and all the benefits it brings?

That contradicts the comment I replied to, that is why I framed my question that way. I assumed I should consider Tor Network and Darknet one and only (as it is the top voted comment on HN, it gave me the credibility credentials to trust it with no second thought).

[nessus42]

From Wikipedia:

Advocates for Tor say it supports freedom of expression, including in countries where the Internet is censored, by protecting the privacy and anonymity of users. The mathematical underpinnings of Tor lead it to be characterized as acting "like a piece of infrastructure, and governments naturally fall into paying for infrastructure they want to use".[139]

The project was originally developed on behalf of the U.S. intelligence community and continues to receive U.S. government funding, and has been criticized as "more resembl[ing] a spook project than a tool designed by a culture that values accountability or transparency".[20] As of 2012, 80% of The Tor Project's $2M annual budget came from the United States government, with the U.S. State Department, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and the National Science Foundation as major contributors,[140] "to aid democracy advocates in authoritarian states".

[soneca]

Ok, I read that, but that and the other useful reply to my comment is that Tor is useful to communicate in anonimity, as I noticed when I said was valuable to escaping government spying.

But what confused me is that the top voted comment says that "There is no such thing as the Darknet. Please stop referring to the TOR network this way". This phrasing says two things to me, Darknet does not exist, all that exists is Tor network.

So I implied that visiting sites only visible through Tor was visiting sites of the so-called Darknet. And I assumed that what I called Darknet, actually is the Tor network, than all my prejudice against the Darknet should be aimed at Tor network, thus my question.

Now it looks the top voted comment is actually misleading. There IS Darknet, only it is not the same at Tor.

[frozenport]

Avoiding the People's Republic of China

[aw3c2]

* Tor ;)

[Tiksi]

I've always taken darknet to mean a network physically separate from the Internet, like a wireless mesh or something along those lines. However it's definitely changed in usage to mean any network that's not part of the public internet, even if it's layered on top of it, freenet, tor, ipfs even.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

The "darknet" does exist: Tor's hidden services.

[herbst]

i mostly agree. and even spend some actual thought on it. the point is there are good guides for tor, those work perfectly well for people with basic IT understanding.

I tried to target my keywords to people who miss that understanding. People coming directly from YouTube having no idea what it is all about. Those search for the darkweb.

Anyway. Kudos on pointing this out.