Deep web vs Dark web: 5 Differences You Should Know

By Harry Guinness

The internet is huge. There are more than a billion websites and webpages you can access with a web browser, but not all of them are easy to find or open to everyone. The deep web and dark web are both “hidden” parts of the internet, but while the deep web is a fundamental part of how the internet works, the dark web can be nefarious.

To understand the deep web and dark web, you also need to understand the open web. While it’s the most visible tip of the internet iceberg, it only represents a small fraction of all the content available on the internet.

Let’s have a look at how the web is structured, so you can understand the differences between the deep web and the dark web.

What is the open web?

The open web includes all the publicly available webpages indexed by search engines, and you’ll find them mostly as .com, .net or .org. The site you’re reading right now is on the open web, just like the Google home page, news websites and millions of other e-commerce, banking, social media, education and information sites you can find with a quick search.

What is the deep web?

The deep web is all the webpages on the internet that aren’t publicly available or accessible. You still use a web browser to access them, but sites in the deep web aren’t indexed and available for everyone to view using a search engine.

The deep web includes personalized destinations like your Frontier account page, your Google Drive, your health portal and your posts in a local Facebook group. It’s all the content on the sites you visit that is specific to you, or at least not available publicly to everyone with a browser. It’s often locked behind a user account or a password, which is why it can’t be found and indexed by search engines. In the same vein, corporations, government agencies and other organizations use the deep web to keep company and employee information safe and private.

Some of the webpages on the deep web include deeply confidential information, others are content behind a paywall you have to pay for or subscribe to in order to access, and yet more are just users’ personal files and photos. So, while you might imagine the open web when you think about the internet, you probably spend at least as much time on the deep web.

What is the dark web?

The dark web is a subset of the deep web. These are sites that aren’t available through typical search engines, or through a normal web browser. You typically need to use the Tor browser and know the web address or IP address you’re trying to visit—though there are some dark web search engines. Many dark websites use the .onion domain.

The dark web is often associated with criminal activity, and it’s true that there are dark web marketplaces where you can anonymously buy things over the internet like stolen credit cards, guns and drugs. This doesn’t mean all the content there is illegal—but enough of it is that you should be careful visiting it without a good reason. Either way, we won’t be telling you how!

Be cautious! If you aren’t a cyber security expert, you could expose your computer to malware infection, have your identity stolen or otherwise get caught up in things you shouldn’t. In other words, be smart about clicking on links you don’t know.

Deep web vs dark web

Because the deep web and dark web sound so similar (and the dark web is a subset of the deep web), they are often confused. Here are the five differences between the deep web and dark web that you should know:

1. The deep web makes up the majority of all web content, while the dark web is only a tiny fraction of all websites.
2. The deep web contains overwhelmingly regular, mundane webpages, like social media posts, user portals and other private or personal content, while the dark web includes a much higher percentage of illegal and criminal content.
3. To access the deep web, you can use a normal web browser—you probably just have to log into your account. To access the dark web, you need to use the Tor browser and know exactly where you’re trying to visit.
4. Most people visit the deep web every day, while far fewer people visit the dark web, and none do so without knowing it.
5. The deep web is overwhelmingly safe and free from malware, viruses and other risks. The same cannot be said of the dark web.

How to stay safe online

Staying safe online doesn’t have to be daunting. If you use strong account security and think before you click a link or download anything, you’re most of the way there.

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