Deep web, dark web and darknet: what the words mean
Three terms that are used interchangeably and mean different things, and what is actually found in each.
Updated
The three terms get used as if they were one. They are not, and the difference matters when you read a headline or a warning.
The surface web
Pages a search engine can reach and index: news sites, shops, public forums, this page. It is what most people mean by “the internet”, and it is the smaller part.
The deep web
Everything a search engine cannot index because it sits behind a login, a form or a paywall: your mailbox, your bank account, a company intranet, medical records, most of a library catalogue. It is by far the largest part of the web, and almost all of it is mundane. You use it every day.
The dark web
The small part that is reachable only through software built for anonymity. The best known is Tor, whose sites have addresses ending in .onion; I2P and others work on the same idea. Neither the visitor nor the server learns where the other is.
Darknet
Strictly, a darknet is the network itself — Tor, I2P — and the dark web is the sites published on it. In everyday use the two words mean the same thing.
What is actually there
- Newsrooms and whistleblowing systems — onion editions of major news organisations, and secure submission systems for sources.
- Privacy and security tools — mail providers, messengers, software projects and search engines that offer an onion address alongside their ordinary site.
- Archives and libraries — copies kept reachable where the ordinary site is blocked.
- Criminal services — marketplaces, ransomware leak sites and fraud forums. They draw the headlines, and they are also where most impersonation and theft happen.
WikiHidden documents all four kinds, and lists addresses only for the legitimate ones. See the directory and the onion links page.