Does the Deep Web exist?

The Web has always been a mysterious place. No matter how many websites you visit or access, there will be so much left still to explore. Currently, you can access over a billion websites from your device. However, that is just 5% of the web. These are the websites that are indexed by the search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Together, these websites form the part of the web that is known as the ‘Surface Web’ – the area of the internet which is easily accessible by everyone.

So what makes the rest 95% of the web? Are there websites that are inaccessible? The answer to the former question is that there is a larger part of the web hidden beneath the Surface Web. This is the place where you can find the content which is not indexed by the search engines and it is known as the Deep Web.

What is Deep Web?

As mentioned above, Deep web is a larger part of the webspace which consists of all those files, documents and records which are not indexed by the search engines. The Deep web forms almost 90% of the total content found on the web. Also known as ‘Invisible Web’, the Deep web is likely to be 500 times the size of the surface web.

So why don’t many people know about it?

A lot of people do not know about the Deep Web, despite it being such a big part of the web, because whenever you search for it on your regular web browsers, they do not crop up in the search results. The reason why you cannot directly access the deep web is that the data on the deep web is not stored or linked to a single page. Instead, all the data and information on the deep web is in the form of databases and records, which makes it difficult for the search engines to index them.

How can you access the Deep Web?

The Deep web is divided mostly into a number of databases and ‘.onion’ websites.

1. The deep web includes a number of databases such as Hospital databases, patient records, bank databases, school records and more. These files are inaccessible by a regular web browser because you do not have the authorization to access these files.

2. Coming to ‘.onion’ websites, these websites are only accessible on TOR Network. These websites use the tools available on TOR to help keep them running and to access them, you need TOR Browser installed on your device.

Is Deep Web legal to surf?

Another common misconception among most internet users is that they often confuse the deep web with the dark web. Yes, dark web is a small, sinister part of the deep web where most of the criminal activities take place but it is very different to the deep web. The deep web is used by people and organizations to hide information they do not want to world to know.

Things that you don’t know about the Deep Web

The Deep web is an interesting place on the web. However, not many people know the truth about the deep web. Here are some of the facts about the deep web that you should know.

1. People use deep and dark web for Good things as well: There has been a negative perception created in the minds of people that Deep web and especially, dark web is used for partaking in criminal activities. However, there are organizations and people who use this platform to protect their communications from private and state surveillance, such as Whistleblowers and Journalists.

2. You can get whatever you want here: The deep web is known as the ‘Underground Web’ as well because of it being hidden beneath the surface web. Most people take advantage of this to offer cybercriminal activities as well such as offering fake citizenship documents and passports. You can also hire assassins and killers if you want here.

3. Malware, Malware and Malware: Tor provides the users with a platform to easily host and hide malware controlling servers on the network because of its hidden nature. The user clicking on the link doesn’t know the source of the server and can be easily tricked into clicking on a spam link which will ask for ransom in order to decrypt your documents.

Verdict

While the deep web is hidden from the eyes of most people, this part of the web very well exists. You cannot access the deep web through your regular web browsers and would require setting up the TOR browser on your device in order to surf the deep web.

One thing everyone must keep in mind if they are thinking to surf the deep web is that it is full of people trying to spam and hack others, and you would need to maintain caution at all times on the deep web.