The dark web

Don't go into this shit if you're not a hacker. You'll have your computer system infected and they'll blackmail you and hijack your personal info.

I suggest not to venture into it. Read a lot of stories about Deep/Dark web and how you can easily stumble upon some illegal sites that will rip even the smallest amount of innocence you have right out of you.

Yes it is safe to go on, as long as you aren't participating in anything illegal. Unfortunately you can find a lot of illegal activities. But you can also find independent news sources, freedom of information sites, stuff like that.

The dark web is actually the same as the Clearnet (the regular internet). It just uses servers that use different protocols. It is not indexed by web crawlers so you can't use things like Goggle to find the sites.

The deep web is a collection of sites that can't be accessed by normal web browsers. You must use a browser like Tor. By the way Tor was created by the U.S. Navy as a way to exchange info with people normally unable to do so. Like people in China and North Korea.

Please before you start hating on me these are very simplified descriptions. I could describe it in exacting detail by those who don't already know don't really care.

There's a youtuber I watch called SomeOrdinaryGamers and he explores the dark web every Sunday and has over 100 videos out if you want to watch them and see what the dark web is like.

It's not worth it. There's some illegal stuff out there, but tbh it's not super interesting.

It's a mixed bag. Lots of interesting stuff like drugs and guns and what not. My partner accidentally stumbled across child porn on it and was traumatized so please be careful you may see more than you want to.

child porn

Criminals.

Yeahhh, it's interesting in theory but there's not a hell of a lot to it. You get interesting search results sometimes, but a lot of it involves drugs, guns, porn and stuff like that.
The only time it'd really be dangerous is if you're getting involved in illegal stuff, since the people running those websites will want to know who's viewing their stuff and may have ways to work that out.

Copyrighted content and cracked software mixed with viruses.

There is no such thing. It's completely on a linear plane as where this site is. The only difference is knowing where and how to look. Just like real life.

Where is the dark web? I have heard about it but never seen it.

Not something I've looked into deeply, but I have read that using Tor can attract the attention of security services. And, yeah, if the NSA finds out you're American, they can't keep digging unless they have probable cause, but Canadian and British security services aren't restricted in that way. And the same applies to Canadian and UK citizens being perfectly legal targets for the NSA.

It seems to me that, unless you have a very good reason to use Tor, it's probably best to avoid it and learn about the Dark (or Deep) Web via reliable, well-informed journalism.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/using-tor-is-it-worth-the-risk-or-the-time-20151007-gk3tx1.html