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So I thought that would happen if I type an .onion address into safari and add a .to to the address without deleting .onion while doing this I was using a VPN but the page did not open so I tried .city and it came some weird looking tor error like tor does not host this webpage and some weird error. But when I try it now it doesn't even load so here's the reference: https://www.tor2web.org. Am I already tracked. Like I mean the deep web link did not load but am I infected with malware?!

PS. What exactly is Tor2Web? I am not really good at internet stuff; :)

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Those are all Tor2web proxies and your first thought should be to not use them. You first thought should be to use Tor Browser when you want to access onion services.

The contents of the following link are copy/pasted below in case the person (me) takes down their blog.

https://matt.traudt.xyz/p/mhk3vrBX.html


Why they exist

They exist so people can access onion services without using Tor. That's it. If the user doesn't know all the caveats that come along with that benefit, then she is probably really hurting herself. And if the user is already using Tor Browser, there is no valid reason for her to be using a tor2web proxy. Tor2web proxies are not a troubleshooting step. Please stop using them like one. Please stop suggesting them to people.

Why they are bad

Payload/Session Leakage

Since the tor2web proxy is the one connecting to the onion service for Alice, it gets to see everything. If Alice is visiting a forum or image board, the proxy gets to see all the posts and all the images. If Alice is logging into something, the proxy gets to see her credentials.

Let me repeat that. When you use a tor2web proxy, it gets to see EVERYTHING. Your credentials if you sign in. Any cookies. Any uploads you make. All the pages you request and their contents.

Onion Service Enumeration

Tor2web websites are like regular websites. Like google.com or facebook.com. When the browser gets a request for anything.onion.to, it consults DNS to resolve it. So every DNS server that the computer is configured to talk to (and is told to forward its request onto by its configured servers) will find out that anything.onion exists and someone wants to access it. If the user, Alice, isn't using Tor Browser, then the DNS servers also find out that the someone is her. Not good!

Even if Alice is using Tor Browser, now the tor2web proxy knows that anything.onion exists. In fact, many have sold or still sell information on what onion services have been requested through them. For example, see onion.cab's list.

User/Onion Correlation

This is very similar to a point made already, but this focuses on the consequences to the user.

The tor2web proxy knows someone is interseted in anything.onion. If the user isn't using Tor Browser, the tor2web proxy also knows the IP of the user. If that's not bad enough, if for some reason the tor2web proxy suspects that this anything.onion is (almost) never accessed by anyone else, then it may conclude that the person that just requested the onion service must be the owner.

Real Troubleshooting

If anything.onion doesn't work for you, don't go and try anything.onion.to.

If you are using Tor Browser, and have changed network proxy settings like you would in regular Firefox, don't do that! You are probably able to connect to regular websites and anything.onion.to, but you won't be able to connect to anything.onion because you aren't using Tor. You are not being secured by Tor. The only way you should change proxy settings is via the onion button, and you should only do that if your ISP requires it.

If you are using Tor Browser, you didn't change proxy settings, you can access anything.onion.to, you can't access anything.onion, and you're pretty sure Tor/Tor Browser are working fine, then the onion service is probably down. There's nothing you can do about it. The anything.onion.to is just a cached copy of parts of the onion service that the tor2web proxy has fetched recently. You aren't getting the real website and you can't interact with it. Poor uptime is a fact of life for most onion services. They are often shortlived, are only up a few hours each day, or both. Most are run by amateurs.

Summary

Don't play with your anonymity. Learn a little bit about how things work so you can be safe. Adding something to the end of an onion address sounds like a good easy way to get access to something that isn't working, but it isn't. Slightly changing youtube.com into some other domain name that fetches the video for you so you don't have to sign in to watch something flagged as adult is the same idea, but at least your safety (probably) isn't at risk in that case.

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  • Thanks for your answer @pastly first off thanks for your answer I can't approve it because I am a guest and also I did not get to access any onion site because Tor2web threw me a error that it could not access the site and I was using a VPN and I also tried to access silk road onion site for testing and it did not even load up so I gave up and from now I am not going anywhere near an onion site.
    – Guest3
    Commented Jan 13, 2018 at 2:17
  • @pastly Thanks for your answer first off thanks for your answer I can't approve it because I am a guest and also I did not get to access any onion site because Tor2web threw me a error that it could not access the site and I was using a VPN and I also tried to access silk road onion site for testing and it did not even load up so I gave up and from now I am not going anywhere near an onion site. Commented Jan 31, 2018 at 12:46

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