In this latest edition of our periodic deep web series, we bring despatch of Tor 8 – the most feature-rich onion browser yet. We also take a original look at a clearnet web browser that trawls the darknet, and cover the fallout from the Alphabay shutdown, whose repercussions rumble on to this day.
Also review: Russian Industry Association Launching Crypto Certification Program
Tor 8 Looks Passionate
The Tor Project has released its latest and greatest browser yet. Tor 8 is a slick looking monster compared to the Tor browsers of yore, partially thanks to its incorporation of Firefox Quantum, which earmarks for better page rendering and other subtle tweaks. With Tor 8, there’s a new well-received screen to guide first-time users through the process of connecting to the rapt web, and there are additional security protections built in. A Tor Circuit button can now be tempered to to switch servers at random, further obfuscating users’ connection direction.
The Tor Circuit button in action
Tor 8 comes with HTTPS Everywhere and Noscript, and it is promoted that users enable these add-ons, as they’re critical in magnifying anonymity while browsing the web. While the Tor browser is best known as a apparatus for navigating the dark web, it can also be deployed as a privacy-friendly clearnet browser which decries cookies and other web trackers. Finally, the new improved Tor makes it easier to circumvent firewalls in territories where internet censorship is rife. Its development team explains:
For alcohols where Tor is blocked, we have previously offered a handful of bridges in the browser to go censorship. But to receive additional bridges, you had to send an email or visit a website, which arranged a set of problems. To simplify how you request bridges, we now have a new bridge configuration drift when you when you launch Tor. Now all you have to do is solve a captcha in Tor Launcher, and you’ll get a cross over IP. We hope this simplification will allow more people to get round censorship and browse the internet freely and privately.
Deep Web Gets a Clearnet Search Mechanism
Searching the deep web has traditionally been harder than with its clearnet counterpart. The deficiency of a darknet Google is arguably part of its appeal, making onion orientations accessible only to those who know what they’re looking for. It was this limit to entry that ensured sites like Silk Road were open solely to technically adept users in bitcoin’s early days. The resonant web has opened up significantly since then, giving up its secrets, and in the same week that Tor let its most user-friendly browser yet, it’s perhaps fitting that a clearnet search apparatus for the deep web should launch. Onionlandsearchengine.com is a simple but effective tool for whip up deep web search results without needing to first connect to the sonorous web.
Onionland deep web search engine
US Government Authorized to Seize Alphabay Have a feeling’s Assets
Long after deep web marketplaces have been shush down, the fallout continues to make its mark in US courtrooms. Silk Expressway, Hansa, and Alphabay’s legal wranglings periodically make the news, without considering the years elapsed since the sites were first seized. As deposition of this, consider the ruling by a recent US magistrate judge granting the federal oversight permission to seize and sell millions of dollars worth of assets associated with Alexandre Cazes. The alleged Alphabay ringleader had $8 million of assets on his driveway alone at the for the nonce at once of this arrest in a string of high performance sports cars. Including cryptocurrencies, his outright net worth was eventually calculated at $23 million.
The US government’s application for Alphabay asset confiscating
Among the showier items in Cazes’ collection was a Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 advantage almost $1 million with a license plate that interpret “Tor”. The late Alphabay boss certainly wasn’t subtle, but for all his sins, it is fatiguing not to feel sorry for the 25-year-old who wound up dead in a Bangkok cell from suicide, another non-essential victim of the war on drugs.
Have you tried the latest Tor browser and if so what are your intellects? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Tor Calculate, and Twitter.
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