A directory you’re meant to check#
Last checked on October 11, 2026. 18 addresses listed. Seven official services on hold.
While most onion directories ask you to place your trust in them, this one asks you to verify it.
Every address below belongs to a real organisation that runs its own onion service. Alongside each address is the place where that organisation confirms it, so you can trace the trail back to the source within a few seconds rather than having to take our word for it. This is what sets this page apart from the long ‘hidden wiki’ lists that appear in search results, a number of which mix real addresses with fake ones designed to steal logins. We explain how these lists go wrong in Why Most ‘Hidden Wiki’ Lists Are Full of Scams.
The list is intentionally kept short. It only contains official mirrors, meaning onion versions of websites operated by the same organisation that runs the regular website. There are no markets, no unofficial copies, no link exchanges and no paid placements. Even if a site is very popular, if its address cannot be linked to its owner, it won’t be on the list. The full rules are in About thehidden.wiki.
To open these addresses you’ll need Tor Browser. If you haven’t got it yet, follow How to Download and Install Tor Browser Safely. If you’re using a phone, see Using Tor on Android and iPhone.
How to read an entry#
Each row in the tables below has four parts.
The service. Who is in charge of it. Each group of services links to a more detailed page in our directory.
The address. Shown in full, all 56 characters plus .onion, with the http:// or https:// it needs. We never shorten an address, because shortening is precisely what lets a phishing clone pass for the genuine one. Use the copy button instead of typing it.
The proof. Where the organisation itself confirms the address. There are three types, and they are not equally reliable, so we explain the differences further down. In short, a link to the organisation’s own website or index is the most direct, and a TLS certificate is the hardest to forge.
The status. All 18 listed addresses had passed at least 13 of the last 14 daily reachability checks as of October 11, 2026. Any address that falls below this threshold moves to the on-hold list at the bottom of the page, and we record the change in the change log.
There’s one point worth noting. Some addresses start with https:// and others with http://. Both are encrypted end to end, since all onion connections are. The ones using https:// also have a certificate issued to the onion name, which is the additional proof mentioned above. Neither is less safe to visit. We explain why in What Is an Onion Service? .onion Addresses Explained.
The directory#
Grouped by what you would use each service for. Every address had passed at least 13 of the last 14 daily checks as of October 11, 2026.
The Tor Project#
The organisation that develops Tor lists its own addresses on its onion index at onion.torproject.org, which also serves as the main reference point for every other service it runs. For more detail, see Tor Project’s Official Onion Sites.
| Service | Address | Proof | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tor Project | 2gzyxa5ihm7nsggfxnu52rck2vv4rvmdlkiu3zzui5du4xyclen53wid.onionListed in our directory as Tor Project website (Tor Project). See the owner's proof2gzyxa5ihm7nsggfxnu52rck2vv4rvmdlkiu3zzui5du4xyclen53wid |
onion.torproject.org | Oct 11, 2026 |
| Tor Project Onion Index | xao2lxsmia2edq2n5zxg6uahx6xox2t7bfjw6b5vdzsxi7ezmqob6qid.onionListed in our directory as Tor Project onion index (Tor Project). See the owner's proofxao2lxsmia2edq2n5zxg6uahx6xox2t7bfjw6b5vdzsxi7ezmqob6qid |
onion.torproject.org | Oct 11, 2026 |
| Tor Project Support | rzuwtpc4wb3xdzrj3yeajsvm3fkq4vbeubm2tdxaqruzzzgs5dwemlad.onionListed in our directory as Tor Support portal (Tor Project). See the owner's proofrzuwtpc4wb3xdzrj3yeajsvm3fkq4vbeubm2tdxaqruzzzgs5dwemlad |
onion.torproject.org | Oct 11, 2026 |
Search#
Two of the major search engines offer onion versions of their own search. Third-party ‘dark web search engines’ are not included, for the reasons explained in Search Engines With Official Onion Sites.
| Service | Address | Proof | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| DuckDuckGo | duckduckgogg42xjoc72x3sjasowoarfbgcmvfimaftt6twagswzczad.onionListed in our directory as DuckDuckGo (Search).duckduckgogg42xjoc72x3sjasowoarfbgcmvfimaftt6twagswzczad |
TLS certificate | Oct 11, 2026 |
| Brave Search | search.brave4u7jddbv7cyviptqjc7jusxh72uik7zt6adtckl5f4nwy2v72qd.onionListed in our directory as Brave Search (Search).brave4u7jddbv7cyviptqjc7jusxh72uik7zt6adtckl5f4nwy2v72qd |
TLS certificate | Oct 11, 2026 |
News#
News organisations run onion sites mainly so that readers can reach them where their normal websites are blocked. Three of them are currently reliably reachable. Several others are on hold and listed further down. For language services and how newsrooms use SecureDrop, see News Onion Sites: BBC, DW, The Guardian and SecureDrop.
| Service | Address | Proof | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| BBC News | www.bbcweb3hytmzhn5d532owbu6oqadra5z3ar726vq5kgwwn6aucdccrad.onionListed in our directory as BBC News (News).bbcweb3hytmzhn5d532owbu6oqadra5z3ar726vq5kgwwn6aucdccrad |
TLS certificate | Oct 11, 2026 |
| Deutsche Welle | www.dwnewsgngmhlplxy6o2twtfgjnrnjxbegbwqx6wnotdhkzt562tszfid.onionNot in our directory. Find the page where the owner publishes this address before you trust it. How to verifydwnewsgngmhlplxy6o2twtfgjnrnjxbegbwqx6wnotdhkzt562tszfid |
Article on dw.com | Oct 11, 2026 |
| The Guardian | www.guardian2zotagl6tmjucg3lrhxdk4dw3lhbqnkvvkywawy3oqfoprid.onionListed in our directory as The Guardian (News).guardian2zotagl6tmjucg3lrhxdk4dw3lhbqnkvvkywawy3oqfoprid |
theguardian.com | Oct 11, 2026 |
Email#
Webmail over Tor needs JavaScript, so you’ll need to set your security level to Standard or Safer. Advice on account hygiene is in Secure Email Over Tor: Proton Mail and Riseup Onions.
| Service | Address | Proof | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Proton Mail | protonmailrmez3lotccipshtkleegetolb73fuirgj7r4o4vfu7ozyd.onionListed in our directory as Proton Mail (Email).protonmailrmez3lotccipshtkleegetolb73fuirgj7r4o4vfu7ozyd |
TLS certificate | Oct 11, 2026 |
| Riseup | vww6ybal4bd7szmgncyruucpgfkqahzddi37ktceo3ah7ngmcopnpyyd.onionListed in our directory as Riseup (Email).vww6ybal4bd7szmgncyruucpgfkqahzddi37ktceo3ah7ngmcopnpyyd |
riseup.net | Oct 11, 2026 |
Open-source software#
Downloading software through an onion conceals what you are downloading from your own network. Make sure to check the signature as well. For more, see Open-Source Projects on Onion: Debian, Qubes, Whonix, OnionShare.
| Service | Address | Proof | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian Onion Index | jvgypgbnfyvfopg5msp6nwr2sl2fd6xmnguq35n7rfkw3yungjn2i4yd.onionListed in our directory as Debian onion index (Software). See the owner's proofjvgypgbnfyvfopg5msp6nwr2sl2fd6xmnguq35n7rfkw3yungjn2i4yd |
onion.debian.org | Oct 11, 2026 |
| Qubes OS | www.qubesosfasa4zl44o4tws22di6kepyzfeqv3tg4e3ztknltfxqrymdad.onionListed in our directory as Qubes OS (Software).qubesosfasa4zl44o4tws22di6kepyzfeqv3tg4e3ztknltfxqrymdad |
qubes-os.org | Oct 11, 2026 |
| Whonix | dds6qkxpwdeubwucdiaord2xgbbeyds25rbsgr73tbfpqpt4a6vjwsyd.onionListed in our directory as Whonix (Software).dds6qkxpwdeubwucdiaord2xgbbeyds25rbsgr73tbfpqpt4a6vjwsyd |
whonix.org | Oct 11, 2026 |
| OnionShare | lldan5gahapx5k7iafb3s4ikijc4ni7gx5iywdflkba5y2ezyg6sjgyd.onionListed in our directory as OnionShare (Software).lldan5gahapx5k7iafb3s4ikijc4ni7gx5iywdflkba5y2ezyg6sjgyd |
onionshare.org | Oct 11, 2026 |
Web services and institutions#
A mix of ordinary services and one government agency. The CIA runs its onion site so that people can get in touch without revealing who they are or where they are.
| Service | Address | Proof | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|
www.reddittorjg6rue252oqsxryoxengawnmo46qy4kyii5wtqnwfj4ooad.onionNot in our directory. Find the page where the owner publishes this address before you trust it. How to verifyreddittorjg6rue252oqsxryoxengawnmo46qy4kyii5wtqnwfj4ooad |
r/redditsecurity | Oct 11, 2026 | |
| Archive.today | archiveiya74codqgiixo33q62qlrqtkgmcitqx5u2oeqnmn5bpcbiyd.onionNot in our directory. Find the page where the owner publishes this address before you trust it. How to verifyarchiveiya74codqgiixo33q62qlrqtkgmcitqx5u2oeqnmn5bpcbiyd |
archive.today blog | Oct 11, 2026 |
| Cloudflare DNS 1.1.1.1 | dns4torpnlfs2ifuz2s2yf3fc7rdmsbhm6rw75euj35pac6ap25zgqad.onionNot in our directory. Find the page where the owner publishes this address before you trust it. How to verifydns4torpnlfs2ifuz2s2yf3fc7rdmsbhm6rw75euj35pac6ap25zgqad |
TLS certificate | Oct 11, 2026 |
| CIA | ciadotgov4sjwlzihbbgxnqg3xiyrg7so2r2o3lt5wz5ypk4sxyjstad.onionNot in our directory. Find the page where the owner publishes this address before you trust it. How to verifyciadotgov4sjwlzihbbgxnqg3xiyrg7so2r2o3lt5wz5ypk4sxyjstad |
cia.gov | Oct 11, 2026 |
A note on the prefixes. Some addresses have www. or search. before the 56 characters. That is a subdomain of the same onion service, just as www. is on an ordinary website. The 56 characters that come after the prefix are what identify the service, and like all valid v3 addresses, they always end in the letter d.
Not all proof is equal#
Every address above is backed by the organisation itself, but ‘backed by the organisation’ can mean three different things. It is useful to know which is which, since some are easier to check and harder to forge than others.
1. The owner’s own page#
Most entries point to a page on the organisation’s regular website, or to its own index of onion addresses, where the address is published. The Tor Project’s index at onion.torproject.org and Debian’s at onion.debian.org are the clearest examples. Qubes OS, Whonix, OnionShare, Riseup, The Guardian, Deutsche Welle, the CIA and Archive.today also belong in this group.
This is the most direct kind of proof. You go to the organisation’s real website over HTTPS, find the address as it appears there, and compare. The drawback is that it relies on you reaching the real website first, so type the domain name yourself rather than clicking on a link.
Reddit is a little different, since its evidence is a post in its official security community on Reddit rather than a page on its main website. Although it still comes from an account that Reddit manages, it is one step further removed from the main domain, so it is worth examining the post carefully.
2. A TLS certificate issued to the onion#
Five services on the list serve their onion site over HTTPS using a certificate issued for the onion address. They are DuckDuckGo, Brave Search, BBC News, Proton Mail and Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 resolver. A certificate authority will only issue such a certificate after the operator has proven that it controls that specific onion address.
This is the hardest kind of proof to counterfeit. A phishing clone can mimic the look of a website and even the first few characters of its address, but it cannot get a valid certificate for the real organisation’s onion address. To check, click the padlock in Tor Browser’s address bar and look at the certificate details. If a certificate warning appears on any of these five, do not continue.
Until now, these certificates have been costly and complicated, which is why only large organisations have them. A 2025 standard, RFC 9799, has laid the groundwork for free, automatically issued onion certificates, but as of October 2026 no major free certificate authority has started issuing them. We look at this in What Is an Onion Service?
3. Onion-Location#
Several of these organisations add an Onion-Location header to their usual website. If you visit that site in Tor Browser, a purple ‘.onion available’ button appears in the address bar and takes you straight to the official onion. We don’t give it a separate column because it isn’t present on every site, but where it is available, it is one of the simplest checks you can do. If the button and our table show the same address, you can be very confident.
And one cross-check that isn’t proof#
We also check each address against the community-maintained Real-World Onion Sites list, which keeps track of official onion services and runs its own daily reachability tests. It provides a useful second opinion, and our daily status figures are based on those tests. However, since it is not the organisation itself, we never treat it as the final word. When it and the organisation’s own page disagree, the organisation is considered right.
The complete, step-by-step procedure for verifying an address yourself, including addresses not listed on this page, is in How to Verify an Onion Address Is Official.
On hold#
These are real, official onion services. We have not included their addresses because they failed most or all of our recent reachability tests, and a page that offers verified links should not send you to one that doesn’t load.
| Service | Status as of October 11, 2026 |
|---|---|
| The New York Times | Failed 14 of 14 checks, likely a TLS certificate issue |
| ProPublica | Failed 14 of 14 checks, likely a TLS certificate issue |
| The Intercept | Failed 14 of 14 checks |
| Bellingcat | Failed 14 of 14 checks |
| Twitter / X | Failed 14 of 14 checks |
| Returned an HTTP 500 server error on 13 of 14 checks | |
| Keybase | Failed 14 of 14 checks |
A few patterns stand out. The New York Times and ProPublica, two of the most respected investigative newsrooms, seem to have the same issue, most probably an expired or misconfigured certificate on the onion rather than the service having been withdrawn. Facebook’s onion is answering, but with a server error, which generally points to a problem behind the onion rather than one with Tor. The rest are simply not responding.
On hold doesn’t mean fake, and it doesn’t mean gone for good. Services sometimes become unreachable, and organisations may quietly repair a broken onion. At every monthly review we re-test all the services on this list and move one back up as soon as it starts working again. Our news onion sites page looks at the newsrooms in more detail.
If you need one of these services in the meantime, go to the organisation’s own website and look for its current onion address there, or look for the Onion-Location button when you visit it in Tor Browser. Then check it the way we describe in How to Verify an Onion Address Is Official before you use it.
Change log#
The date and reason for every change to this page are recorded here, with the most recent entry first. If an address you used before is now missing, check here.
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| October 11, 2026 | Launch verification. 18 addresses listed after passing at least 13 of 14 daily checks and matching their owners’ proof. The New York Times, ProPublica, The Intercept, Bellingcat, Twitter / X, Facebook and Keybase placed on hold after failing recent checks. |
The next full review is due in November 2026. In the meantime, the daily checks continue, and if a listed address starts to fail, we will move it to the on-hold table and add an entry here rather than leaving it up.
What isn’t here, and why#
If you’ve come from one of the big ‘hidden wiki’ lists, this page will seem to have few entries. That is intentional. Here is what we leave out.
Markets of any kind. Not listed, verified or not.
Unofficial mirrors. A copy of a news website run by someone other than the newsroom is not official, even if it looks it. We only include onion services run by the organisation whose name is on them.
Third-party search engines and link lists. Indexing tools cannot vouch for what they include, and many of them show phishing clones alongside genuine sites. The two search engines above are included because they are the official onions of DuckDuckGo and Brave, not because they index the dark web.
Anything we can’t trace. Some popular onion addresses circulate without any official source at all. If we can’t find the organisation confirming an address, we won’t include it, even if it is probably real.
Old 16-character addresses. These were the retired version 2 format and have not worked since 2021. Lists still offering them have not been checked for years.
If you’d like to know why those rules matter, Onion Phishing: How Fake Mirrors Clone Real Addresses shows what happens when a directory ignores them. The same goes for app stores, as we explain in Fake ‘Dark Web’ Apps in 2026.
Suggesting an addition#
We would like this list to grow, provided each new entry meets the same standard. If an organisation you know runs an official onion service that isn’t listed, please send us two things.
- The full onion address.
- A link to a page the organisation controls that confirms it. This could be its website, an official announcement, or a TLS certificate issued to the onion address.
We’ll put it through the same checks as everything else. If it passes, it goes into the right table with the date it was added, and we add an entry to the change log. You can reach us through the report a link form.
If you run an organisation and want to set up an official onion of your own, our guide How to Host Your Own Onion Service covers the setup, adding Onion-Location, and publishing a proof page so that directories like this one can list you.
Using this page safely#
A verified list is only useful if you use it with care, and four habits make the difference.
- Copy, don’t type. Use the copy button next to each address. Retyping 56 random characters invites errors, and Tor Browser will reject an address with a typo, which leads people to search elsewhere for the ‘right’ one.
- Check both ends. Once you’ve pasted the address, look at the first few and the last few characters in the address bar. Phishing copies usually match only the beginning of the genuine address and nothing else.
- Bookmark it once. When you’ve verified an address, bookmark it in Tor Browser and use the bookmark from then on, instead of coming back to any list, including this one.
- Choose an appropriate security level. News sites read well even at the highest setting. Webmail needs JavaScript. For an explanation of the trade-offs, see our guide to Tor Browser Security Levels.
Using Tor is legal in most countries, and every service on this page is a mainstream organisation you could also visit on the regular web. If you’re unsure about the situation where you live, see Is Tor Legal? Using Onion Services Responsibly. And if you’re somewhere that blocks Tor itself, our guide to bridges, Snowflake and WebTunnel will help you connect.
Where to go next#
- Want to know more about the Tor Project’s own sites? Read Tor Project’s Official Onion Sites.
- Reading the news over Tor? See News Onion Sites: BBC, DW, The Guardian and SecureDrop.
- Want to check an address for yourself? Follow How to Verify an Onion Address Is Official.
- Need more protection than a browser gives? Read about Tails 7.14, which routes your whole computer through Tor.
- Keeping up with Tor itself? Our latest coverage includes Tor’s September 2026 security fixes, the Tor Browser 15.0.24 release notes and Arti 2.7.0: Tor’s Rust Rewrite Explained.
Sources#
- Real-World Onion Sites, community-maintained list with daily status checks to October 11, 2026
- Tor Project onion index
- Debian onion index
- Each organisation’s own proof page, as listed in the Proof column above
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