Opening an onion
An onion address only does anything inside Tor. Everything below is the short version of setting that up without quietly undoing it.
Mirror addresses · 3
same market · no rankingblackops27m32abqvbhnyswgazqawxqbznbzkkkv5sjo7gve2ndpsdad.onionblackops5l63qnwnmlnsfvtlu66md3x3vp3fdtpna42eq7ozujr67hid.onionblackops6kignp3eddmvqcfkjzf6qr6haxbmkypc2xtqlnhuu4ak4dqd.onionCopy one address, paste it into the Tor Browser, and compare the last six characters against what landed in the address bar. If one will not connect, build a new circuit and take the next. Why an onion refuses to load.
The browser
Get Tor Browser only from torproject.org. The installer is small, the site is well known, and every other copy of the installer is a supply chain you did not ask for. On Android the app is the Tor Browser from the Play Store or F Droid; on iOS it is the Onion Browser. Same rules, different packaging.
Do not install extensions. An extension is a second program with a view of the page, and on a login page you have not finished verifying, you do not want a second program.
The address, exactly
Copy one of the three addresses above. Paste it into the address bar. The http:// in front is decoration; the browser adds or drops it as it pleases. What the address bar must contain is the full 56 characters plus .onion, and after the page loads you read the last six characters back against the list.
What a healthy load looks like
- The first load of any onion is slow. Tor assembles a three relay circuit and the onion service locates you through it. Sixty to one hundred twenty seconds, black screen, is the normal shape of the first few seconds.
- Then the market's captcha page appears, and the onion icon in the address bar stays solid. Solid icon, captcha page, address that matches: you are in.
- A warning triangle in the address bar, or an icon that has changed shape, means something about the connection is not what it should be. Stop, recheck the address, try a new circuit.
- Second and later loads are usually fast, because the route is warm. A warm route that suddenly takes two minutes is information, not bad luck: the circuit died, or the front node is crowded.
The clearnet proxy question
Services exist that render onions over ordinary https, so you can skip Tor entirely. The word for what they are is gateway, and the word for what a gateway does with your traffic is read it. Your username, your password, your 2FA code, your session, all of it passes through a machine that is not yours and is not the market's.
The gateway can also show you a copy instead of the real thing, and a copy is indistinguishable from the original until the balance moves. Tor Browser is the path where the only reader of your traffic is the market, and on a market, that is the entire point.
Settings worth knowing
- Security level: Standard is correct for the market. Safest strips features that some market pages depend on, and it solves a problem you do not have.
- New circuit per site: the default, leave it. Every new onion you open gets a fresh route, which is why a dead circuit is a per address event, not a global one.
- Downloads: the market does not need to download anything for you to shop. A download prompt on a market page is a question, not an instruction.