

Onion services offer several advantages over ordinary services on the non-private web:

  • An onion services’s location and IP address are hidden, making it difficult for adversaries to censor it or identify its operators.
  • The address of an onion service is automatically generated, so the operators do not need to purchase a domain name; the .onion URL also helps Tor ensure that it is connecting to the right location and that the connection is not being tampered with.


When accessing a website that uses an onion service, Tor Browser will show at the URL bar an icon of a little green onion displaying the state of your connection: secure and using an onion service. And if you're accessing a website with https and onion service, it will show an icon of a green onion and a padlock.


If you cannot reach the onion service you require, make sure that you have entered the onion address correctly: even a small mistake will stop Tor Browser from being able to reach the site.


You can also ensure that you're able to access other onion services by connecting to DuckDuckGo's Onion Service