Tor is the most commonly used browser for opening onion websites, which can be identified by the ‘.onion’ top-level domain. However, it’s not the only application that can do this. There are many alternative ways to access and open onion links without Tor. Here are the methods that we have tested and worked successfully.
1. Open Onion Links Using Brave Browser
While popular browsers like Chrome, Safari, Edge, or Firefox are unable to open onion sites, the Brave browser can. It is also one of the safest options for PC users to access onion websites without Tor, and the best Tor alternative for opening onion links quickly.
First you need to download and install Brave. After installing it, click the hamburger icon and go to Settings -> Privacy and security -> Tor windows. Enable all the options except for Use Bridges, which is only useful if Tor is blocked in your country.
Note: Consider enabling ‘Snowflake’ because it helps users in other countries bypass Tor censorship, and it doesn’t affect your network speeds.
When you initially copy-paste an onion link on Brave’s address bar, you’ll see a ‘blocked’ message. Click the Open in Tor menu, shown by a tiny onion symbol next to the address bar.
A separate private browser window opens after this. Wait for the Tor connected successfully status which has a green symbol. You can open as many private tabs as you want to access multiple onion links.
Related: new to the dark web? Here’s everything you need to know about how to open onion links using Tor browser.
2. Open Onion Links With Orbot (iOS/Android)
Want to open Tor links directly in your Google Chrome browser? While it’s not possible on a PC, you can certainly do it on a smartphone or tablet. For this you need to use Orbot, Tor’s official app on Android/iOS. After downloading and installing it from Google Play or App Store, click the big Start VPN button. When you receive a VPN connection request from the app, click OK to accept it.
Next, go to the bottom of the app home screen and click More -> Hosted Onion Services and enable User services. Also, from the More menu, go to Choose Apps. Here you can add all the apps which are allowed to open onion links. Select Google Chrome or any other mobile browser and click Save.
Now, copy-paste any onion link on the Chrome Omnibox and it should open directly on the mobile window. If you see a Not secure warning, ignore it and click Continue to site.
Find out more onion links to test: we have compiled the most useful and secure onion links for browsing the dark web.
3. Open Onion Links Using Other Mobile Apps
There are a few other mobile apps that can open onion links without using Tor. But, they don’t work as well as Orbot. This is because opening an onion site requires a complicated DNS process over the Tor network, and the peer-to-peer handshake must be accepted on both sides.
Ornet is one mobile app that does work as a Tor browser alternative. Its available on both iOS and Android and doesn’t show any advertisements. After installing, enable Tor in the app’s settings. You have to wait a while for the browser to render Tor connections. After that, you can open the onion links.
Other mobile browsers that can help you open onion sites without Tor include:
Also read: know more about what onion routing is, and how it can help you with greater privacy.
4. Open Onion Links With Cross-Browser Testing Apps
If you just want to check if an onion link works, you don’t need to install Tor or any onion browser alternatives. Instead, you may use a cross-browser testing app that supports Tor. For example, Browserling lets you quickly see if an onion site is active. Just choose your operating system and the Tor browser in the settings, and the link will open in your browser window.
Related: you can use one of these most secure VPNs for anonymous browsing. Also, check our review of NordVPN.
5. Use VPNs With Specialty Onion Servers
Some VPN providers offer special onion servers that help you directly connect to onion links without having to install Tor browser. NordVPN is a good example of this. Not only is your dark web traffic encrypted by the VPN app, but the data is sent through three random Tor servers before connecting you.
To connect with NordVPN’s specialty Onion Over VPN servers, just choose the option from More connection options. After that, select the server of any country, or the Fastest server, and click Connect. The onion link will direcly open on a browser of your choice. This method also works with NordVPN mobile apps.
We’ve looked at all the ways to open onion links without using Tor. Some methods that don’t work are web proxies like ‘Tor2Web’ and all the browser extensions on Google Chrome and Firefox, even if they claim they can open onion links.
Unless it’s an emergency, accessing onion links without Tor is not necessary. If you’re simply unable to install Tor because it’s blocked by your ISP or government, there are many alternative ways to unblock the application. Moreover, Tor is not the only application for anonymous browsing.