Despite the Dark Web's mostly negative connotation, new research from PreciseSecurity.com has revealed that over 30 percent of North Americans used it regularly during 2019.
Last year saw an increasing number of people beginning to use the Dark Web as a means of keeping their online activity hidden from governments and telecoms.
The Dark Web itself is made up of websites on the internet that cannot be found through traditional search engines. Instead users must rely on specific software such as the Tor browser, configurations or authorization to access these sites.
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PreciseSecurity.com's 2019 survey show that North America is the leading region when it comes to daily usage of the Dark Web. The firm's findings revealed that 26 percent of North Americans admitted to using the Dark Web daily while another seven percent accessed it at least once a week.
Dark Web usage
North American may have taken the top spot in terms of Dark Web usage but Latin America was not far behind at second on PreciseSecurity.com's list with 21 percent of respondents saying they visit the deep net daily while thirteen percent said they did so weekly. Europe took third place with 17 percent of citizens utilizing the Dark Web daily and additional 11 percent accessing it at least once a week.
The 2019 survey showed that online anonymity was by far the most common reason for users to access the Dark Web. Almost 40 percent of respondents used it during the last year to stay anonymous online and 26 percent said they used it to retrieve content unavailable in their location despite the fact that using a VPN would be far easier.
Nearly 25 percent of North Americans used the Dark Web to ensure their privacy from foreign governments and another 38 percent used it to protect their privacy from internet companies.
Of those surveyed who don't use Tor or access the Dark Web, almost 50 percent of respondents globally stated that they didn't because they don't know how to while 45 percent said they had no reason for doing so.
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