Have you ever used the dark web and for what purposes? I even found several such forums, but I could not open them. It feels like the browser just doesn't support them.
Is that what Using Web when the light is off? that's why its called Dark Web?
Nooo, I think dark web is when you switch to dark theme mode when viewing websites. This is a new trend in web development.
There are those who even believe that the dark web should be called eco-friendly because of its low electricity consumption.
You are closer than most other posts in this thread, but you are incorrect about electricity (because we don't use CRTs anymore), tho it might be true for oleds most computer screens are still LCD with white leds as backpanel. Dark is easier for the eyes when you are not in the sun, the Stylus add on is your friend...
Dark web.... well for starters The Onion Router is not the only "hidden" network.
No you don't need TOR browser to browse a .onion site, this is false. But its a good idea because things like Chrome and Firefox are spying on you.
This is basically internet without rules, most content is self hosted anonymously from people's own computers, which are not exactly server class so fast it isn't.
Content varies. It does not necessarily mean criminal garbage, there is also political dissidence from countries where this isn't allowed. Most criminal content is actually set up by authorities to try and catch you anyway.
Here is Duckduckgo "dark" web edition. Its no different than the normal one:
https://3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion/And it will give you results from the normal web, its not a .onion search engine but those do exist.
Of course, you cannot open that url if your computer is not set up for TOR. Nowdays they bundle it with a browser, but this is optional. TOR runs standalone and you can connect anything that supports socks4a/5, such as your Bitcoin wallet...
Tor is a bit unusual to the others in that it allows access to the normal web from it, but i don't recommend doing that, your IP will change a lot and will be nearly universally banned or heavily crippled (even this forum does that which is ironic as satoshi used it) or you'll be tortured to death with captchas.
Content hosted inside those separate networks is what some call "dark", but doesn't say anything about the content itself. It can be nothing special like wikipedia or some horrible picture. Again, internet without rules, anything goes you have been warned.
Imagine your social media had no moderation, something like that.