Clearnet is a term that typically refers to the publicly accessible

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. Sometimes "clearnet" is used as a synonym for " surface web"—excluding both the

darknet A dark net or darknet is an overlay network within the Internet that can only be accessed with specific software, configurations, or authorization, and often uses a unique customized communication protocol. Two typical darknet types are social ne ...

and the

deep web The deep web, invisible web, or hidden web are parts of the World Wide Web whose contents are not indexed by standard web search-engine programs. This is in contrast to the "surface web", which is accessible to anyone using the Internet. Co ...

. The

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...

is one of the most popular distributed services on the Internet, and the surface web is composed of the web pages and databases that are indexed by traditional search engines. "Clearnet" can be seen as the opposite of the term "

", which typically describes the services built on Tor or other anonymity networks, the connection to which is encrypted and anonymized. Because the darknet is not publicly accessible, it is part of the deep web. The deep web, which is not indexed, is still publicly accessible. It includes web portals to databases that require text searches, and interactive web sites that require more user input than simply clicking hyperlinks.

Characteristics

Without the use of anonymity services like Tor, browsing the clearnet is typically not anonymous; most websites routinely identify users by their

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...

as well as other data transmitted by the client.

References

Internet terminology Dark web {{Networking-stub