Introducing Ahmia, one of the largest search engines on the dark web, also accessible on the clearnet

Ahmia is an open-source search engine for Tor hidden services, accessible on both the dark web and clearnet, created by Juha Nurmi, who has extensive experience in private sector and government projects.

The latest version of Ahmia is built using Python 3.6, Django 1.11 and Elasticsearch 6.2 (5.6 is also compatible). It is also open source on Github: https://github.com/ahmia/ahmia-site

Originally built with Django and PostgreSQL during the 2014 "Google Summer of Code" with the support of the Tor Project, this open source search engine was built with Django and PostgreSQL. It collects special anonymous identifiers called .onion from the Tor network and feeds them into its index, except for those containing robots.txt files.

The service works with GlobaLeaks submissions and Tor2web statistics for the discovery of dark web sites, and as of July 2015, has indexed about 5,000 dark web sites.Ahmia is also affiliated with the Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Rights, an organization that promotes transparency and freedom to enable technology .

In July 2015, the site published hundreds of fraudulent versions of fake web pages (including fake DuckDuckGo and other sites). According to Nurmi, "someone is running a fake website at an address similar to the original site and trying to scam people with it" for the purpose of scamming people (e.g., collecting Bitcoin funds by spoofing Bitcoin addresses).

The mission of the Ahmia search engine project is to build a high-quality search engine for Tor-based hidden services. This purpose is related to the desire of Ahmia contributors to share specific statistics, insights, and information about the Tor network. and Ahmia does do a very good job of it.

Importantly, the Ahmia project is a global proponent of online anonymity and privacy, and has created a search engine dedicated to mainstreaming the Onion service beyond Tor's early adopters.

The search engine has also taken the initiative to remove abusive material from its platform, a far cry from other sites that continue to index child sex abuse sites.

Address of Ahmia's dark web:

http://juhanurmihxlp77nkq76byazcldy2hlmovfu2epvl5ankdibsot4csyd.onion

Address of Ahmia's clearnet:

https://ahmia.fi