Those sites should give you a start. In general, I think that it's stupid to try to use Tor for illegal stuff. You're likely to get ripped off or arrested. I limit my Tor use to spicy shit posting opinions that the regime doesn't like.
Use Tor or Brave and just run it normally. You don't need a VM, don't use a VPN. It doesn't matter if a node has been compromised, there is nothing illegal about browsing around. Hell, go to a market and check out the drug listings just for fun.
Don't try to buy a firearm or CP, those are actual honey pots.
If you want to go full schizo buy a burner laptop in cash, learn about Tails OS, load it up on a USB drive and run it off that. Only use public wifi three towns over, do not bring your phone. Wear a hat, fake glasses, and a mask if that's still a thing in your area.
If you want to only go a little schizo run Tails at home. It's secure out of the box and has a bunch of tools you might find useful. You can also set up persistent memory.
Darknetlive is a site about .onion websites with news and has a directory of popular onion sites.
Ahmia is a search engine of onion sites.
Brave search is the onion link to the clearnet search engine.
Proton Mail
Those sites should give you a start. In general, I think that it's stupid to try to use Tor for illegal stuff. You're likely to get ripped off or arrested. I limit my Tor use to spicy shit posting opinions that the regime doesn't like.
It runs at a similar speed
Use Tor or Brave and just run it normally. You don't need a VM, don't use a VPN. It doesn't matter if a node has been compromised, there is nothing illegal about browsing around. Hell, go to a market and check out the drug listings just for fun.
Don't try to buy a firearm or CP, those are actual honey pots.
If you want to go full schizo buy a burner laptop in cash, learn about Tails OS, load it up on a USB drive and run it off that. Only use public wifi three towns over, do not bring your phone. Wear a hat, fake glasses, and a mask if that's still a thing in your area.
If you want to only go a little schizo run Tails at home. It's secure out of the box and has a bunch of tools you might find useful. You can also set up persistent memory.
It all depends on who you are worried about :
1 - third tier governments- use tor - they can bribe vpn companies
2 - The wife - use a vpn or use tor
3 - 2nd tier governments - they can still monitor your activity if they REALLY want to by putting a zeroday exploit on your device
4 - 1st tier governments- probably control all the exit nodes of tor