If you've noticed .onion addresses are now 56 characters long (like duckduckgogg42xjoc72x3sjasowoarfbgcmvfimaftt6twagswzczad.onion), that's because the Tor network upgraded to version 3 onion services. This guide explains what changed, why it matters, and how v3 addresses work.
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If you see a 16-character .onion address, it no longer works. All legitimate onion services now use v3.
A v3 .onion address is derived from the service's ED25519 public key:
This means the .onion address IS the public key - you can verify you're connecting to the right service cryptographically. No certificate authorities needed.
Want an address that starts with a recognizable word? Tools like mkp224o can generate vanity v3 addresses:
mkp224o mysiteThis will generate addresses starting with "mysite" - like mysitexyz...onion. The longer the vanity prefix, the longer it takes to generate:
Facebook's vanity address (facebookwkhpilne...) reportedly took significant compute time to generate.
When you order Tor hosting from AnubizHost, we generate your v3 .onion address automatically and configure the hidden service for you. Want a vanity address? We can generate custom prefixes as part of the setup.
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