Like I say, I know it is off topic but I can't find anything conclusive to how risky it is?
I want to see what is on there but at the same time I hear of hackers at every corner and child porn. I don't want to encounter either ever.
Is there a safe way of browsing it whilst taking a casual look around?
- You use the onion url of a page: You will probably not encounter anything you do not want to see (depending on the source of the link).
- You use one of the hidden service search engines. These are NOT provided by TOR but by TOR users, i.e. they are TORs Google/Yahoo (especially old time yahoo with long lists of pages instead of a search). Here the risk is significantly higher: Most of these link lists/search engines have a strict "no censoring" policy, so you will at least risk to get links to such things. I've never had this problem (and I am grateful for that) but the risk exists.
The Tor exit node that happens to handle any particular request gets to read the relevant traffic (since it is handling the request to the actual end server on your behalf). So, for instance, if you're logging into some bulletin board via unencrypted http, the Tor exit node handling the login request gets to see your username and password on that bulletin board in cleartext (as can all the other net infrastructure between that exit node and the bboard itself).
In one sense, this doesn't change your risk profile; if you're logging in over unencrypted http directly, you're also at risk of sniffing. However, the risk may be enhanced with Tor; there are persistent rumors of law enforcement and intelligence agencies (and others with darker-colored hats) running exit nodes which deliberately sniff the traffic they're proxying to see if something interesting comes up. It also might be possible for such a hostile exit node to mess with the content of unencrypted traffic, though I've personally heard no rumors of that.
Note that if you're using Tor to proxy encrypted traffic (https), the exit node sees only the encrypted data stream, which is as secure as the encryption you're using --- and the official Tor browser bundle includes the "HTTPS everywhere" Firefox plugin to try to get you to use HTTPS where available.
Additionally, if you're using Tor, anyone monitoring the net segments between you and the entry nodes you hit may be able to tell that you're using it (though they won't be able to tell what you're using it for). If the local secret (or other) police frown on that sort of thing in principle, it could be trouble.
Certainly in the UK, Europe general and probably in the US, your ISP retains a list of all the IP addresses you connect to, and they supply this to the government if they have national security grounds.
At least in the UK, security clearance is grounds to pull your internet records, they say so on public government websites.
I think that in future, if your household connects to known TOR bridge nodes, that might well impact if you can do government work, from IT at your local tax office to army work.
Probably paranoia, but I'm staying away from TOR for this reason. Which is a shame because what some ad networks do is really, really creepy.
Risk and safety is hard to talk about, mostly because its hard to quantify it. I could say that the hacker risk is as risky as visiting a private hosted word press blog, through I suspect more blogs has viruses on them that tor pages has.
As for seeing child porn, so long you don't go looking for it, I suspect the risk is low. Any site that allows users to upload images (like forums) or video without pre-reviewing it could have such images. To be sure, turn of images in your browser when visiting such sites.
I don't think I want to know to be honest, there's enough crap after page 2 on Google as it is
Due to the bandwidth issues, most sites are not going to serve images unless they are a media site of some sort. If you don't want to see animal porn on the WWW, how on earth do you keep your virgin eyes safe? You don't seek it out.
You don't use your own browser for Tor, you use the Tor Browser, unless you're trying not to protect yourself.