if i download tails and then a vpn would that be enough to explore the deep web safely as long as i don’t screw with anything illegal and i’m cautious about clicking links
If you want to browse the dark web, all you need is the Tor Browser.
Unless you live in a dangerous country for free speech (iran, syria etc),
Or a country which blocks Tor (china and some others).
In which cases you’d need extra precautions.
In all other countries, it is not difficult/dangerous/illegal to use Tor.
When your using Tor, your ISP or friendly government agency can see your using Tor, but can’t see what you are doing or what sites you are visiting.
(You can still be uncovered! Follow best practices, by avoiding the normal Internet, disabling all scripts,not downloading anything and disabling JavaScript.)
To download Tor visit the official webpage:
You’ll find more documentation there! It should answer most of your questions 
thank you so much for the info i still think i’d feel safer though if i install tails and a vpn as extra safety nets anyways since you can never be too safe with this kind of thing
Don’t listen to this guy, most of the people who got pawned last year by the CMU hack were using the Tor Browser specifically on Windows. Tails is the new standard when using Tor, the Tor Browser doesn’t do enough to protect against IP de-anonymizing javascript executed on the OS itself.
A VPN will hide the fact that your connecting to Tor from your ISP, and maybe government agencies. (Depending where the VPN service is located).
While the VPN provider only sees you connecting to TOR.
Tails on the other hand is there to prevent leaving traces on computers, especially public ones. The idea being, that you have the USB stick which you carry around, and when you need to use a public computer, you can plug it in, and boot into tails, without leaving traces on the harddrive etc. (Guarantees the same safety on personal computers of course)
It also doesn’t leak your real IP as easily, since all traffic gets routed through TOR.
So if you want to be extra extra safe, use this.
My argument is just, that if you only want to look around the dark web a bit, this might be a bit overkill.
But hey, here is the ultimate, secure way, to connect to Tor:
Optimal safe setup:
go to a busy public cafe with free open wifi.
Boot Tails from your USB on your laptop.
Connect to wifi, access Tor over Tails.
If they go into the trouble of tracing back every IP that connects to TOR, it will lead them to the coffee shop, which anyone could have used.
Congrats, you’ve just anonymously used Tor. 
VPN usage is optional.
The CMU hack involved running a large enough number of relays, to gain enough information to deanonymize users. It had little to do with the OS used… or do you know more?
i just want the vpn and tails to boot into since im a little paranoid about online secruity
That’s good! They are both tools to protect your digital privacy and security
And with all the stuff uncovered due to Snowdon, I think we should be paranoid.
Good luck!
i just have one final question is there a difference in security between installing tails on usb and a sd card or is it about the same
SD cards shouldn’t be a problem.
Tails should work on any reasonably recent >computer, say manufactured after 2005. Here is a >detailed list of requirements:
Either an internal or external DVD reader or the >possibility to boot from a USB stick or SD card.
Tails requires an x86 compatible processor: IBM PC >compatible and others but not PowerPC nor ARM. >Mac computers are IBM PC compatible since 2006.
2 GB of RAM to work smoothly. Tails is known to >work with less memory but you might experience >strange behaviours or crashes.
Here’s the official documentation/site: