Step three — opening the storefront safely
The third step is opening the copied address inside the Tor Browser. Now that the address is on your clipboard, switch to the Tor Browser, paste the line into the address bar and press return. The browser sets up a private route and the storefront login page comes up.
Watching the route build
The first request takes a few seconds longer than a clearnet visit, because the browser is opening a new private route to the onion service. While it is building, the address bar shows the .onion address and a small lock indicator. When the route is ready, the login page renders. If the wait stretches past twenty seconds, the path is probably stuck on a slow exit — close the tab, open a new one, paste again, and the new path will usually answer at once.
Recognising the genuine storefront
The Mars Market storefront login page has a small set of recognisable features. The page name is Mars Market in plain serif type at the top, the form below it asks for a username and a passphrase and nothing else, and there is a register link beside the sign-in button. There is no banner asking for an email, there is no phone-number field and there is no document upload — the absence of these things is one of the signatures of the real storefront, and any login page that has them is not Mars Market regardless of the colour scheme.
What to do once the page loads
Bookmark the address inside the Tor Browser so that you can return to it without copying again. Then close the tab if you are not ready to register yet, or continue to the next step page and follow the registration walkthrough. The clearnet tab where you copied the address is no longer needed; the storefront does not depend on it.
When the storefront does not come up
If the page returns a not-found message, you most likely pasted into a non-Tor browser by mistake — check the toolbar. If the page reports an onion service error, the address may be temporarily slow; switch to a different line from the mirrors page and try again. If neither helps, leave it for half an hour. Tor routes change on their own schedule and an address that is unreachable now is often reachable again a short time later without any action from you.