Q&A for How to Browse 4Chan

There is an Easter egg hidden in the website. If you press Alt + F4 on the homepage you can access a hidden section of the website, most of the boards are NSFW, so watch out for content you may not like.

As long as they don't reveal their age, nothing. However, if they do or it's discovered, they can be banned.

It is a safe website to visit (just avoid the homepage due to popups and you should be fine). The only weird things that happen are inside 4chan, in terms of the attitudes, conversations and information shared.

Yes, you can post on 4chan with any device you wish to use. However, some devices may not support all video formats.

You can't; "blue" boards are intended to be relatively "work-safe", but the rules aren't always followed to the letter. If you are afraid you'll witness something that will upset you there, the only surefire way to insulate yourself is to not go there. The other option is to develop a more robust outlook and learn to ignore things that upset you, but this takes practice and exposure to things outside your comfort zone, and not everybody has the personal fortitude or the desire to do this.

No, they recently banned all child porn and other illegal imagery. You won't get in trouble for browsing gore and so on. Just stay away from suspicious links.

Not really. You could come across a hacker on almost any website, but it's unlikely that anyone on 4chan would try to hack you, and nothing happens to you simply by posting somewhere.

Do a google search following this template: "4chan /board name/ archive -boards.4chan.org" using the name of the board your thread is from between the slashes (example: 4chan /v/ archive -boards.4chan.org). Click on any of the top results, you should have some kind of search field you can enter the number into on that site. 4chan itself does not have any functionality for searching by post number because content is cycled too fast for that to be in any way useful to users. If you don't know what board the post is from then there's nothing you can do, since post numbers are just a sequential number to track posts on a particular board and are not unique across the whole site.

Generally 4chan is a very safe site as long as you don't click onto any unfamiliar sites linked by your fellow anons. If you're in doubt, use a VPN.

The thread will eventually hit its "Bump limit", which is different for each board. After this limit is reached, the thread will not be bumped back to the top, meaning the creation of new threads will eventually delete it from the site forever. Be sure to take an archive if you intend to use information from a thread at a later date.

You don't get notified, so just keep an eye on the thread (and refresh the page). If they are talking to you, they'll usually reference your post with ">>" followed by the post number.

You generally can't access 4chan with Tor. You can use any normal web browser.

No, since they check the image files. Just be sure not to click on links for unfamiliar websites.

Because the site contains pornographic and grotesque content, although that's largely contained inside the NSFW boards. The site's creator was 15 when he made the site, though.

You could trawl external 4Chan archives sites, but this would only help if the thread was stored in an archive, which would indicate that someone found it interesting enough to do so. Otherwise, all 4Chan threads disappear when they reach the bottom of the board, and their content is lost forever unless it was saved by an individual while the thread was still active.

If you know the name of the thread, you can narrow down search results by using the keywords used in the description of said thread. Other than that, it would be quite difficult to find one image, so you'd have to do some digging through archives to find it.

No. If you come across anything that's not legal, don't download it or be on the thread for a long time; the person who did do that will get in trouble.

At the top of every board, there is a "Start new thread" button. Click on that button, fill out the name (optional), title (also optional), and comment. After that, add a picture, fill out the Captcha, and click on "Post."

">" is used to make text green, making it stand out and be more noticeable than the average red/white text on the site.

All boards are listed on the homepage. In other words, besides the old futaba style text boards they used to have there are no hidden boards.

Nope. Any device that can access the Internet will do. It's a normal website, it just doesn't have typical content.

You could always use a VPN. Consult Use a VPN for a guide, if needed, on how to do so.

Malware is still malware, so any device could be affected. It is still best to stay clear of any malware links.

Creating your own boards on 4chan is impossible. Only an administrator can create, delete or modify the boards.

Intentionally posting nonsense replies to bump the topic to the top of the list.

It does, but it is not enabled by default. On any board's Standard page or Archive page (not the Catalog page), there is an option to change your settings on the top right of the page. Under the section "Quotes & Replying" enable "Inline quote links". This will allow you to show a "tree view" of replies by clicking individual quotes.

It means sorting by when posts were last replied to. The firsts posts are the ones that have the most recent replies.