From nothing to the storefront
Reaching Nexus takes five steps and only one of them is ever skipped, which is the check that keeps people off phishing pages. Work through them in order the first time and the rest becomes routine.
1. Install Tor Browser from the Tor Project
Download it only from the official Tor Project website and verify the signature the first time. Then raise the security level to Safest. A normal browser cannot open a .onion address at all, and a copy of Tor Browser from a random link is not something to trust with this.
2. Copy a verified address
Take one from the links page and never type a fifty-six character onion by hand. A single wrong character can land you on a lookalike that somebody registered for exactly that mistake.
3. Open it and read the address back
When the login page loads, compare the onion in your address bar against the one printed on the page. Nexus embeds it in the anti-phishing image and repeats it in the header. If the two do not match, close the tab.
4. Create the account carefully
Pick a username you have used nowhere else, generate a long unique password in a local manager, and write the recovery phrase on paper. Turn on PGP two-factor so a stolen password on its own opens nothing.
5. Keep a second address handy
Bookmark this page. When a mirror is slow, you want a verified alternative ready rather than searching for one, because that search is exactly how people land on phishing clones.
If a mirror will not open
Almost always a tired Tor circuit or a short flood against that address rather than the market being gone. Request a new circuit and reload, restart Tor Browser if that changes nothing, then try a different address from the link list. Waiting a few minutes beats going looking, because that search is where clones catch people.