Internet is changing at a frantic pace. The websites are constantly updated, are the subject of redesign and in some cases, information is lost in the transfer. Finding the history of a website or an old version of a web page can sometimes save your life.
When a site is purely deleted or if its new version no longer include certain pages or that the latter is reduced, some information may miss you. Online archive sites allow you to consult old versions of certain websites, captured at an instant T.
The information of these archives is available for those who want to consult it, and is used by historians or the single curious. However, these times to go up time has limits, such as slowness or lack of data for many websites.
The tools of this article were selected by our team and are not sponsored. Discover how Sponsor your tool.
What are online archive sites for?
Being able to take a look in the rear view mirror can be useful, for find inspiration in terms of design In old websites or access media files that are no longer available.
You can especially access information that has been lost over time, such as one of your favorite websites is put out of line: you can undoubtedly find a copy on an archive site.
Finally, by consulting archived sites, you can, if you are in an undemocratic country, bypass the censorship imposed by the government, or the ISPs.
Beyond these “practical” reasons, it is important to keep a trace of the web as it was and as it is today. The internet archives fulfill a function similar to that of libraries, allowing us to take a look at the past and see how things have evolved over time.
Let's see together some of these sites that allow you to go back in time.
Archive.TODAY
Archive.fi is an online tool that helps you create a copy of a web page. This copy will remain online, even if the original is deleted.
The application saves a text and a graphic copy of the page, and provides a shortened link to an unalterable recording of any web page.
Pagefreezer
Pagefreezer is a SaaS service that allows you to archive blogs, websites and social media. It helps financial services and companies to capture online conversations, ensures risks monitoring.
PageFreezer allows you to validate the authenticity and integrity of your documents and can collect dynamic web content in real time.
Archive.org – Wayback Machine
The Internet Archive is a non -profit organization that is devoted to the creation of a digital library of websites, books, audio recordings, videos, images and even software. Its “Wayback Machine” tool allows you to find the history of a website and the old versions of the web pages of the latter.
If you are looking to save a little time, the Internet archives even hosts emotional versions of old games to which you can play directly from your browser. The site stores more than 946 billion pages!
Just enter the URL of the website you want to consult and the site will show you a graphic of the backup frequency of this website over the years. By clicking on a specific year in this graph, you will access the copies of the site.
To give you an idea of the extent of these archives, Archive.org saved nearly 1900 copies of the Coder.com home page!
Oldweb.tody
Oldweb.tody is a service that allows you to load copies of old websites, while emulating old browsers to give you a complete experience. If you have never had the joy of using Netscape or the misfortune to sail using the Internet Explorer, Oldweb.Tody can help you overcome this vacuum left in your life.
The site draws from several archive sources and as you can suspect, the emulation of old navigators Combined with data extraction of these different sources requires time. You are sometimes brought to a queue before you can access what you have asked for. But once the wait is completed, the service will launch a emotional version of the browser you have chosen, displaying the website you wanted to see.
Library of the US Congress
There Congress Library Shelters the largest collection of books, recordings, newspapers and websites in the world. Its collection of websites, however, works differently from previous sites.
If you try to search for a specific site using the library “search” function, you will come across a list of random results.
On the other hand, you can browse the archives themselves, without carrying out a search. The library indeed offers a system of in -depth categories which allows a theme research, which others do not allow you to do.
And if you are tired of Image stock sitesthis library houses a very beautiful collection of images that you are free to use, sometimes without award.
Do you want to create your website or improve it? Find freelance developers on Coder.com !