With the ambition to provide “Universal access to all human knowledge”, Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat developed the Wayback Machine. The Wayback Machine, also known as Internet archives, is a digital library of the world wide web, also known as W3 which is a part of the internet. The world wide web contains public websites and web pages. The Wayback Machine works by securing collected copies of non-functioning web pages. This is indeed a boon to humankind as it allows the users to go back to a particular date and see how the web pages looked like in the past. The Wayback machine has solved the problem of losing website content whenever it gets changed or when a website crash by taking screenshots of millions of web pages on a daily basis.
In 2017, the Indian government banned internet archives along with 2,600 sites and said that it attacks digital privacy. The Madras High court was approached by distributors of Jab Harry met Sejal and Lipstick under Burka to win the fight against digital piracy.
Access to the Wayback Machine all the times is an integral part of this digital world. With the ever increasing cyber crimes it is difficult to handle critical scenarios such as catching liars, without having access to the Wayback Machine.
Thankfully, this world is a place of dualities- Summer and winter, Day and Night, etc. In simple terms, what I mean is that every problem comes with a solution. Sometimes the solution to one problem could be many. When one door closes we can get out of the problem through another door. And to this problem mentioned above, I’ve listed down the top 8 best websites similar to the Wayback Machine. These top 8 best websites are free alternatives to the Wayback Machine. There are numerous internet archives available in the present market. But only a handful of them made it to the list of best Wayback Machine alternatives.
1 CachedView.com – Google Web Cache
Google web cache is a collection of copies of original webpages stored by the google as back-up. The goal is to serve users in the time of difficulties such as:
a) Closing down of the original website.
b) Slow loading of the original website.
c) Overloading of the original website.
d) original website got banned in some regions.
4 billion people use Google Chrome for browsing the internet, where Google is the default search engine. Hence, google crawls a huge number of websites daily and takes snapshots of all the content available. Google Chrome got its versatility because of being mobile-friendly. Not only desktop browsers but also mobile browsers store information in an archive for future uses. You can use Google Web Cache, Archive.org Cache, and Live Version options from CachedView.
CachedView.com is the official archive of Google. CachedView.com is reliable as google gets a huge traffic everyday.
2 Archive.today – Webpage Archive
Archive.today, formerly known as Archive.is, works in two ways. It collects copies of a webpage by taking two snapshots- one snapshot of the written content and the second snapshot of functional links present in that webpage. The first snapshot is called a “screenshot” and the other is called a “webpage”. Even though it is one of the oldest Wayback Machine alternatives it has a huge demand for web archiving.
3 Screenshots.com – Screenshot history for any website
This Wayback Machine alternative captures the screen of the device, hence provides the exact content of the webpage. This is a cached website alternative with more than 250 million screenshots, hence it is considered as one of the best Wayback Machine alternatives.
4 DomainTools
When you submit a URL in the search box then DomainTools provides complete details about that domain. DomainTools is used to turn threat data into threat intelligence by providing risk assessments. It has made its way into the list of best Wayback Machine archives by providing both domain detailes and screenshot history. Screenshot based web cache is one of the free services provided by DomainTools.
5 Memento TimeTravel
Memento is an object used as a reminder of an event. But here it means digital images of a webpage taken. You can find mementos in web archives such as Archive.today, Archive-IT, Internet archive, British library, and many more which are frequently updated. Memento TimeTravel is an advanced version of Archive.is so you can choose any internet archive of your choice and view it on Archive.is
6 PageFreezer – How to Archive a Website
PageFreezer crawls websites like Google. PageFreezer is SaaS platform which works on fully automated process to take snapshots. It doesn’t require any software installation.
key features of PageFreezer are:
a) Live browsing
b) Legal evidence
c) Digital signature
d) Web page comparison
e) Data export
The benefit of using PageFreezer is that it protects website records without losing anything.
PageFreezer is a paid platform. To use all of its features you have to buy a subcription plan after the trial period gets over.
7 Stillio Automatic Screenshots
Similar to PageFreezer, it is also an automated snapshots taker and has a limited edition. The key features of this Wayback Machine alternative are:
a) Website archiving
b) Tracking of competition
c) verification of content
d) Trend tracking
e) SEO tracking
f) Website assessment
8 Peeep.us
Peeep.us is different from other Wayback Machine as it peeps at private websites and takes snapshots. This feature is used to create links to protected pages. The working technique of Peeep.us is similar to that of Screenshots.com. To have access to Peeep.us you must log in with your Google account. From being a URL shortener it made its way to archiving webpages.
CONCLUSION
Why do we need web archiving?
- Legal Requirements
- Creating a Reliable Backup
- Safeguarding Businesses from False Claims
- Protection of Intellectual Property
- Boosting Your Marketing Strategy
- Institutional Memory
Unquestionably, the two best Wayback Machine alternatives out of these top 8 best options are CachedView and Archive. is as these are highly reliable and free to use.
