Articles about Wayback Machine

The Wayback Machine has suffered a colossal security incident after the Internet Archive fell victim to a huge data breach.

Data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) says that a 6.4GB SQL file containing registered users’ authentication information has been shared. In all, 31 million email addresses have been found to be part of the database, and tests have shown the the data is genuine.

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You may remember that earlier this year Google took the decision to retire cache links from its search results. At the time this caused annoyance and frustration, but these feelings were tempered by the possibility of some form of future resurrection of the feature.

And now that time has come. Teaming up with the Internet Archive, Google search results now link back to cached Wayback Machine versions of pages in addition to the one that is currently live. The Internet Archive sees it as a continuation of its “commitment to preservation”.

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The DDoS cyber-attack currently targeting the Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine has entered its third day, causing intermittent disruptions in service. The nonprofit research library is best known for housing millions of historical documents, preserved websites, and media content.

The ongoing intrusion has involved the launch of tens of thousands of fake information requests per second, though the source of the attack remains unknown.

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Not everyone is running Windows 11 on their PC -- there are many who are not even running Windows 10. If you are one of a surprisingly large number of people still rocking an old version of Windows, you will be well aware that Windows Update no longer works.

The Windows Update Restored project can help though. This is an unofficial, community-led operation that makes it possible for Windows 95, NT 4.0, 98, Me, 2000 and XP users "to obtain updates like they used to".

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The Internet Archive began life back in 1996, and today it has copies of over 430 billion web pages accessible through its Wayback Machine, as well as collections of classic DOS games, console games, early Apple Mac and Windows programs, 1990s animated GIFs, and much more.

Now, in preparation for when Flash finally dies at the end of the year, the Archive has started emulating classic Flash animations, games and toys.

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Cloudflare’s Always Online service caches a static version of any sites that use it. Should a site’s server get taken offline for any reason, such as a DDoS attack, visitors will still be able to view a recent version of it.

Today Cloudflare announces it is joining forces with the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to make the web more reliable.

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When browsing the web, it can be frustrating to encounter a 404 error. You know the page isn’t there, but you don’t always know why. Has it been removed on purpose, by accident, or was it never there in the first place?

Well, Brave -- the browser from Brendan Eich, a former CEO of Mozilla -- is about to make 404 frustration a thing of the past, by giving you the chance to view the actual web page after it’s been removed.

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According to the Internet Archive, the average webpage lasts just three months before being altered or deleted. To prevent this data being lost for good, the team’s Wayback Machine saves a copy of web pages across time, allowing visitors to see how a site has looked at various points in its history.

I’ve found the Wayback Machine to be an invaluable tool on numerous occasions, but it’s now getting even better.

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