Archive.org, a non-profit digital library that preserves web pages, has announced extensions for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox web browsers.
The organisation’s Internet archive (or Wayback Machine, as it is popularly called) indexes over 400 million deleted websites and makes them available to the public.
To access old or deleted website iterations, users previously had to visit Archive.org directly. But Chrome and Firefox will now automatically prompt users to consult the archive when they land on an outdated URL, provided the extension is installed.
Internet archive
The Wayback Machine extension allows Chrome and Firefox users to load the first ever version of the website, the most recent saved version or a list of all archived snapshots.
Users will also be given the option to contribute to the resource by saving and uploading a snapshot of the current website.
Last week, Brave Browser – a privacy-focused web browser – also integrated the service. Unlike Chrome or Firefox, the feature is built into Brave Browser’s latest version.
