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TrickyBird

Reference site

Unblock archive.org and open the snapshot you came for

Paste the address of the item or the snapshot you want and press Launch: archive.org opens in the tab you already have, on TrickyBird’s own address. Your browser does not connect to archive.org; its requests go to that address instead, which carries the Internet Archive’s address inside it, encoded rather than spelled out.

The advice that follows a blocked site always starts with installing something, and installing is the step a managed laptop, an office network or a shared connection takes away from you. A web proxy asks for none of it. It is a web page, and you are already allowed to open web pages.

The Archive carries through cleanly because of how it is built. An item page is finished on the Archive’s servers before your browser sees it, so its title, its description and its media rail arrive whole. A Wayback snapshot is a copy of a page as it stood on a date, kept by the Archive rather than by the site it came from, which is why it still opens when the original does not.

What to expect from Internet Archive

An item page arrives with its title, its description and its media rail. A snapshot opens with its images, its links and the Archive’s toolbar, and a moment the Archive does not hold resolves to the nearest capture it does, through the proxy as on a direct visit.

Is archive.org blocked on your network?

The check asks archive.org for one small file directly from your connection, not through TrickyBird, so your network can see that request like any direct visit.

One of our addresses, with the site’s encoded into it

The site loads in the tab you are already in, and this address will not always look the same, since sometimes it is only numbers.

How does TrickyBird open archive.org?

TrickyBird sits between your browser and the Internet Archive. It asks the Archive for the page you wanted, rewrites every address inside it so links, images and stylesheets run back through the proxy rather than out to archive.org, and hands the result to your tab. A small script rides along and catches whatever you click next, which is what keeps the step from one archived page to the next on TrickyBird’s address.

The Archive sees a request from TrickyBird’s server rather than from your IP address, and the network you are on sees a connection to TrickyBird. An item page needed no special handling at all: the Archive sends finished HTML and puts no bot check in front of a public item.

Reading a page as it stood, when it will not open now

The Wayback Machine is the part of the Archive that keeps dated copies of ordinary web pages, and it serves those copies itself. Launch a snapshot address through TrickyBird and the archived page arrives with the images captured alongside it, its links, and the Archive’s own toolbar across the top telling you which capture you are looking at. Following a link inside the snapshot keeps you on TrickyBird’s address rather than dropping you back onto the network you started from.

A snapshot address naming a moment the Archive does not hold resolves to the nearest capture it does hold, and it does that on a direct visit too. The date shown in your URL bar once the page settles is often a few hours off the one you typed. That is the Wayback Machine behaving normally rather than the proxy changing anything.

Why the Archive is out of reach on some networks

Usually because of a category rather than the Archive itself. Filters sort the web into groups, and a site whose whole job is to hold copies of other sites lands in more than one group at once, so a network that switches any of them off takes the Archive along. Nobody read the collections to decide that.

2 countries block it outright, which is a harder version of the same problem, because moving to another connection on the ground changes nothing. GreatFire, which measures from inside the country, records archive.org as blocked in mainland China since February 2011. In Turkmenistan the independent measurements are close to unanimous: 37 of 38 tests of archive.org failed, and 39 of 40 of the Wayback Machine, and the reason recorded beside them is that the Archive is a way to read a news story blocked everywhere else.

What stays with us while you read

While you read, the edge keeps a short access log to run the service and stop abuse: a shortened form of your IP address, the destination hostname, and basic response details, for at most 48 hours. There is no account here for any of those lines to attach to, and our privacy page covers the rest.

Questions

Does a Wayback snapshot open with its images?

Yes. An archived page arrives with the images the Archive captured with it, the links it had, and the Archive’s toolbar across the top. Those links keep running through TrickyBird as you follow them, so moving from one archived page to another does not put you back on the network that blocked you.

Do I need an Internet Archive account?

Not to read. Item pages and Wayback snapshots are public, and this page covers reading them. If you upload to the Archive or borrow from its lending library, use a connection where it loads without a detour.

Will it work on a laptop I am not allowed to change?

That is the case it is built for. TrickyBird is a web page, so opening it takes the same permission as opening any other page, and that permission is one a locked-down device still gives you. Office networks, shared Wi-Fi and managed devices are exactly where the difference shows.

Is archive.org blocked in mainland China?

Yes, according to GreatFire, which runs its tests from inside the country and records the block as running since February 2011. A measurement like that describes the country rather than one network inside it. The same sweep takes reference sites with it, which is why Wikipedia is here too.

What is the difference between archive.org and the Wayback Machine?

archive.org is the library: films, books, recordings and software that people have uploaded, each at its own address. The Wayback Machine is the part of it that stores dated copies of ordinary web pages. Both open the same way here, by pasting the address you already have.

Other sites people unblock

Open Internet Archive now

Press the button and the site opens in this tab. You do not need to install anything or create an account.