Web Archives is a GPL-3.0 licensed browser extension, written in JavaScript, that finds archived and cached versions of web pages and is aimed at anyone who needs to reach a page that no longer exists in its original form.
What it is
Web Archives is an open source browser extension that enables users to find archived and cached versions of web pages. It lives in the browser extension ecosystem and ships for Chrome, Edge and Safari according to the project description, with Firefox also named in the repository's topic list. Searches can be started from the browser's context menu and from the browser toolbar, so a lookup happens in place rather than through a separate service.
The concrete problem it solves is the manual routine of tracking down a copy of a page after the original has changed, gone offline or been removed. Rather than opening each archive or cache service one at a time and pasting the same URL into every one of them, the extension queries the configured sources from a single entry point. The project maintains a full list of supported search engines on its wiki, and the repository topics name the Wayback Machine and Yandex among the archive and cache sources in scope.
Key capabilities
- Searches are initiated from the browser context menu and from the browser toolbar.
- Multiple archive and cache search engines are supported, including sources named in the topics such as the Wayback Machine and Yandex.
- Supported search engines can be toggled and reordered from the extension's options.
- A complete list of supported search engines is maintained on the project wiki at
dessant/web-archives/wiki/Search-engines.
- Builds are described for Chrome, Edge and Safari, and the topic list also records
firefox-extension.
- The source is released under the GNU General Public License v3.0, with copyright held by Armin Sebastian and covering 2017 to 2026.
- Development is funded by community contributions through Patreon, PayPal and Bitcoin.
Who uses it and how
- Users who hit a dead link or an error page can query the configured archive sources without leaving the tab they are working in.
- Users who suspect a page changed can compare the live page against an archived copy retrieved from the same context menu or toolbar.
- Safari users install the extension through the App Store listing, which the project lists as its homepage.
- Users who only care about a subset of sources can switch off the rest in the options panel, which keeps the one-click lookup short.
- The extension is a client-side tool with no server component, so it works on any machine where the browser build is installed.
Getting started
The Safari build is installed from the App Store listing linked as the project homepage, at apps.apple.com/us/app/web-archives-for-safari/id1603181853. Chrome and Edge users install the browser extension directly, and the source is available in the GitHub repository under GPL-3.0.
How it compares
The facts provided do not name any paid products that this project replaces, and they do not name any similar tools either. Web Archives therefore stands alone in this registry, and no comparison against other entries can be supported by the information given.
When to use it — and when not to
There is no database, object storage or SMTP server for a self-hoster to operate: this is a browser extension, not a hosted service, so the operational burden is limited to installing and configuring it. It is the wrong choice for anyone who wants to capture and preserve their own snapshots of pages, because it retrieves copies that already exist in third-party archives and caches rather than creating new ones. Two documented weaknesses are worth noting: the README is sparse and defers the list of supported engines to the wiki, and the description names Chrome, Edge and Safari while the topic list also includes Firefox, so browser support is not stated unambiguously in the repository itself.
