Do you guys ever use the Internet Archive for anything? I agree that they’re doing a great job archiving things, but realistically, through time most of things which happened have been forgotten.

I use the Wikipedia like once a week to look something up, but I only ever used the Internet Archive to look at a early version of my own website. But never for anything else. But perhaps I’m missing out on something?

  • Resol van Lemmy@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Wayback Machine, all the time. Very useful if a reference link on Wikipedia is dead (why do websites just remove articles like that? It drives me nuts). Unfortunately it doesn’t handle JavaScript very well, rendering some functions of websites unusable, or breaking images. I particularly remember browsing the website for Al Jazeera Children’s Channel (which is jcctv.net by the way), they had a theme switcher which unfortunately uses JS, so… I’m stuck with the blue underwater theme for some reason. And yes, Al Jazeera did do lots of non-news related stuff at one point.

    The Internet Archive can be useful as well if you’re looking for a very niche thing that isn’t really available elsewhere. I usually use it for software, but at one point I tried searching it for an archive of Club Penguin’s game files. They also have lots of public domain stuff if you’re interested in that (friendly reminder: Steamboat Willie is part of it now).

  • Ejh3k@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    A lot of difficult to find movies are on there . That’s what I use it for.

  • lunarul@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I use the wayback machine a lot. The actual archive less often, but I’ve definitely used it to look up things that are otherwise hard to find.

  • norimee@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I use it all the time for books and audiobooks.

    But I must say, that I read A LOT and don’t want to always read the new and popular stuff. Especially if you leave mainstream and the big markets (US, UK and Europe) you can find a lot of great books by authors from smaller countries that are not available otherwise. Often the translations are out of print and never been available as ebook and the scanned and digitised version by the Internet Archive is the only one I can find.

    Ever tried to read the Chinese classic epos “Journey to the west” in full (not just the monkey King story)? It’s in the archive. Or have you heard of one of Surinames most important writers Cynthia McLeod or read the poetry collection of Guyanese writer Grace Nichols? Or a translation of Syrias most important Poet Adunis? The Internet Archive has it all. You just have to look for it.

    It also has the free domain classics from several other projects all in one place. And not to forget old movies and television. I recently watched “9 to 5” the feminist classic with Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lilly Tomlin there recently because no other streaming service had it.

    Of course if you are only into blockbusters and bestsellers, the Internet Archive can’t help you there.

  • Scio@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Constantly. And not just Wayback Machine. That’s probably the smaller portion completed to the obscure books, especially non-English archives

  • Kevin@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I use it a few times a week, usually while at work. Normally to visit a dead link or to find old or outdated info.

  • TheUniverseandNetworks@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    A long time ago I was repairing my dad’s camera, I found an article describing the exact fault & a link to how to fix it, but the link was dead.

    Used the wayback machine to find a text only copy of the fix (no pictures) which was enough.

    Was immensely proud that someone had had the idea to invent the IA & have been recommending it ever since.

  • BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I do - there are old sites that have gone off line that I search the Way Back Machine to look at. There are also lots of archived files available that I’ve used more than once (Amiga files for example, Usenet archives and even old magazines).

    It’s not really a day-to-day tool for everyone, but when you need it it’s irreplaceable.

  • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    It’s a trove of primary source material for historians. Even presuming you don’t personally use it yourself it’s a crucial archive of human history that all will benefit from

    • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Yea, without an archive the internet is probably the least permanent form of media we’ve invented so far

    • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Yeah, I used it extensively for researching for college papers. They had full newspapers from 100 years ago that I could find the exact advertisement for a concert of a little known composer. Plus there were all sorts of obscure books and old movies that were fantastic to track down. I was able to write a paper in a couple of days that would have taken months of inner library loans otherwise.

  • CaptainBasculin@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    I’ve been experimenting with trying to reverse engineer Overwatch 1. I was able to find lots of builds through Internet Archive when i was starting