reading defunct webcomics

All the time. For websites that are no longer online, it’s invaluable, what’s the alternative?

Things which happened get forgotten because they’re deleted. If something like Internet Archive exists that’s no longer a problem.

I just bought and restored some older but well-built deck furniture. Each piece had a badge on it with a company name and URL, but the site is long gone. Popped it into the wayback machine and instantly learned all about the furniture, its maker, and how much it cost back in the day, which was really neat.

through time

Dude, you’re saying this as though the internet has been around for millennia. And as if you’ve never been to / heard of a library.

I’ve downloaded a ton of music videos to create my own self-hosted MTV station. I’ve downloaded music and books. I’ve used it to view non-paywalled (NYT) articles shared on Lemmy. I live in Philadelphia so I’ve used it to look up the earliest version of the “yellow pages” or “white pages” from the 1800s. I’ve searched for the videos they used to show us in elementary school on 16mm - stuff about the expansion of the USA, the national parks, history of my state or city, etc. I’ve used it to look up tv commercials from the 1980s for a bit of nostalgia and older tv shows that people have uploaded from their personal VHS collection. Some people just upload personal stuff that’s entirely mundane but voyeuristically interesting. And I’m certain I haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s on there.

Pretty much any book you want to read for free, you can borrow from them. I use it very frequently to grab sections of some book I’m interested in or want to cite but don’t have a physical copy of.

They also have awesome documentaries. The Mine Wars is, I think, one I saw not that long ago which was pretty sweet.

I do not donate to them for using all this awesome stuff, even though I probably should.

Was searching for a 3d model to print some months ago.

I spotted one after a while but the download available was only for an updated version, and needed the old version.

Managed to pull off the old download link from the archive and get the file. I was pretty stoked that it worked.

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.

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

They’ve got a lot of old manuals scanned in, so I use it to reference those a lot.

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

Lots of sites and companies that have gone out is business can still be found there when I need info they published in the past.

There is an official polish Neon Genesis Evangelion voiceover that aired on TV once. All the other versions are with subtitles.

I use it quite often. I can still download some books from The Trove (RIP), it also has all sorts of abandonware and console rom collections. It also has a decent collection of gaming magazines and CDs that would come bundled with them. There’s also an incredible variety of books in there, and older programming books always catch my attention.

I’ve also watched the 1930 All Quiet on the Western Front film there. It’s the kind of thing that pirate sites and streaming services don’t bother with, because there’s no demand.

Yeah! When sites no longer exist or have reorganized so that pages aren’t where they were… the wayback machine becomes very useful!

Sure. Every few weeks I absolutely need it. Most of the times it’s the wayback machine, looking up stuff that vanished from the internet. Or what’s been on my homepage two years ago. Or what a company offered last year to compare it to the current price. Occasionally I download some old DOS games, manuals, books or audio files.

And I sometimes use the wayback machine to bypass paywalls.