Archive.today links going forward

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Archive.today, a popular paywall-bypassing archiving site, is accused of injecting malicious redirects into archived pages, including links that lead to phishing, fake download prompts, and other shady domains instead of the original PDF targets. Commenters link this behavior to a broader pattern of troubling conduct, such as past use of visitors’ browsers for DDoS attacks and silent content alteration, and debate whether the service can still be trusted despite its value for preserving paywalled or mutable content. Alternatives like the Internet Archive and other tools are mentioned, but many note there is still no fully comparable replacement for archive.today’s functionality.

Evidence of malware/redirect behavior

  • Several users reproduced that specific archive.today links to PDFs (e.g., a “Filed on Tuesday” lawsuit link in an archived NYT article) intermittently redirect via archive.today’s /o/ endpoint to ad/phishing domains, fake GitHub or fake RT pages, and sites prompting downloads or shell/cURL commands.
  • Technical testing (shared by r/Seattle mods and HN commenters) showed the redirect coming from archive.today’s server, not from the original PDF host, especially when the PDF had no valid snapshot.
  • Behavior seemed to affect multiple unrelated PDF links, not just one site, and was sometimes region‑ or timing‑dependent; later, some users reported the redirects had stopped or now returned 429s.

Unclear cause vs. intentional behavior

  • Some commenters see this as likely misconfiguration or cache poisoning around how archive.today handles non-archived PDFs.
  • Others argue the pattern and the site’s history make “accident” less plausible and treat it as deliberate monetization or worse.
  • There is lingering uncertainty: origin-site trickery versus archive.today compromise or intent is debated, though the shared evidence leans toward archive.today injecting the redirect.

Moderator actions and communication

  • r/Seattle mods blacklisted archive.today links and posted a PSA.
  • Initial announcement lacked technical details, leading to skepticism, accusations of overreach, and calls for evidence.
  • A later detailed write-up with URLs and observations improved confidence for many, but some still criticize the initial tone, defensiveness, and limiting comments to flaired users.

Trust, prior incidents, and ethics

  • Commenters reference earlier reporting that archive.today used JavaScript in a CAPTCHA to enlist visitors’ browsers in a DDoS against a critic, and that Wikipedia banned the service afterward.
  • Some justify that earlier attack as retaliation against attempted doxing; others say malware/DDoS is unacceptable regardless of motive.
  • Concerns are raised about archive.today editing archived content and the general risk of trusting opaque operators versus institutions like the Internet Archive.

Alternatives, paywalls, and broader implications

  • Archive.today is valued for bypassing paywalls and preserving deletable content; some will keep using it cautiously, others say this is the final straw.
  • Alternatives mentioned include the Internet Archive, wallhop, periscope, ghostarchive, paywall workarounds (e.g., user-agent tricks, disabling JS), and Reddit-scraper frontends.
  • A side thread explores copyright constraints, AI-generated summaries as a legal workaround, and whether AI training on archives could be poisoned by such manipulations.