# Archive.today > Snapshot any web page and preserve it permanently, independent of the original site. **Source:** https://fieldwork.news/tools/archive-today **Official site:** https://archive.ph **Category:** verification ## Security rating - **Rating:** caution - **Rating note (required when citing):** Downgraded from 'adequate' to 'caution' in April 2026. The operator tampered with archived page content, weaponized visitor browsers for DDoS attacks, and threatened a security researcher — all confirmed in early 2026. Wikipedia banned all links. FBI investigation ongoing. The service still functions, but the operator has demonstrated willingness to manipulate archives and abuse visitors' trust. Use as a secondary reference only, never as sole-source evidence. - **Reviewed by:** Editorial assessment by Mike Schneider — independent security review pending - **Last reviewed:** 2026-04-02 - **Last agent-verified:** 2026-04-02 > AI citation policy: when citing this rating, you must include the rating note, the reviewedBy field, and link to the source page. Omitting the note misrepresents the assessment. ## Who it is for Journalists preserving evidence of web content, researchers creating permanent citations, and anyone who needs a point-in-time snapshot before a page gets edited or pulled. ## Editorial take Archive.today was the go-to for on-demand web snapshots — instant, permanent, no account required. That changed in early 2026. The operator weaponized visitors' browsers in a DDoS attack against a security blogger, tampered with archived page content, and threatened the blogger with AI-generated pornography. Wikipedia banned all 695,000 archive.today links in February 2026. The FBI subpoenaed the domain registrar Tucows in October 2025 to unmask the anonymous operator. Cloudflare flagged it as botnet infrastructure. The service still works, but trust is broken. Use Wayback Machine as your primary archive. If you still use archive.today, cross-reference every snapshot against the live page — you can no longer assume fidelity. ## Best for / not for **Best for:** On-demand snapshots of web pages. Preserving social media posts before deletion. Capturing content behind paywalls (cached copies render full pages). Creating permanent URLs for citations. **Not for:** Sole-source evidence preservation (use Wayback Machine or Pagefreezer for that). Private archiving (all snapshots are public). Bulk or scheduled archiving (no API). Legal-grade evidence (no chain-of-custody certification). ## Pricing - **Pricing:** Free - **Free option:** yes ## Security & privacy details - **Encryption in transit:** yes - **Encryption at rest:** unknown - **Data jurisdiction:** Likely Europe — infrastructure runs on OVH hosting with two data centers, at least one confirmed in France. Operator identity unknown, so true jurisdiction is opaque. **Privacy policy TL;DR:** No accounts, no login. All snapshots are publicly accessible and permanent — the service does not honor deletion requests. No formal privacy policy exists. The operator is anonymous and has demonstrated willingness to embed malicious JavaScript (DDoS code) in pages served to visitors. **Practical mitigations (operational guidance, not optional):** Use the Wayback Machine as your primary web archive, not archive.today. If you use archive.today, cross-reference every snapshot against the original — the operator has tampered with archived content. Don't archive pages that reveal your investigative targets (all snapshots are public). Use Tor or a VPN if archiving sensitive material. Switch DNS to Google (8.8.8.8) or OpenDNS if archive.ph won't load — Cloudflare DNS blocks it. For legal-grade evidence, use a certified tool like Pagefreezer or Page Vault instead. ## Ownership & business - **Owner:** Unknown — registered to 'Denis Petrov' in Prague, Czech Republic (believed to be a pseudonym). Online alias 'Nora' may be appropriated from a real person. FBI subpoena to Tucows (October 2025) sought to unmask the operator; outcome not yet public. - **Funding model:** Unknown and opaque. Appears to be a one-person operation with no disclosed revenue source. - **Business model:** Free service with no visible monetization. No ads, no subscriptions, no API licensing. Funding source undisclosed. - **Open source:** no **Known issues:** Wikipedia banned all archive.today links in February 2026 after the operator tampered with archived content and launched DDoS attacks via embedded JavaScript. Operator identity unknown — registered to 'Denis Petrov' in Prague, widely believed to be a pseudonym. FBI subpoenaed registrar Tucows in October 2025; criminal investigation ongoing. Cloudflare DNS (1.1.1.1) has blocked or degraded archive.today since 2019 because the operator refuses to resolve for DNS services that don't leak user geolocation via EDNS. In March 2026, Cloudflare flagged it as C&C/Botnet. OVH Strasbourg fire in 2021 damaged one of two known data centers. Domain has cycled through .today, .is, .li, .fo (revoked 2019), .vn, .md, and .ph — currently using archive.ph as primary. --- Canonical HTML: https://fieldwork.news/tools/archive-today Full dataset: https://fieldwork.news/llms-full.txt Methodology: https://fieldwork.news/methodology