Andrew Heinzman
Tired of manually punching links into the Wayback Machine? As part of its newest update, the Brave desktop browser will automatically look up archived web pages when it encounters a broken or deleted website.
The Wayback Machine is, of course, one of the internet’s greatest archival tools. It’s like a museum for old or broken websites, and it’s used nearly every day by hobbyists, journalists, and the US judicial system. Its newfound integration in the Brave browser feels like an obvious choice, as both tools are meant to change how we use the internet.
But how does this Wayback Machine integration work? It’s simple, when the Brave browser detects that a web page is broken (through an error like “404 Not Found,” 408, 410, 451, 500, 502, etc), it prompts you to “Check for a Saved Version” of the website through the Wayback Machine. If any archived pages are available, they’re pulled up in your browser automatically.
For reference, Brave is the only browser with native Wayback Machine integration. But you can plug some Wayback Machine functionality, such as automatic lookups, into your browser via a Chrome, Firefox, or Safari extension (the Chrome extension should work on Edge, Opera, and other Chromium browsers).
Wayback Machine integration is only available in the Brave Browser 1.4 update, which you can find on Brave’s website. These features aren’t available on mobile versions of the Brave browser.
Reference: Archive.org, BleepingComputer
