There is an organization whose mission has been to preserve over 835 billion web pages, 44 million books, 10.6 million videos, and more since 1996 is Internet Archive. The goal was to protect universal knowledge for generations to come so that they could explore their heritage. Their mission is to deliver historical information to everyone who has difficulty with physical books.
It also values the privacy of the patrons, avoids keeping their IP addresses, and follows the protocol. However, it might get confusing how to navigate through the website and access all the information. So, in this article, we’ll go through the top 5 Internet Archive alternatives that best suit your needs.
Part 1. What is Internet Archive?
The Internet Archive is a digital library where you can access cultural artifacts in digital form. This includes free access to researchers, books, audio, video, software, and images to the public. Moreover, the website was originally founded by Brewster Kahle, who strives to preserve 28+ years of information.
There are different services with this organization that consider all the information and data. For example, old-time radio, music, news, etc., come under two services: Live Music Archives and Librivox Free Audio. Similarly, Wayback Machine allows users to see archived versions of web pages across time and many more. This website provides you with advanced search, top collection, and archive news on its main website page.
Part 2. How is Internet Archive Legal?
It operates legally through a combination of different copyright laws and partnerships with different content creators and rights holders. Any infringements, copyrighted material, and violations of the DMCA are immediately removed from its website. Moreover, various activities fall under the doctrine of fair use, which allows limited use of copyrighted material for research and education purposes.
This organization collaborates with libraries, universities, and other organizations to legally digitize and preserve data for future generations. Most of the collection is open to the public domain, meaning they are free from copyright restrictions, and anyone can access them.
Part 3. Why Look for Internet Archive Alternatives?
Although Internet Archives offer many excellent features and millions of data, journals, books, and audio, there are some complications. The following are some of the reasons why people look for other websites like Internet Archive:
- Extensive Collection: The Internet Archive has an overwhelming collection of material that might confuse many people. However, this website does not have various rare and historical categories or specific areas of books or material.
- Regional Accessibility: Some regions are unable to access this website to the fullest extent as it is legally restricted in those areas. The policy of Internet Archive provides these areas with broader access options, and they can access only a portion of its material.
- User Interface: Another reason to consider alternatives to Internet Archiveis because its interface is cluttered and confusing. Other alternatives will offer you much faster loading screens, a search bar, and better technical requirements.
- Advanced Tools: This website is not updated with the latest and advanced features, which may disrupt the ability to find material. With different sites like Archive.org, you can get access to better search capabilities, categorization, downloading options, and more.
Part 4. Top 5 Websites Like Internet Archive
In this section, we’ll look at various Internet Archive alternatives that offer the same array of services as Internet Archive but better. This way, you’ll be able to choose the best one that suits your needs and requirements. We have listed the top 5 web Archive.org alternatives in the following section, along with their pros and cons.
1. Project Gutenberg
The first alternative to the Internet Archive is Project Gutenberg, which Michael S. Hart created in the 1970s to preserve information. This website consists of over 70,000 eBooks from 50 years old till today. Moreover, the literature here has been proven by the U.S. copyright claims and diligently proofread by experts. You can choose to download various EPUB and Kindle eBooks for free or read them online.
If you feel confused about downloading Kindle books as PDF, please have a check.
Pros
- There is no fee for registration, and users can download any type of book in PDF or EPUB for free.
- This website can be used on any device and browser, and you don’t need to download any special app to access and read eBooks.
Con
- There can be issues with the DRM of the eBooks and audiobooks on this website.
2. Open Library
Open Library is another Internet Archive alternative, which is an open project website where you can download, borrow, and preview eBooks. Moreover, this website has gathered over 20 million records from various large catalogs for you to choose from. The advanced search feature of this website lets you search for any eBook or access the collection or list. You can choose books in different categories, such as horror, romance, textbooks, etc.
Pros
- With the virtual library, you can neatly organize your collection of books in a proper system.
- Open Library can be used to set yearly reading goals to build a healthy reading habit.
Con
- There are a few eBooks available for free to download, and you can only preview or borrow them.
3. Standard eBooks
Standard eBooks is a volunteer-driven website where new editions of free eBooks are produced for the public domain, free of any U.S. copyright restrictions. Additionally, this website takes eBook sources from different websites, proofreads and corrects them, and creates a new edition of the book. This website has well-researched and consistent metadata, which includes original and detailed book blurbs and links to encyclopedia sources.
Pros
- This website does not use DRM technology, and you can amend eBooks according to your needs.
- You can set different filters, like subject, keyword, view, and more to get the best eBook results.
Con
- The website is prone to viruses, and it occasionally crashes while downloading large files.
4. ArchiveBox
ArchiveBox is a powerful, self-hosted Internet Archive alternative where you can collect, save, and view browser history, pocket, pinboard, etc. Furthermore, this tool does a great job as a centralized service and saves copies of bookmarks, backup photos, and media from YT. You can also install this tool on Linux, macOS, and Windows and can use it as a CLI tool or one-off command.
Pros
- This Internet Archive alternative saves snapshots of the URLs in several redundant formats, like HTML, JSON, PDF, and more.
- ArchiveBox creates a snapshot folder for each web page added, and it preserves its content as ordinary files inside the folder.
Con
- This website can face DRM copyright claims on some websites and URLs.
5. OceanofPDF
OceanofPDF is a good website like Internet Archive, where you can download free eBooks in PDF and EPUB formats without any error. Moreover, it does not require you to sign in or register to access its large collection of books in various categories. You can also search for any books using the search bar or select the latest releases, magazines, web novels, and more.
Pros
- The user interface of OceanofPDF is easy to navigate through, even for total beginners.
- You can download and share books from this website for free on Facebook, WhatsApp, and more.
Con
- Due to potential broken links or incomplete files, there is the possibility of inconsistent quality of eBooks.
Part 5. Enhancing Your Digital Content Experience with Afirstsoft PDF
Now that we have discussed the top 5 Internet archive alternatives, we can move forward with personalizing your PDF book. Any book lover can experience immersive reading sessions by using a PDF editor to customize books according to their needs. Therefore, Afirstsoft PDF is perfect for this job as it offers robust editing and annotating features.
Other than that, you can emphasize different paragraphs and lines in PDF by underlining and highlighting them in various colors. You can also boost their readability by adding 100+ stickers in different categories to make them more engaging. In addition, Afirstsoft PDF provides users with a high compatibility rate with different devices such as Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and Web. Now, let’s dive into comprehensive steps to enhance your digital content by using Afirstsoft PDF:
Step 1. Download Afirstsoft PDF and Add the eBook
From the original website, download and install Afirstsoft PDF on your device and open its main interface. From the left-side panel, locate and click the “open” file icon to import the desired eBook file.
Step 2. Personalize PDF with Advanced Annotating Features
On the new editing interface, go to the top bar and select the “Comment” tab to reveal its options. Now, you can personalize your PDF by using the highlight, underline, and stickers feature according to your requirements.
Wrapping Up
In the end, we discussed Internet Achieve in-depth and understood its different characteristics and aspects. Although this website provides various data such as videos, audio, software, and more, it still faces multiple disadvantages.
For this reason, people are converting to similar websites like Internet Archives to access different eBooks and other media sources. We also looked at a PDF editor that can enhance your reading session. Afirstsoft PDF is the optimum all-in-one PDF editing and annotating software.
