Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library that provides free access to a vast collection of texts, movies, music, and various other media. The platform's mission is to offer universal access to all knowledge, enabling users to borrow and share a wide range of digital content. Among its key features is the Wayback Machine, which allows users to view archived versions of websites, making it a valuable resource for researchers, educators, and the general public.
The company serves a diverse customer base, including students, academics, and anyone seeking free access to a variety of media and historical data. By digitizing and preserving cultural artifacts, Internet Archive plays a crucial role in maintaining the availability of information in an increasingly digital world, ensuring that users can access valuable resources without financial barriers.
The Internet Archive garners a mixed response from users, with many praising its extensive collection of books and resources. Reviewers highlight the site's value as a unique library experience, offering access to rare and out-of-print titles, which many find invaluable.
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The ability to play games and read historical texts adds to its appeal, making it a favorite among book lovers and casual users alike. However, significant complaints arise regarding the site's performance, with numerous users reporting slow loading times, even on stable internet connections. Additionally, customer service receives harsh criticism, with some users expressing frustration over unresponsive support. While many appreciate the site's offerings, the performance issues and customer service challenges detract from the overall experience.
Each source counts by its number of reviews. Only reviews written by people are scored.
Rating, volume, share of the score, six-month trend and fake-review risk for each source
Source
Rating
Reviews
Weight
6-mo
Fake risk
★
Trustpilot
Imported Trustpilot reviews
3.4
61
100%
-2.3
● Low
3.4 / 5 overall
=
61 reviews across 1 scored source
How fake risk works ⓘ
Reputation trend
Monthly average rating from reviews written by people · latest review Jun 2025.
Last 3 months
2.7▼ 2.3
12-month avg
3.8
All-time
3.4
Category avg
3.9
Monthly averageCategory average
Monthly average rating and review count
Month
Average
Reviews
Aug 24
5.0
1
Sep 24
3.7
3
Oct 24
—
0
Nov 24
—
0
Dec 24
3.4
5
Jan 25
5.0
1
Feb 25
—
0
Mar 25
5.0
3
Apr 25
—
0
May 25
2.0
1
Jun 25
3.0
2
What people praise & complain about
Share of positive (4–5★) and negative (1–2★) reviews mentioning each topic · based on the 61 most recent reviews.
Top praiseof 36 positive reviews
Website & app47%
17 mentions
Fast & efficient8%
3 mentions
Customer service8%
3 mentions
Prices & value6%
2 mentions
“One thing I love about this website is the fact that I can play games, even flash games, at school, cause stupid Secu...”
On “Website & app” · Mar 25, 2025
Top complaintsof 21 negative reviews
Customer service14%
3 mentions
Payment issues10%
2 mentions
Slow10%
2 mentions
Defective product10%
2 mentions
“Worst customer service possible”
On “Customer service” · Dec 31, 2024
How it compares
Same method for every company: overall rating, legitimacy checks, the average rating of reviews mentioning each area and the 6-month trend · Non-Profit Organizations.
Overall rating and review count for this company and similar companies
They have a lot of content. A serious amount of free content. I have revised my review because their service is really good. Previously I had a problem with slow speed of the site. Sometimes that still happens, but the wealth of content and the quality of service more than make up for it. Please keep up the good work and continue to improve.
Anyone can write a CrowdTrust review. People who write reviews have ownership to edit or delete them at any time, and they'll be displayed as long as an account is active.
I've had an account on the IA for over 9.5 years. I love their philosophy of archiving vast amounts of very important data and making it freely available for everyone.
Their website isn't the most user friendly but it does get the job done. That's why I put 4 and not 5 stars.
HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO ACESS THIS SITE FOR 2 WEEKS., THEY HAVE ZERO BACKUP, INFORMATION, OR ANY INTEREST IN RECTIFYING THE PROBLEM;WORKED BRIEFLY THEN FAILED AGAIN, THEY KEEP TELLING ME ITS MY BROWSER. THEY ARE TRUELY AWFUL
Im researching stuff in wisconsin. So I will type in said town plus wisconsin and just get a ton of Wisconsin stuff. Not seeing away to refine search for specific multiple words. This sucks cause it would refine so much specifics.
Love the Wayback Machine. It's pretty good, it doesn't save XML documents well which is something they could improve upon. They're all far too quick to remove sites from the Wayback Machine.
This is cause for concern because this can make it quite hard to dig up a company's dirty path. I've seen many unethical sites exclude themselves from Wayback machine to hide how unethical they are. Hopefully Wayback machine will improve upon this as well.
I am NOT impressed with the reader. Why does
the say 55 for paranathy when characters talk.
Can't say arrrggg when talking has to say all the
letters just like hnnnnn when he should make the
sound of a donkey instead saying all the letter.
I can't listen this book anymore. I am returning it and I doubt I will burrow anymore.
Listening to him will drive me up a wall. He IS so annoying.
Found their tool to find defunct (no longer existing) websites. Use to use one and wondered what happened. Still gone, but was able to see screenshots of the old site. ALSO, WOW WOW WOW! Old magazines, books, movies, and SOFTWARE are all legal! Such an incredible resource.
Internet Archive is a good site.In terms of it isn't too rights issues re tv shows,one major problem is it's very slow to gain views on uploads. You can wait days to get even one or two views sometimes.So it's frustrating in terms of that.If you aren't looking for instant hits and views though I would recommend this site overall.
I make a lot of research on the internet and I often use Archive.org. But almost every time I use the Way Back Machine I get disappointed.
Mostly I see this message:
"Hrm.
The Wayback Machine has not archived that URL.
This page is not available on the web
because of server error"
The stored websites are missing so much, I almost never can see the pictures and if I can see the pictures it is often just the thumbnail and a lot of links are broken. It should not be a difficult task to grab images?
I will look for another alternative.
This page/"organisation" is absolute joke. Why would you have a biggest library if you can't control speed trafic and almost everything is unaccessible? Also, what is the point of donation if you won't get any privilege? To watch 1h30min video it takes 4 hours. Because you don't get a decent speet to buffer video even if you stop it for a while. Eventually you lost your plot and just switch it off. Very disappointed.
WOW! After getting a few million dollars from donations, you limit the request rate , great! This was a 10/10 service, but i hope it does not go to downhill....
What a great find! Just by pure chance I stumbled across Archive.org and was just so excited to start searching the online archives. It took me a little while to get my bearings of how/what and where to start my searches (hence the 4 stars rather than 5) but I’m now a little more familiar with the process.......I have so many avenues of searching that I want to go down. Art is my main passion and that will be my most ‘trusted’ path to begin with.......my adventures await!
Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library that provides free access to a vast collection of texts, movies, music, and various other media. The platform's mission is to offer universal access to all knowledge, enabling users to borrow and share a wide range of digital content. Among its key features is the Wayback Machine, which allows users to view archived versions of websites, making it a valuable resource for researchers, educators, and the general public.
The company serves a diverse customer base, including students, academics, and anyone seeking free access to a variety of media and historical data. By digitizing and preserving cultural artifacts, Internet Archive plays a crucial role in maintaining the availability of information in an increasingly digital world, ensuring that users can access valuable resources without financial barriers.