LINKWARDEN

Credit: https://linkwarden.app

Nick Peers is tired of losing websites to link rot and online attacks, so he’s discovered how to back up key web pages.

OUR EXPERT

Nick Peers has trawled more web pages than he cares to remember since the dawn of the World Wide Web in the 1990s. If only Linkwarden had been around from the beginning.

Where do websites go when they die? What happens to the old version of a site when it’s updated, and half its content is removed or changed? Thanks to the Wayback Machine (https://web.archive.org), many web pages can be brought back to life, and you can roll back through different versions of websites, too.

But what happens if the Wayback Machine itself dies? We had a nasty preview of that recently when a major DDoS attack on the Wayback Machine’s parent website Archive.org forced it offline for weeks. At time of writing, the site had only just been restored in read-only mode, while question marks remain over its long-term future due to court battles. This case highlights the dangers of putting your faith in cloud-based services. You need your own tool for collecting, organising and preserving web pages, and that’s where Linkwarden (https://linkwarden.app) comes in. This web-based tool is designed to collect web pages and bookmarks from any browser, then they then be downloaded in their current state for preservation. You can also tag your links and add them to collections to help organise them, and set up other users so friends, family and others can store their own pages and collaborate through shared collections.

Linkwarden’s dashboard provides you with quick and easy access to all your links, collections and tags – you can also customise how links are displayed.

How it works

Linkwarden exists in two forms. There’s a cloud-based version where your data is hosted online – if you don’t want the hassle of setting up your own instance, or you want an option accessible from anywhere that makes sharing and collaborating with others easy, then it may appeal. There is a subscription fee attached, but at $4 a month (or $36 for a year), it’s not onerous and is a great way to support the project and ensure future development. Get a feel by logging in to the online demo at https://demo.linkwarden.app/login or taking advantage of the 14-day free trial.

However, if you’re happy to get your hands dirty, you can follow our tutorial to set up your own self-hosted option for free. It includes all of Linkwarden’s core features while enabling you to keep your collections private and offline if you so wish.