Power the Volunteer Crawler Network
Help us rescue the disappearing early web. Deploy our open-source crawler on your machine and contribute bandwidth to preserve 1990–1999 web history.
Initialize Crawler ▸ View Setup GuideHow It Works
Distributed, lightweight, and completely volunteer-driven. Your machine becomes part of a global preservation mesh.
Create a Node Key
Register for free to receive a unique crawler identity. No credit card required. Your identity secures your contribution chain.
Install & Configure
Run our single-binary executable or container. Allocate bandwidth and storage limits that suit your connection. Set it and forget it.
Target Assignment
The mesh automatically routes forgotten URLs, dead mirrors, and archival gaps to your node. You never crawl modern commercial sites.
Verify & Earn Impact
Every page is checksummed, encrypted, and synced to our cold storage. Track your personal preservation impact in real-time.
Crawler Guidelines
We operate under strict ethical and technical boundaries to protect both living websites and historical integrity.
🌐 Era-First Crawling
Nodes only request URLs flagged from 1990–1999 archives, dead mirrors, or Wayback gaps. Modern active sites are excluded.
⏱️ Polite Rate Limits
Automated delays (3–10s between requests) and server load detection prevent stress on legacy infrastructure.
🔒 Zero Personal Data
Crawlers strip forms, cookies, and tracking endpoints. Only static HTML, images, and media relevant to historical context are stored.
📦 Open & Auditable
The crawler source is public. Every archived page is cryptographically signed and publicly verifiable on our transparency ledger.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. The crawler is optimized for Raspberry Pi, old laptops, and low-power servers. You can cap CPU, RAM, and bandwidth usage in the config file.
Yes. We only crawl public, historically flagged URLs with explicit rate limits. Traffic looks like normal archival bot behavior. We provide ISP disclosure letters if needed.
Run 1990-crawler pause to halt gracefully, or 1990-crawler stop to shut down. Your node key remains active for when you return.
Absolutely. Every archived page is tagged with your node key. You can view your personal contribution dashboard and earn digital preservation badges.
Ready to Preserve the Past?
Join 800+ volunteers keeping the original web alive. Installation takes 3 minutes. Your contribution lasts forever.
Request Node Key & Install ▸