Conifer for Web

Quick summary

Conifer (formerly WebRecorder) is a free, nonprofit-powered web archiving tool from Rhizome that captures interactive versions of web pages. It’s designed to preserve dynamic content — audio, video, embedded media, complex JavaScript, and user-driven interactions — so pages that rely on running scripts or on-click behavior can be replayed later.

What it captures and how it works

• It records a live, replayable copy of the pages you visit, including scrolling, media playback, and link clicks.
• Complex sites that traditional crawlers miss (for example those with user-specific content or heavy JavaScript) are restaged more faithfully by Conifer’s approach.
• The platform provides pre-configured browser environments that run on Conifer’s servers to capture full network activity and legacy elements (Flash support where still needed).

Storage, sharing, and downloads

• Each user gets up to 5 GB of archive storage to organize and share collections.
• You can save a capture into a private collection, share it with selected people, or publish it publicly.
• All archives are exportable as WARC files; any archive can be downloaded regardless of its visibility setting. Keep in mind that public collections may be downloaded by anyone, so don’t publish captures that contain sensitive personal credentials.

Practical considerations and limitations

• Because Conifer is operated by a nonprofit, its long-term availability depends on grants, donations, and volunteer effort. Service continuity can fluctuate.
• The server-side browser snapshots and deep capture features are powerful, but the project’s resources are limited compared with commercial services.

Suggestions and next steps

• Use Conifer to preserve important or ephemeral pages, especially if they include interactive features that simple crawlers won’t grab.
• Consider donating or volunteering if you rely on the service frequently, to help sustain development and uptime.
• Be cautious when making archives public — remove or avoid capturing credentials and private information.

Other options to consider

• DuckDuckGo — a free, privacy-focused search engine that can help you find resources without tracking.
• Tools for collecting and revisiting webpages — alternative archiving or bookmarking services exist if you need different storage, policies, or support models.