AMBER
Amber
is a tool for blogs & websites to keep linked content accessible
If a link on your website were to go down, Amber provides your visitors with a snapshot of that link.
There is no need for your visitors to download anything. It all just happens seamlessly and automatically.
Mobile compatibility provides all visitors with the ability to view these snapshots.
Amber
is a tool for blogs & websites to keep linked content accessible
Amber runs directly on your website, storing snapshots as you link.
You can configure the snapshot storage and delivery preferences to fit the needs of your website and visitors.
Amber
is a tool for blogs & websites to keep linked content accessible
Ensure the content to which you link never vanishes down the memory hole.
Mailing List
The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society uses this list to communicate major announcements about Amber.
Download Amber
Join the Mailing List
What's
the Problem?
The
Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society
wants to keep linked content accessible.
Whether links fail because of
DDoS attacks
censorship
, or just plain old
link rot
, reliably accessing linked content is a problem for Internet users everywhere.
This isn't a new problem.
Some centralized initiatives, such as the
Internet Archive
and
Perma.cc
, are attempting to snapshot and preserve certain web pages.
49
percent of links
in Supreme
court
decisions
are dead
Wikipedia articles
contain
dead
external links
But more and more, just a handful of centralized entities host information online. Online centralization creates “choke points” that can restrict access to web content.
The more routes we provide to information, the more all people can freely share that information, even in the face of filtering or blockages.
AMBER ADDS TO THESE ROUTES.
What
Amber
Does
What Amber does
Amber is an open source tool for websites to provide their visitors persistent routes to information. It
automatically preserves a snapshot
of every page linked to on a website, giving visitors a fallback option if links become inaccessible.
If one of the pages linked to on this website were to ever go down, Amber can provide visitors with access to an alternate version. This safeguards the promise of the URL: that information placed online can remain there, even amidst network or endpoint disruptions.
Install
Install the Amber plugin on your Content Management System.
Customize
Configure the storage and delivery preferences to fit the needs of your website.
Preserve
Amber automatically preserves a snapshot of each outgoing link in your content.
Save the Day
If a link goes down, your website will provide your visitors with a snapshot of that link.
Lots of copies keep stuff safe.
By default, Amber stores snapshots directly on the host website. But users can choose to store snapshots using a combination of the following third party storage and archiving systems:
Amber users can choose to use these existing services to free up space, take advantage of donated host space, or simply to contribute to existing web preservation efforts.
Amber is available as a plugin for
WordPress
and as a module for
Drupal
. It can be installed from the official WordPress plugin and Drupal module directories.
Want to suggest Amber to your IT team, but not sure what system your organization runs? Sites like
WhatCMS.org
can easily help to identify if your website is compatible.
Install the WordPress plugin
2.0 mb (ZIP)
Requirements:
WordPress 4.0+
Install the Drupal module
106 kb (ZIP) / 88 kb (Tarball)
Requirements:
Drupal 7
PHP 5.3 or higher
cURL
For those websites who run a custom CMS or none at all, we've also built modules for
Apache
and
Nginx
. These modules are more rudimentary and do not include external-archive capability—snapshots are only stored on the host server itself—but we welcome functionality contributions to our code base.
Documentation
View the WordPress
installation instructions
and documentation
View the Drupal
installation instructions
and documentation
Amber is a work in progress. If you encounter any issues, the Berkman Klein Center's developers want to know about it. You have two options for reporting issues:
1.
Via Github.
Have a Github account? Awesome. Create an issue in the repo that corresponds to your CMS, and you'll automatically be subscribed to the issue and notified of any updates, including when it's closed.
2.
Via web form.
No Github account? No problem. Report an issue at
feedback.amberlink.org
Who Can Use Amber
Amber is useful for
virtually any website or blog
that has an interest in preserving the content to which it links. Here is a small sample of websites whose visitors would receive an immediate benefit:
Organizations
Individuals
News Outlets
Political Bloggers
Fact-Checking Organizations
Researchers
Human Rights Groups
Free Speech Advocates
Digital Archives
Internet Freedom Activists
Blogging Platforms
Lifestyle Bloggers
Wikis
Students
Research
Amber is an open source project led by the
Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society
at Harvard University.
It builds on a proposal from Tim Berners-Lee and Jonathan Zittrain
for a "mutual aid treaty for the Internet" that would enable operators of websites to enter easily into mutually beneficial agreements and bolster the robustness of the entire web. The project also aims to mitigate risks associated with increasing centralization of online content.
Amber also continues the work completed by students from the 2011-2012 Ideas for a Better Internet
"Mirror As You Link" group, which developed working code
for an extension to mirror WordPress blogs.
Amber does not collect any sort of data from websites or their users.
It runs solely on your server and does not connect back to us.
Further Reading
A Mutual Aid Treaty for the Internet
The Fourth Quadrant
FAQ
What are some legal issues I should be aware of when using Amber?
Those who copy third-party content should always be aware of copyright issues. This is no different when it comes to using Amber. When you use Amber, you are preserving the copyrighted content of other publishers. Many uses of Amber - linking to and preserving a webpage for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research -- likely constitute fair use under United States law and thus do not infringe on copyrights. However, users of Amber should be aware that fair use rights vary significantly in different countries around the world. In addition, there are limits to fair use.
For a helpful guide on fair use, please visit
the Digital Media Law Project
For additional information on intellectual property issues that concern bloggers, please visit the
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Can websites opt-out of having their webpages preserved through Amber?
Yes. Content publishers can opt-out of having their material preserved
through Amber by including a robots.txt protocol in their webpages. For detailed information on opting out, please visit
amberlink.org/fetcher
For all FAQs, see the user guide:
Amber for WordPress documentation
Amber for Drupal documentation