The site Archive.today, known for bypassing paywalls, along with several related domains (such as .is and .ph), has been restricted by Russian authorities, as indicated by the error messages encountered when trying to access its sites.

The blocks were evident as of Monday when TechCrunch accessed the sites from the Eastern U.S.

A message in Russian stated: “Access to the Internet resource Blocked by decision of the public authorities,” referencing the government body tasked with internet regulation, Roskomnadzor.

As per Roskomnadzor’s record for Archive.is, officials indicated that “access is limited to the page,” but did not provide a reason at the time of reporting. At the time TechCrunch checked, Archive.today was not listed as blocked.

A Roskomnadzor representative did not promptly reply to TechCrunch’s questions outside of Moscow’s working hours.

TechCrunch was still able to access the Archive sites through various devices and networks, and successfully archived a web page despite the apparent restrictions. The extent of the block and the party responsible for its implementation remain unclear.

Archive.today is a prominent site for saving copies of web pages, including those typically obscured by paywalls or subscription logins. Wikipedia editors recently opted to eliminate hundreds of thousands of links to Archive.today, alleging that it uses users’ web browsers—without their consent—to inundate the website of a blogger critical of its practices with excessive network traffic.

The operators of Archive.today have not responded to requests for comments.

(h/t Ryan O’Horo on Bluesky)