Exploring the web of yesterday, today and tomorrow

An applied research initiative investigating the evolution, impact and sustainability of the web.

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Overbrowsing investigates how the web changes over time and what those changes reveal about its environmental impact. Using web archives as a historical record of the evolving internet, we develop methods for measuring digital growth, understanding long-term trends and informing more sustainable approaches to the design and stewardship of the web.

Our research

Paper • Wasteback Machine: a method for quantitative measurement of the archived web

Mahoney, D. (2026). Wasteback Machine: a method for quantitative measurement of the archived web. Information Research: An International Electronic Journal, 31 (iConf), 448-464. https://doi.org/10.47989/ir31iConf64185

Presentation • The growing environmental impact of COP websites: An analysis of UNFCCC COP host country websites (1995-2026)

Mahoney, D. (2026). The growing environmental impact of COP websites: An analysis of UNFCCC COP host country websites (1995-2026). ICT for Sustainability (ICT4S), Bern Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20625259

Wasteback Machine

Wasteback Machine is a JavaScript library for analysing archived web pages, measuring their size and composition to enable retrospective, quantitative web research.