Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Tools & Resources

keyword research tools

Search Engines

General Search

National Search Engines

Privacy-oriented search engines

  • DuckDuckGo: Online investigators usually use it to search the surface web while using the Tor Browser.
  • Startpage: Fetch results from Google without tracking its users.
  • Qwant: Based in France.
  • Oscobo: Based in UK.
  • Swisscows:  Privacy safe WEB-search based in Switzerland.
  • Gibiru:  Uncensored and anonymous search engine.

Meta search engines

  • Excite
  • Search
  • MetaGer
  • Zapmeta
  • etools: Compile its results from major international search engines, keep user privacy by not collecting or sharing personal information of its users. This search engine is very fast and show a summary for each search query -on the right side- detailing the source of its results.
  • All the interne: query major search engines including shopping site like Amazon and eBay.
  • izito: Aggregate data from multiple sources (Yahoo, Bing, Wikipedia, YouTube and other) to generate optimal results which includes images, videos, news and articles.
  • Metacrawler: Aggregate results from Google and Yahoo!.
  • My all search: Aggregates results through Bing, DuckDuckGo, AOL Search, Ask, Oscobo, Mojeek, ZapMeta, MetaCrawler.
  • Carrot2: Open Source Search Results Clustering Engine aggregate results from GoogleAPI, Bing API, eTools Meta Search, Lucene, SOLR, and more.
  • elocalfinder: Fetch results from Google, Yahoo!, Ask and Bing .
  • All-in-One
  • Searx

FTP search engines

Files Search Engines

Image Search Engines

Images shared across social media sites can be found in the following locations:

There are specialized sites that hold images appeared in the press and news media, to search for this type of images go to:

Reverse image search

Faces Search Engines

Stock photo search engines

Graphics search

Image Upscale Tools

Video Search Engines

Blog Search

Custom Search Engines

Internet Of Things (IoT) devices search engines

Exploits search engines

Dark Web Search Engines

You should download the TOR Browser first before you can access sites hosted on the TOR network.

News/Newspaper Search Engines

Fake News Detection

  • Snopes: Discovers false news, stories, urban legends and research/validate rumors to see whether it is true.
  • Hoaxy: Check the spread of false claims (like a hoax, rumor, satire, news report) across social media sites. The site derives its results from reputable fact checking organizations to return the most accurate results.
  • FactCheck: This site is partnered with Facebook to help identify and label fake news reported by its users. It also monitors different media for the false info covering a wide range of topics like health, science, hoaxes spread through Spam emails.
  • ReviewMeta: Analysis Amazon user reviews.
  • Reporter Lab: Gives a map of global fact-checking sites.
  • Truth Or Fiction: Discover fake news in different topics like politics, nature, health, space, crime, police and terrorism…etc.
  • Hoax-Slayer: Focuses on email scam and social media hoaxes.
  • Verification Handbook: A definitive guide to verifying digital content for emergency coverage available in different languages.
  • Verification junkie: This is a directory of tools for verifying, fact checking and assessing the validity of eyewitness reports and user self-published content online.
  • citizen evidence: tools and lessons to teach people how to authenticate user-generated online contents. Managed by Amnesty International.

Patent Search Engines

Web Directories

Translation services

Business Search

Business Annual Records

Business Profiles

Grey literature

Grey information includes the following -and more (Academic papers, preprints, proceedings, conference & discussion papers, research reports, marketing reports, technical specifications and standards, dissertations, theses, trade publications, memoranda, government reports and documents not published commercially, translations, newsletters, market survey, draft version of books, articles.

Most important Grey literature (academic and scholarly resources) websites can be found in the following list:

Data Leak Websites

Pastebin sites

  • Pastebin
  • PasteLert: A Pastebin alerting service dedicated for Pastebin.com website.