📚 Guides & Research
Last updated:
Long-form reference material for OSINT investigators. Each guide goes deeper than a tool description — covering the technique, edge cases, current tooling landscape, and known pitfalls.
Best-Of Lists, Rankings & Comparisons
Ranked, regularly-updated picks — the fast answer when you just want the best free option.
Best Free OSINT Tools (2026)
20 tools ranked by category — usernames, email, domains, metadata, breach.
Best Free People Search Sites (2026)
10 genuinely-free people finders, ranked. Truly free vs. freemium.
Best Free Face Search Tools (2026)
Ranked free facial-recognition / reverse-image tools, with the legal limits.
Is Maltego Free? Tier & Alternatives
Free Basic-plan limits, whether it is worth it, and free alternatives ranked.
Maigret vs Sherlock vs WhatsMyName
Head-to-head verdict — sites checked, speed, false positives, and which to use.
Best Social Media OSINT Tools (2026)
10 free tools ranked for finding and analysing profiles across Instagram, X, and Telegram.
Best Data Breach Checkers (2026)
10 free and freemium tools ranked to see if your email, passwords, or data leaked.
Best Email Lookup & Reverse Email Tools
8 free and freemium tools ranked — Epieos, Hunter.io, Holehe, and more.
Is My Email on the Dark Web?
How to check your email for breach, combolist, and stealer-log exposure, free.
How to Remove Yourself From the Internet
Data-broker opt-out guide — clear your personal info from people-search sites.
Is OSINT Legal?
Is it legal to look someone up, is dorking illegal, and where OSINT becomes stalking.
How to Protect Yourself From Doxxing
Defensive guide for creators and streamers — reduce what ties you to your real identity.
Check Your Digital Footprint (Free)
A free self-audit of what's exposed about you online, and how to clean it up.
What Is a Sock Puppet?
The OSINT Demand Index 2026
Open dataset: 26,139 cross-validated OSINT searches from 6 engines. What the community actually looks for. Free CSV.
ALPR Cameras by US State
Free dataset: 116,655 plate readers mapped, ranked per capita. CSV + JSON + the query.
Every Documented ALPR Misuse
The accountability file: 24 officers who stalked, 26 gunpoint stops, 83,345 cameras for one woman. Sourced.
Investigation: Mapping ALPR Surveillance
A reproducible open-source investigation — map the cameras in your town and check if police searched your plate.
California DROP & the Delete Act
Delete yourself from 600+ data brokers with one free request. The Aug 1 2026 deadline, and what non-Californians can do.
Optery vs DeleteMe (2026)
Verified pricing, the US-only catch, and when neither is right. We earn from both — which is the point.
Is OSINT Legal?
The three tests that decide it, why hiQ won the CFAA and still lost, and the FCRA trap that catches more investigators than hacking law.
Maltego Alternatives (2026)
SpiderFoot, Lampyre, Gephi and the free stack — split by which half of Maltego you actually use.
Telegram OSINT
The platform with no index. t.me dorks, TGStat, Telemetr.io, Telepathy, and recovering deleted posts.
Discord OSINT
Snowflake IDs encode an unspoofable creation timestamp. How to decode them and what you genuinely can't get.
TikTok OSINT
Closed API, ephemeral content. The numeric ID, yt-dlp capture, and why the follow list beats the videos.
How to Find Backlinks (2026)
Every link: operator is dead. What still works, which paid index to buy, and a free tool that queries the Common Crawl webgraph.
Cellebrite & Phone Forensics
What Cellebrite's own leaked matrices say it can extract — and why BFU vs AFU decides everything.
IMSI Catchers & Stingrays
Fake cell towers explained, and how EFF's $20 Rayhunter detects them.
Predictive Policing Explained
Crime-forecasting algorithms — sold as objective, documented as <0.5% accurate, and banned from Santa Cruz to the EU.
Age Verification Laws & Privacy
26 states now require ID-grade age checks. Why privacy advocates call it surveillance, and what the UK already showed.
Flock Safety 2026 — Fight Back
ALPR abuses, current lawsuits, and the legal ways communities cancel contracts.
Research-persona tradecraft and OPSEC for legitimate investigators, done safely.
All Guides
Sorted in roughly the order you'd use them across an investigation lifecycle.
Google Dorking Reference (2026)
Operators, syntax and modern bypass techniques.
Search Engine Landscape (2026)
Where to actually look beyond Google in 2026.
OSINT Tool Graveyard (2026)
Dead tools, their replacements, and why they died.
AI SEO Guide (2026)
Ranking in AI-Overview / GenAI search results.
Certificate Transparency for OSINT
Mining CT logs for subdomain discovery.
Wayback Machine OSINT (2026)
Archive forensics, deep crawl tricks, edge cases.
Image Forensics Guide
Detect manipulation: ELA, metadata, geolocation.
MAC & Network Forensics
Hardware identifiers and how to interpret them.
DNS Reconnaissance & Subdomain Discovery
Active and passive subdomain enumeration.
Password Security & Entropy
Hash strength, cracking economics, modern KDFs.
Steganography Guide
Hidden data in images, audio, and unusual carriers.
Username OSINT & Identity
Cross-platform attribution and pivoting.
Geolocation OSINT
From IP to GPS — every breadcrumb a target leaves.
OSINT vs Professional Intelligence (2026)
How open tools democratized the classic intelligence disciplines — and where OSINT still can’t reach.
Best Password Manager 2026
Bitwarden vs 1Password vs Proton Pass — honest comparison, real prices, free-tier truth.
Best Encrypted Email 2026
Proton vs Tuta vs StartMail — and the metadata truth encryption can't hide.
AI & Your Privacy
What ChatGPT collects, how to opt out, and how AI supercharges surveillance.
Stylometry & the Pseudpocalypse
Your writing is a fingerprint — and AI reads it effortlessly. How authorship attribution works and how to defend your anonymity.
OSINT OpSec & Managed Attribution
Investigate without leaking back to your subject — sock puppets, isolation, query hygiene, and a checklist.
Dark Web OSINT (2026)
Investigate the dark web safely: clearnet gateways, ransomware leak tracking, and OpSec.
AI-Agent OSINT & MCP (2026)
How autonomous AI agents and MCP servers now run investigations.
WHOIS & RDAP Guide (2026)
Modern domain ownership lookup after privacy laws.