Comparison

OONI Probe vs OpenManual

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

OONI Probe

This app helps you detect internet censorship and surveillance systems by examining website and app blocking. It also measures your network's speed and performance, providing data that can serve as evidence of interference. All collected data is published openly to promote transparency.

Highlights
  • Examine website and app blocking
  • Measure network speed and performance
  • Detect censorship and surveillance systems
  • Collect evidence of internet censorship
  • Publish open network measurement data
  • Free and open source software
Features
Read full description

Are websites and social media apps blocked? Is your network unusually slow? Run OONI Probe to find out! With this app, you will examine the blocking of websites and instant messaging apps, measure your network's speed and performance, and check whether systems that could be responsible for censorship and surveillance are in your network. OONI Probe is developed by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), a free software project (under The Tor Project) that aims to uncover internet censorship around the world. Since 2012, OONI’s global community has collected millions of network measurements from more than 200 countries, shedding light on multiple cases of network interference. ▶ Collect evidence of internet censorship You can check whether and how websites and instant messaging apps are blocked. The network measurement data you will collect may serve as evidence of internet censorship. ▶ Detect systems responsible for censorship and surveillance OONI Probe tests are also designed to uncover the presence of systems (middleboxes) that could be responsible for censorship and surveillance. ▶ Measure the speed and performance of your network You can measure the speed and performance of your network by running OONI's implementation of the Network Diagnostic Test (NDT). You can also measure video streaming performance with the Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) test. ▶ Open data OONI publishes network measurement data because open data allows third parties to verify OONI findings, conduct independent studies, and answer other research questions. Openly publishing OONI data also helps increase transparency of internet censorship around the world. You can explore and download OONI data here: https://ooni.io/data/ ▶ Free software All OONI Probe tests (including our NDT and DASH implementations), are based on free and open source software. You can find OONI software projects on GitHub: https://github.com/ooni. Curious to learn how OONI Probe tests work? Learn more: https://ooni.io/nettest/ To receive updates from the OONI-verse, follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory

About

OpenManual

Locate lost or inaccessible product manuals by scanning device labels or barcodes. It searches manufacturer sites, archives, and the open web to find documentation, even for discontinued items. Saved manuals are available offline and can be queried for specific answers.

Highlights
  • Scan labels and barcodes to identify products
  • Search manufacturer sites and archives
  • Offline access to saved manuals
  • Query saved manuals for specific answers
  • Handles discontinued products
  • Supports various household and professional equipment
Features
Read full description

The manual is never around when you actually need it. It came in a box you recycled years ago, or it's in a drawer somewhere, or the company that made the thing doesn't even exist anymore. Meanwhile the thing is sitting right in front of you blinking and all you want to know is what the light means. So OpenManual starts where you already are, which is standing next to it. Point your camera at the label. Everything has one somewhere, whether it's a sticker on the back, a plate screwed to the side, or tiny type stamped into the plastic. OpenManual reads it and figures out which part is the brand and which part is the model, because those two are almost never labeled and the whole search depends on getting them right. If you can't get to the label, take a photo of it, scan the barcode on the box, or just type in what you know. Then it goes looking where manuals live. The maker's support site, the Internet Archive, which keeps documents long after a product is gone, and the open web get asked, so one engine having a bad day doesn't sink it. If the first pass comes up short, it reads what went wrong and searches again. The maker's own copy comes first. With Apple Intelligence, the phone's model reads the label, and Refine searches locally lets it sort results and plan a harder search. It finds documents but it never decides for you, and that's on purpose. Every result shows you the cover of the actual file, tells you what site it came from, and says in plain words how well it matches. If a document only half fits your device it says so instead of handing it over and hoping you don't notice. Nothing gets saved until you say yes. Sometimes the manual is real and sitting behind a login or a paywall. OpenManual won't sign in, pay, or sneak around a gate, so it just tells you where the document is and lets you go get it yourself. That felt more honest than pretending nothing turned up. Anything you keep stays on your phone (and in any backup of it) and works offline, which matters when you're in a basement and the signal gives up. Ask a question about a manual you saved and the answer comes straight from the document with the page shown, so you can check that it really says that. It works on the stuff that fills a house, a shop, or a building: • Washers, dryers, fridges, dishwashers, ovens • Furnaces, heat pumps, water heaters, thermostats • Drills, saws, mowers, pressure washers, generators • Printers, routers, TVs, cameras • The mystery unit in the garage that was already there when you moved in It also does medical and lab equipment, which is honestly why I built it. I spend my days supporting operating rooms, and I've spent a lot of that time hunting down IFUs for devices that went out of production a decade ago. So scan the UDI barcode on a device label and the whole device lands on one page: what it is, verified against the FDA's public registry, this unit's lot, serial and expiry, the instructions for use, recalls, adverse event reports split by what happened, and its class and regulation. It knows a REF from a serial from a lot number, and an IFU from a service manual from a cleaning guide. A few things worth knowing before you download it: • Three saved devices are free, no account, no sign up • One purchase lifts the limit forever and nothing renews • Saved manuals work offline • You confirm every document before it gets kept • It runs on iPhone and iPad One last thing, because it matters. OpenManual finds documentation and quotes it. It doesn't diagnose problems, it doesn't tell you whether something is safe to run, and it's not a substitute for someone who actually knows the machine. When it can't find your manual it says so, because being confidently wrong is worse than being honest.

Screenshots

OONI Probe4 screens
OpenManual4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: OpenManual at 5.0 against OONI Probe's 4.5. OpenManual also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs every 2 months). OONI Probe's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and ratings volume (88 vs 1). On price, ads, monetization model and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. OpenManual sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. OONI Probe asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

OpenManual holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: OONI Probe has 88 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

OONI Probe ships an update every 2 months, OpenManual every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 11, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
OONI Probe versus OpenManual: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterOONI ProbeOpenManual
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.5 (88 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews58.1% of reviews—
Number of ratings88 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 2 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size139 MB8 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperThe Tor ProjectGunnar Hostetler

Customer experience

OONI Probe

All ratings88 ratings
Positive86.4%
Neutral6.8%
Negative6.8%
Written reviews31 reviews
Positive58.1%
Neutral12.9%
Negative29.0%

OpenManual

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

OONI Probe

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

OpenManual

One-time1
  • Lifetime Unlock$4.99

Questions

Is OONI Probe free?
OONI Probe is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is OpenManual free?
OpenManual is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, OONI Probe or OpenManual?
OpenManual is rated higher. OONI Probe averages 4.5 out of 5 from 88 ratings, while OpenManual averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do OONI Probe or OpenManual have ads?
Neither OONI Probe nor OpenManual shows ads.
Which is updated more often, OONI Probe or OpenManual?
OONI Probe ships an update every 2 months, and OpenManual every 2 days. Most recently, OONI Probe was updated on October 11, 2026 and OpenManual on October 14, 2026.

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