Possible brand impersonation
Clone of the shut-down Aniwave anime site on a 144-day-old domain with mixed independent reviews and clean technical scans. The page looks styled like a known brand but may not be authentic. Check the URL carefully and navigate to the brand's real site before signing in or paying.
Is animewave.to legit or a scam?
Clone of the shut-down Aniwave anime site on a 144-day-old domain with mixed independent reviews and clean technical scans.
These checks passed — but they don't clear the site. A clean antivirus result, valid SSL, and a calm server only mean it isn't hosting malware; they say nothing about whether the business is real. This verdict is based on the site's conduct and content, not a malware detection.
Analysis Summary
MT Intelligence
The site presents itself as a free anime streaming platform with a full catalog and login form. Its domain was registered only 144 days ago and explicitly matches as a clone of the original aniwave.to that closed in August 2024. Technical scans from our antivirus network and IP reputation data returned completely clean with no malware or phishing flags. One independent review site assigned a low trust score while Reddit discussions in piracy communities treat it as a working replacement. The combination of recent registration, clone status, and lack of any business registration keeps the overall risk moderate despite the clean infrastructure.
Website Preview
Automated page render — captured in a safe sandbox. What an ordinary visitor would see when loading the site.
Visual Screenshot Analysis
We capture a fresh screenshot of the live page and ask a vision model to look for scam visual patterns — fake trust badges, countdown timers, overlay pop-ups, and visual clones of legitimate brands.
Visual red flags detected in the screenshot
The screenshot shows a fully rendered, professionally designed anime streaming site with no visible scam indicators such as fake badges, urgency timers, overlays, or suspicious forms.
Web Research Findings
Our live research agent queries scam-report databases, consumer-review sites, news coverage, and general web search for animewave.to, then cross-checks business-registration records and look-alike domain patterns. Everything below is pulled from what it actually found.
- Domain animewave.to registered ~144 days ago (recent).
- Operates as free anime streaming site with English sub/dub, no ads claimed, high US traffic (~2.89M visits).
- Original Aniwave (aniwave.to / 9Anime) shut down Aug 2024 by ACE copyright group; this appears as a successor or mirror.
- Scamadviser assigns low trust score and flags possible scam.
- Multiple similar domains (aniwave.dk, aniwaves.ru, etc.) exist as potential clones/mirrors.
- Reddit users in piracy/streaming communities discuss and recommend it as working alternative post-shutdowns.
- No official business registration or legitimate company info found.
- Scamadviseropen
"In summary, animewave.to has a low trust score. The website may be a scam."
New domain operating as replacement/streaming site after original Aniwave (formerly 9Anime) shutdown in Aug 2024 due to copyright enforcement.
Our research located one report from an independent review site warning of low trust for animewave.to. Two Reddit threads in anime piracy and streaming communities mentioned the site as a functional replacement after the original Aniwave shutdown, with users sharing links. No business registration or official company records were found. Multiple similar clone domains appear in related discussions.
Scam Network Intelligence
Antivirus Engines
Security Scans
Checked against the major public blocklists used by browsers and security tools — no hits.
Contact Verification
We fetched the page and looked for real-world contact details. Legitimate businesses almost always publish an email on their own domain, a phone number, and a postal address. Scam shops usually don't.
- No contact email found anywhere on the page.
- No postal address visible on the page.
- Phone number listed (2008-04-09).
Domain & Encryption
Server Reputation
Scam-Type Likelihood
1 scam-type patterns detected
0 of 13 categories showed signals
We check every URL against 13 distinct scam categories so the verdict tells you not just how risky the page is, but what kind of risk it carries. Each meter pulls from page signals, web reports, our AI analyst, vision, and the scam-network cluster — not from raw AV labels.
- AI analyst tagged this as a brand / clone-site impersonation.
- Clustered with known brand-impersonation infrastructure.
0 of 13 categories showed signals
We check every URL against 13 distinct scam categories so the verdict tells you not just how risky the page is, but what kind of risk it carries. Each meter pulls from page signals, web reports, our AI analyst, vision, and the scam-network cluster — not from raw AV labels.
- AI analyst tagged this as a brand / clone-site impersonation.
- Clustered with known brand-impersonation infrastructure.
Possible brand impersonation
This page is styled as a known brand but is not the brand's real site.
- Treat animewave.to as unverified
Do not enter credentials or send money until you have independently verified the business.
- Go to the brand's real site directly
Type the brand name into a search engine or open it from your bookmarks — don't use links from emails, SMS, ads, or social posts, which are the delivery vectors for impersonation.
- Never download or sign in here
Even if the page "just" offers a download or a giveaway, impersonation pages frequently deliver malware or set up follow-up phishing. Assume anything accepted from this site is hostile.
- OpenReport the impersonation to the brand
Most major brands have a dedicated abuse or anti-phishing reporting channel — reporting helps them take the site down and protects other users.
Reputation Sources
How this domain rates across independent threat-intelligence and blocklist providers.
Referenced Domains
Outbound domains this page links to or loads resources from. Each links to its own security scan.
Safety FAQ
Common questions about this site, answered from the scan data on this page. These are auto-generated — not hand-written — so they always match the underlying report.
- Our automated security review marked animewave.to as suspicious. Several warning signs were detected; it may still turn out legitimate, but you should verify it through independent channels before trusting it with money or credentials.
- animewave.to currently scores 55/100 on our trust scale. We found enough warning signals to recommend caution. Verify the site through independent channels before entering credentials or money.
- Yes. animewave.to presents a valid TLSv1.3 certificate issued by Google Trust Services · WE1, expiring in 63 days. Note that SSL only encrypts the connection — it does not guarantee that the site itself is trustworthy.
- animewave.to is 4 months old, registered on 1/6/2026 through NAMECHEAP. Scam domains are often freshly registered — a site under 6 months old warrants extra caution.
- No. All 92 antivirus engines in our malware network report animewave.to as clean.
- No. animewave.to is not currently listed on the major browser blocklist feeds that modern browsers use.
- animewave.to resolves to an IP operated by Cloudflare, Inc. in US (usage type: Content Delivery Network). Hosting location alone doesn't make a site good or bad, but unusual geography for a brand's claimed country is one of many signals we weigh.
- We cache results for 24 hours. Signed-in MalwareTips members can trigger a manual rescan at any time using the "Rescan" button on the report page, which re-runs every check from scratch and refreshes this page.
User reviews & comments(0)
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