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Explore Websites OfflineOffline Explorer is your tool! |
By Codrut Nistor, Editor, Software Reviews
30th of August 2006, 14:53 GMT
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Downloading entire websites to your computer for later offline browsing or for saving your bandwidth for other purposes during the period you'll check'em out can be a good idea for some people. Of course that for people who pay for their connection depending on the data downloaded, this is not such a good idea, but that's life...some win, some lose, but in the end it all levels up, and you find yourself six feet under. Don't worry, there's still a lot of climbing to do before going down, at least for me, and today we're going to explore...an offline explorer.
The subject is called Offline Explorer Pro, its version number reached 4.4.2458 and I got here a 30 day fully functional trial release. The installation kit is almost 3MB in size and the setup process passes like smoke. The remaining parts are here for us - interface and features, as usual. Let's go!
The program's interface is easy to use and well organized, although the design is not a work of art. After all, this is a program that should be powerful, not nice, but don't get me wrong, Offline Explorer's interface should be nice enough for most of us.
When starting the program for the first time, you're thrown straight into the New Project Wizard's hands, and most probably you won't need anything else. Now let's follow the wizard's steps in creating a project, so we can get to know all the interesting features of this program.
After naming the project and typing in the URL of the site to be downloaded, you have to limit the depth of the searching for pages to download. If you uncheck this option or set a high value, then you will have to be prepared with a lot of patience and free disk space, since you risk downloading a huge amount of data!
Filtering shouldn't miss from an offline explorer, so next you get to choose the file types to download and their location on the previously given domain. This can be the end of your project setup process, but I choose to setup the advanced settings and find out more with the wizard's help.
The Project Properties area is very large, but it is also well organized. Here, you can set advanced file, content and URL filters, some very useful advanced settings that allow to limit downloads when a certain size, time or number of files is exceeded, scheduling, access to password protected sites
and more.
There's much more to this program, and you can find your way to the hidden treasures inside the Options area. Here, apart from the Internet connection settings, you can also associate external browsers, viewers and editors to use with the downloaded content or even send an email notification when the project's files have been retrieved.
I can't ask for more, and this is why I am jumping to the conclusions. My last advice to you here is to get this program and give it a job, I am sure you'll be amazed!
The Good
Offline Explorer Pro is one of the greatest programs in its family, and it never failed me. Of course that I had my problems with it, but it was "the human factor" problem....my mistake. This program is well documented, so take your time to read the Help file before going into manual mode and fine tuning your settings. Fast, easy to use and highly effective - this is today's offline explorer.
The Bad
The program's price can be high for people who don't have a lot of work to do with it, and the Help file's looks can be improved.
The Truth
While Teleport Pro is the light cruiser of the offline explorers, Offline Explorer Pro is the heavy cruiser of this fleet, being a solid solution to a problem that can eat a lot of time to solve otherwise. I wish you good luck in your journeys, all you offline explorers out there!
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
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