Capturing a website to view offline

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To capture an entire flat HTML website for offline viewing, several tools and methods are recommended. Teleport Pro is highlighted as a top choice for crawling and downloading websites. WinHTTrack is another effective site-capture tool that can handle large websites, with one user reporting a download of over 700MB and 15,800 files. For Linux users, wget is suggested, which is also available for Windows. However, it's important to consider the impact on the website's server, as excessive crawling can lead to significant load spikes and potential costs for the site owner. Webmasters often dislike private crawling due to concerns about content theft and server strain. Additionally, methods to prevent hotlinking of images are discussed, including server configurations that redirect requests from unauthorized sites. Overall, while there are convenient tools for capturing websites, ethical considerations regarding server load and content ownership are emphasized.
DaveC426913
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Anyone know of a convenient way to capture a whole (flat HTML) website so it can be viewed offline? I mean, other than file by file and image by image.
 
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Google on "copy website" for options. There are applications that will crawl through entire websites and download them to your HD.
 
If all you want is a screen image...
Use Alt-PrintScreen to copy active window.
Paste image into Paint, Imaging, Photoshop, etc.
 
Do you use Firefox, Dave?

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/427/
 
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If it's a large web site, the owner may not appreciate having a robot crawl all over and suck up hundreds of megabytes of content at once. It puts a huge load spike on his server, and he may have to pay his provider based on traffic above a certain threshold.
 
Never mind, I found WinHTTrack, a site-capture tool.

Wow, and just as well, this site is monstrous. I had no idea. It's a yearbook site, spanning 75 years. I'm over 100Mb/10,000 files so far.

All this, so my dad can look at it from a CD, rather than online...

The things I do...
 
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If you are using Linux you can use wget. Actually you can do this in Windows too if you download it.
 
Phew. 700Mb, 15,800 files, 6 hours to download.

I'll bet the site owner hates me.
 
  • #10
jtbell said:
If it's a large web site, the owner may not appreciate having a robot crawl all over and suck up hundreds of megabytes of content at once. It puts a huge load spike on his server, and he may have to pay his provider based on traffic above a certain threshold.

agreed! private crawling is hated amongst webmasters because most of the time it's from a some dude trying to rip or copy the site and then put up a copy on another site. there is actually a hack in vb that let's you block 100s of common private crawlers
 
  • #11
In my case, my personal hobby site (which has a large gallery of pictures) is on one of my college's Web servers, and I don't want to impact normal academic use.

So I watch for robots and for my other pet peeve: people on forums who hotlink to several of my pictures in a single posting, which causes several hits on my server every time someone opens that thread.

To counter this, first I set up my server to examine the referring URL whenever someone fetched a picture, and if it was from one of the offending sites, I sent instead a GIF with the red-bar-in-circle logo over the word "Hotlinking", and the URL of my terms of usage below.

Then I saw that someone had started a thread titled "The scariest thing in the world!" which hotlinked directly to that GIF! So I took a thumbnail-sized JPEG of Alfred E. Neumann (the MAD magazine character) and substituted that. The thread became hilarious for a while, with new viewers seeing Alfred while previous viewers (including of course the original poster) still had my "scary" GIF in their browser caches. "What, me scary?"

Eventually someone caught on and said, "hey dudes, refresh your cache!" but it was fun in the meantime. :biggrin:
 
  • #12
jtbell said:
To counter this, first I set up my server to examine the referring URL whenever someone fetched a picture, and if it was from one of the offending sites, I sent instead a GIF with the red-bar-in-circle logo over the word "Hotlinking", and the URL of my terms of usage below.

try to hotlink on of PF's images :smile:
 
  • #13
O Yes You Cam!

:rolleyes: http://hot-text.ath.cx/img/offline.gif http://hot-text.ath.cx/img/offline1.gif
Custemize it
http://hot-text.ath.cx/img/offline2.gif http://hot-text.ath.cx/img/offline3.gif

http://hot-text.ath.cx/img/offline4.gif http://hot-text.ath.cx/img/offline5.gif
:biggrin:
 
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  • #14
How do i Delete

http://hot-text.ath.cx/img/offline-1.gif http://hot-text.ath.cx/img/offline-2.gif

http://hot-text.ath.cx/img/offline-3.gif http://hot-text.ath.cx/img/offline-4.gif
o:)
 
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  • #15
DaveC426913 said:
Anyone know of a convenient way to capture a whole (flat HTML) website so it can be viewed offline? I mean, other than file by file and image by image.

mmmmmmmmm
capture a whole (flat HTML) website
  1. File
  2. Save As Type
  3. Webpage Complete (*.htm, *.html)
 
  • #16
mmmmmmmmm
capture a whole (flat HTML) website

File
Save As Type
Webpage Complete (*.htm, *.html)
 
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