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Comparison of software saving Web pages for offline use

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A number of proprietary software products are available for saving Web pages for later use offline. They vary in terms of the techniques used for saving, what types of content can be saved, the format and compression of the saved files, provision for working with already saved content, and in other ways.

HTML Content

Name Technology Completeness of saved content Support for collections Ease of adding to existing collections Navigable between saved pages in offline Format of saved files; open/proprietary Compression Notes
wget command line application images and CSS (if -p option is used), but no client-side generated HTML content Yes ? Yes, if -k option is used Open (HTML or WARC) Yes, if WARC files are used
HTTrack command line application has WinHTTrack for Windows and WebHTTrack for Linux/BSD/Unix GUI front-ends ? ? ? Yes. Links all remade so open your locally stored pages for the site you download Open. Standard HTML pages saved in a folder. Click on index.html to open home page No Many options to let you refine what you save.
Tenmax's Teleport windows desktop application and scriptable tools for web crawling and archiving multimedia (except streaming files), CSS, limited support for javascript events and cookies; shockwave/flash content is downloaded but not crawled ? ? Yes Open. Standard HTML pages saved in a folder. Click on index.html to open home page No supports advanced filtering options and authentication
ScrapBook Firefox extension See note[ScrapBook 1][1] Yes Easy Yes IF those pages were saved in scrapbook Proprietary catalog; regular HTML and content for each page No

See note[ScrapBook 2]

Mozilla Archive Format Firefox extension Images, CSS and other static content; clientside-generated HTML content saved fine Yes Impossible No MAFF (=ZIP of regular HTML and web content) Always The Mozilla Archive Format add-on is no longer maintained since September 5, 2018.[2]
Read Later Fast Google Chrome extension Stylesheets are saved incompletely or not at all No N/A No Proprietary; restricted to Google Chrome profile location No
PageArchiver Google Chrome extension Video and audio files (via Flash or HTML5) are not saved Yes Yes (import/export features) No Open; regular HTML for pages, regular zip file for catalog Yes for catalog
Archia's Web Page Archiver[3] E-mail based on-line service See note[Archia 1] No No No Open Yes

Notes

ScrapBook

  1. ^ Saved content:
    Default:
    • images, CSS and other static content; clientside-generated HTML content—all saved fine
    Optionally:
    • sound (MP3, WAV, RAM, WMA)
    • video (MPG, AVI, MOV, WMV)
    • archives (ZIP, LZH, RAR, JAR, XPI)
    • java - but can be problematic
    • custom document extensions (e.g. PDF)
  2. ^ Extra features:
    • Search across collections
    Known issues:
    • saved pages embedding TED.com presentations (incl. pages on TED.com) cannot be played even when online
    • selecting a piece of page will save only selected piece — inconvenient when you change page title with a quote from the page
    • doesn't work with Firefox Quantum at the moment

Archia

  1. ^ Saved content:
    Images, CSS and other static content, sound (MP3, WAV, RAM, WMA), video (MPG, AVI, MOV, WMV), archives (ZIP, LZH, RAR, JAR, XPI), custom document extensions (e.g. PDF)

Video

To save video embedded on web sites (e.g. YouTube), there are video download extensions for Firefox (including Download Helper) and Chrome.

See also

References

  1. ^ Zhang, Gary. "Best Ways to Save Webpage for Offline Viewing (#3 is Awesome!)". Garyzzc. Retrieved 2019-01-03.
  2. ^ "Documentation". mozdev.org. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  3. ^ "Archia: Web Page Archiver". Archived from the original on 2015-02-19. Retrieved 2015-02-19.