Computers Today, May 1-15, 1999, The Net: Personal Surfing Assistants

May 1-15, 1999 THE NET

OFFLINE BROWSERS
Personal Surfing Assistant

Slow Net connections, steep phone bills and the mobile nature of your work. Let not these factors hamper your journey into the World Wide Web. Surf the Web offline-at your own convenience and pace.

By Kavita Kaur

Personal Surfing Assistants Can you imagine life without a domestic help? Difficult, if you are used to somebody doing the odd jobs. And if you carry forward the "do-this-for-me" attitude to the online world, you need good help.

As online information grows by leaps and bounds, it is getting more cumbersome to search and view specific information from the constantly changing terabytes of data. Intelligent pull products such as offline browsers promise to take over mundane tasks. They can do information searches, notify changes, make updates and even offline download of specific Web sites. These tools harness computer power to save you from the online information overload and help manage your downloaded data.

Just Give Them Work

Offline browsers allow users to gather content from different Web sites and store it on their hard disks for offline viewing and future reference. You can retrieve pages automatically-with all the associated graphics, sound and other multimedia elements-from specified Web sites at predetermined times (even during night). Most offline browsers also let you specify a "depth", that is, the number of pages, links and so on. These tools use stationary "intelligent" agents that periodically wake up to download the Web pages you request, quite similar to the way a VCR wakes up to tape a movie showing on the cable! For the uninitiated, agents are automated software programs that work on the user's behalf to perform a particular computing task. For example, Microsoft includes a System Agent to run programs for maintaining your hard disk on a scheduled basis. Similarly, there are agents specially designed to retrieve information from the Internet, saving you time, money and effort.

Offline browsers vary in scope and complexity of features. However, it is important to note that offline browsers are not browsers in the real sense. Most of them are simple programs with Web-downloading utilities and work in line with the conventional browsers like Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.

Offline Family

Personal Surfing Assistants Some browsers like ForeFront Group's WebWhacker save the "never-enough" disk space by crunching Web sites to a tenth of their GIF and HTML sizes. Users can determine how much of a Web site they want to retrieve-title pages only, any linked pages, or all pages. It can also export pages into HTML, letting users to share downloads with others. Thanks to its history feature, you can see the titles of all the pages you have "whacked" and sort them into different categories.

With a VCR-like interface, Net Result Corp.'s WebVCR enables you to "tape" a Web site and load it into your browser-right from the graphics to URLs. Unlike other offline browsers that translate sites into cryptic-sounding files on the hard disk, this browser compresses HTML pages into a single proprietary file, thereby conserving hard disk space.

Similarly, WebEx by Traveling Software acts as a proxy server-it fools the browser into thinking the user is still online. To speed delivery, it captures the latest content at the selected Web sites and overwrites the previous version.

Anawave's WebSnake stands true to its name. It wriggles like a snake through different sites and delivers unique results, including files that contain specified keywords. Easy to use, WebSnake's wizard can schedule recurring or single sessions.

While Navroad is a small yet fast offline browser designed for viewing HTML and Web image files anytime, anywhere, BlackWidow aims to be a one-in-all browser-an offline browser, a Web site mapper, and a "site ripper". BlackWidow first scans a site and then downloads the sites in two separate steps. This two-step process lets you view the site's entire directory structure, enabling you to choose which files you want to download to your hard drive. Likewise, Surfbot Plugin is an Internet utility offering offline browsing, searching, mapping, information filtering, and automated operation through user-defined, pre-determined schedules.

Clip and Tame

Personal Surfing Assistants WebClip of PaperClip Software Inc. is another popular offering in the market. Its Windows 95 like interface makes it quite simple to operate-one can arrange folders, create shortcuts or new documents in the much familiar tree structure. WebClip's background agent keeps a check on sites that have changed and keeps you informed. Accent Worldwide Inc.'s WebTamer allows you to do all that and more. Once you launch this program, a globe icon places itself neatly on your taskbar. With enhanced drag and drop facilities and a LiveAgent that employs JavaScript to automate tasks, WebTamer allows users to search the downloaded pages by URLs, tittles, folders, texts and even comments.

Softbots Inc.'s Browser Buddy is another popular offline browser. You can organise and store your downloaded data under the Choices option. This folder can further have many sub-folders for easy access and retrieval. However, this offline tool does not allow you to delete downloaded files-you have to do it manually from windows Explorer. In contrast, Web Buddy, of DataViz Inc., installs itself as a floating toolbar that pops up automatically on your screen when you launch any of the conventional browsers. Besides the scheduled retrievals, it can convert HTML pages into word processor files, however, without any graphics. But it has its handicap: too many tool bars vying for space on the limited screen. Standing apart from the other offline browsers that depend heavily on IE and Navigator is Folio Corp.'s Web Retriever-an offline browser that works independently and has proprietary Infobase format. This offline tool supports multiuser access, enhanced-text searches and text file format. However, it does not monitor sites for updates or download sites at regular intervals.

Getting Unattached

If you are still looking for sophisticated offline browsing functions, check out Tympani Development Inc.'s NetAttaché Pro. This stand-alone program highlights all the new material it finds on previously checked remote pages and lets the user organise its searches in "briefs" . Briefs can contain one or more agents, each of which can carry out separate tasks. For example, one agent in a brief may perform a Boolean search for "Computers Today and feature on offline browser" on any search engine, while another may download a game from a popular shareware site. Another powerful tool for offline browsing is Teleport Pro by Tennyson Maxwell. Thanks to its wizard interface, users can create "projects" for downloading remote Web sites or, search for pages with specified text and list them in an Explorer-like window. When the user launches the same project again, Teleport Pro downloads only the updated/changed pages.

For people with limited time online (busy executives) or those who are constantly on the move (sales agents), offline browsers can be the ideal solution. Now Netizens can be truly free and mobile-there is no need to be connected-simply set a schedule and download all your favourite sites and get on with your life. Browse at your own leisure without the lengthy and expensive download times.

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