Offline Explorer

The contents and layout of a web site can be changed at any time and certain articles may become unavailable. If you want to prepare for these circumstances, you could try downloading the web site to your computer. This is what you can do with Offline Explorer. It is a flexible web browser, with various capabilities, which you would expect to find on any modern day browser. Its main feature is the possibility of saving a web site or part of it, so you can explore it, even if you are not connected to the Internet.

Offline Explorer is not free, but you can use a fully functional trial version, for a limited period of time. Its setup file weighs in at 10.8 MB and you can install the software in less than a minute. The setup wizard will not hinder you with additional tools or options for selecting your default browser.

Besides the main browsing area, the user interface consists of a ribbon menu and additional panels, on which you can organize your projects, in separate folders, monitor your downloads, manage schedules and more. You can use Offline Explorer, to visit your favorite sites, just like any other web browser. It is possible to create multiple tabs, set up a home page and so on.

The interesting part is that you may open the current web site with a third party browser, like Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome, just by selecting one of these options from a pop up menu. It is also possible to open a site with Acrobat Reader or other applications, which you can select in Offline Explorer's general settings menu. What's more, you can access another browser's bookmarks, without importing them. You may navigate different sub-menus, to select any bookmark from the previously mentioned browsers.

To start downloading a web site, you must create a new project, on a separate window. If the web site's URL is copied to the clipboard, the software will paste it automatically. While preparing your project, you can set up numerous filters, to include or exclude text, images, videos, archives, URLs and other items. You may also provide a username and password, if you need to. Depending on your settings, Offline Explorer can download all the files or just the modified items. You can also set up a maximum level, if you don't want to download the entire web site. Alternatively, you may launch a wizard and prepare the project step by step.

Offline Explorer allows you to download multiple web sites at once and you may suspend individual projects at any time, with a single click. Downloading a large portion of a web site may take some time. This is why the browser's unique features will come in very handy. The available options make it possible to download missing files, update a project or restart a download. One of the best features is Offline Explorer's auto-save. While a project is selected, you can browse a web site as usual and the browser will save its pages automatically.