Netallianz

Ever wondered how you can download an entire website and run it locally on your PC?

Well, you can save it page by page (using File – Save As in your browser) and then rebuild it by changing the navigation links so that all the web pages are correctly linked. Those of you who have tried this will know how hard it is!

Or you can make life easy for yourself and use HT Track, a really cool software which has been around for a couple of years now.

HTTrack works on most websites and can even download Flash SWF files. It is able to follow web links and hence create a correct path for navigating the site after downloading it to your PC.

There are some limitations though…. links which are embedded in a Flash file may not work properly. And the same goes with Javascripts and Form Submission pages.

Last week one of our clients requested us to burn their website on a CD so they can use it for a presentation. The website was coded in PHP script which means you can’t run it normally in your PC unless you use a server-side application such as Apache server.

It was quite a large website and recreating it would blow the client’s cost unnecessarily.

So out came HTTrack and the task was completed with minimum fuss. That’s the beauty of this software… it doesn’t matter whether a website has been coded in HTML, PHP or ASP. HTTrack just follows the links and creates the path for you.

HTTrack is a free download under the GPL license.