MetaProducts Offline Explorer Review

Synopsis: What's the best way to archive your favorite web pages and web media permanently? Answer: MetaProducts Offline Explorer! Using a clear, intuitive and convenient user interface, Offline Explorer downloads Web and FTP sites (up to 500 simultaneously!) at the highest possible speed so you can browse, search, export to CD or perform other operations on downloaded sites. Among its many awards, Offline Explorer is a ZDNet.com 5-star winner!

Offline Explorer: Screenshots

Click to view: Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4.

10 Reasons why you should be using Offline Explorer

(1) A Powerful, Easy-to-Use Interface

Offline Explorer's simple, understandable interface makes it easy for you to become productive in minutes. At the same time, the program contains the tools you need to complete even the most difficult downloading tasks. The interface makes it easy to harness Offline Explorer's dazzling speed, including its ability to download 500 files simultaneously.

(2) An Internal Web Browser

In addition to automatically recognizing and supporting MS Internet Explorer, Netscape Communicator, Opera, and NetCaptor, Offline Explorer has its own built-in Internet browser. This enables you to view the Internet from a computer with no browser installed. You can also print downloaded web pages directly from Offline Explorer.

(3) Support for Today's Hot Technologies

Offline Explorer supports the latest Internet technologies. Many web sites contain Java scripts, Java applets, cookies, post requests, referrers, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Macromedia Flash, XML/XSL files, Contents (.TOC) files, and MPEG3 list files (.M3U). Offline Explorer not only downloads these files, but also processes them to extract hyperlinks, and changes them for offline browsing. Thus, you get to see offline everything that was on the original web site, even if it was using the most up-to-date technologies.

(4) FTP, HTTPS, RTSP and MMS Access

In addition to downloading ordinary web sites, you can download FTP and secured (HTTPS) sites. Moreover, The Pro version allows you to record streaming audio/video to your hard disk (such as .RM [real media], .WMV [windows movie files], etc). Various proxy servers are also supported, giving you access from inside a firewall or Intranet (HTTP, SOCKS 4/5, FTP User@Site, RTSP).

(5) Access to Protected Web Sites

Offline Explorer excels at downloading protected web sites, because it supports HTTP and NTLM authorization, it can submit logon forms, and it supports cookies and referrers. It is also possible to submit custom forms using a new feature in the program's Internal Browser.

(6) Flexibility in Working with the Web

Defining and setting up a new Internet download project is flexible and easy. There are many ways to tell Offline Explorer what Internet pages you want to capture: You can use a Wizard, import from Favorites, Bookmarks, or Hot lists, drag-and-drop links from browsers, paste them from the clipboard, use the context (right-click) menu in MS Internet Explorer, or add them instantly from the address bar. You can even create a library of download project templates to simplify the creation of routine new project tasks.

(7) Universal Formatting

All downloaded web sites are stored in their native format, with no proprietary databases or formats. All links are made relative, so it is easy to move them to another place, or even publish collections of downloaded pages on your own web server.

(8) Total User Control of Downloads

With Offline Explorer, you have full control while downloading. For each download project, you can specify which file types to load and which to skip, based on their file extension, size, or location. You can use keywords to specify servers, directories, or filenames to be allowed or disallowed for downloading. You can abort any file download by simply right clicking on it. Additionally, the Pro version allows you to manage the downloading queue; you can run, stop, suspend, and resume a download, or save it to a file to continue downloading later from exactly that point.

(9) Total User Control of Download Projects

Project management is easy with Offline Explorer. You see all projects at once on the screen. Any number of projects may be started for downloading together. You can group them by folders. You can add, edit, delete, copy, paste, back up, restore, search, or export projects and folders. You can view the site map of any downloaded project and easily manage it.

(10) Web Site Snapshots Over Time

Offline Explorer lets you overwrite old downloaded files with newer versions, or keep up to 10,000 copies of the older files. You can create a library, and monitor web sites as they change over time.

Offline Explorer: New Features

• Tabbed Internal browser
   
• Improved Search for contents in HTML files with highlighted keywords
   
• Added simple HTML forms exploration
   
• Added evaluation of complex JavaScript expressions
   
• Separate queues for truly parallel Project downloads
   
• Project download completion notification by sound, E-mail or ICQ
   
• Better downloading and parsing speed
   
• Friendly Welcome page in Internal browser with Help Center

Offline Explorer: Download

Offline Explorer is free to try, and $30.00 to buy. The Pro version of Offline Explorer (with extended multimedia downloads) retails for $70.00.

Download Links Organizer | Buy

Download Links Organizer Pro | Buy