WebSnake for Windows 95
Topic 346 · 6 responses · archived october 2000
~buzz
Mon, Jun 9, 1997 (18:55)
seed
The latest release from Anawave Software is an intelligent agent offline browser
designed to help you pull information from web sites without incurring large
connection bills and expending valuable time and effort. WebSnake offers a set
of features very similar to its closest competitor, Tennyson Maxwell's Teleport Pro. Like Teleport Pro, WebSnake offers six major functions, each of which can be launched
via a Project Wizard that guides you through the function's entire process. As
with other offline browsers, WebSnake allows you to download entire web sites
and then view them at a later time. However, unlike most of its competition,
WebSnake goes far beyond this single task. Using intelligent pull technology,
WebSnake can help you search for specific keywords on a web site, almost like
having your own personal web search engine for a site (only quite a bit slower
than normal). This function is most useful when you need to search web sites
that lack their own search engines. You can also use WebSnake to retrieve
specific types of files using intelligent filters. This function allows you to
grab all the graphics, movies, sound bytes, or specific web pages from a web
site. WebSnake can also provide users with the structure of a remote web site
by building a map of the site's HTML file references. The resulting map gives
users an overview of the web site's structure in a tree format.
Another cool feature in WebSnake is its ability to mirror a web site with the
complete directory structure intact. Unfortunately, as with Teleport Pro,
WebSnake doesn't allow you to check web sites for revised information and then
download only the files or documents that are more recent than the ones stored
on your local site. Such a feature would allow you to synchronize mirror sites
in a more efficient fashion. WebSnake's final major function, and perhaps its
most controversial feature, is the ability to pull all the e-mail addresses
found in a web site and export them into a comma or tab delimited database text
file. This gives users the ability to quickly collect addresses for mass e-mail
marketing letters as well as for other less intrusive applications. Complementing the major functions are a wealth of helpful features including
built-in FTP support (a feature absent in Teleport Pro and most other competing
products), smart search querying, advanced scheduling capabilities, HTTP/FTP
password and proxy/firewall support, extensive help and tutorials, and advanced
multi-threading capabilities (with support for a maximum of 64 concurrent
threads). WebSnake does lack features like Teleport Pro's Domain Dispersed
Querying and Server Overload Protection, but otherwise it competes with Teleport
Pro on a feature for feature basis and manages to hold its own. Still, with a
price tag of just under $50 (compared to Teleport Pro at $40), WebSnake narrowly
loses the overall battle...for now at least.
Pros: Quick, easy to use client; great selection of features for searching and downloading web sites
Cons: Lacks several of Teleport Pro's advanced features, price tag relative to the competition
For the latest WebSnake information, check out:
http://cws.internet.com/32agents.html#websnake
~terry
Mon, Jun 9, 1997 (19:58)
#1
I talked to Tennyson Maxell a while back about implementing features like
th ability to search for keywords like mailto:// so I could pull email
addresses off websites. So websnake sounds like it's worth a try.
Cool name.
~yapper
Sat, Jun 14, 1997 (23:07)
#2
WebSnake is part of the spam machine.
The software authors should be boycotted until the spam features are removed.
In the meantime, webmasters are encouraged to hundreds of orphaned pages on their websites with thousands of fictious email addresses in various formats, and include the email addresses of known spam domains.
Appropriate name.
~ginger
Sun, Jun 15, 1997 (02:03)
#3
Welcome to the Spring, yapper. Are you into any of the other conferences here?
~terry
Sun, Jun 15, 1997 (02:28)
#4
What spam features are you referring to yapper?
~terry
Sat, Jun 21, 1997 (14:47)
#5
I think yapper is referring to the fact that you can generate large email lists from all the emails referenced on a website.
I would like to see the ability to snake multiple sites. Also, snake has a fit with java applets but the Anawave folks tell me this will be fixed in the next release.
I see why this is the cool app of the week. It's a powerful app with an easy to use "wizardlike" interface. And they'll be adding more wizards.
~cfadm
Mon, Mar 7, 2005 (10:43)
#6
from http://websnake.com
Anawave WebSnake 1.23
Anawave WebSnake is the world's most powerful off-line browser designed exclusively for Windows Platform.
In addition to off-line browsing, WebSnake is unique in that it uses our proprietary "intelligent pull" technology to search and retrieve files from the World Wide Web. For example, WebSnake supports website mirroring (including directory structure), retrieval of e-mail addresses, site maps and advanced file search. Unlike most of our competitors, WebSnake also supports the industry-standard File Transfer Protocol (FTP).
Best of all, WebSnake is easy-to-use! Our friendly WebSnake Wizard will take you through the process of creating and running a WebSnake project from scratch. Just select one of five project types, provide a URL and WebSnake will do the rest!
Off-line Browsing Project -- WebSnake's Off-line Browsing Project can copy a remote website to your hard drive for local viewing through a web browser. Off-line browsing makes web surfing faster since most files are directly accessed from your hard drive instead of the Internet.
Mirroring Project -- The Mirroring Project lets webmasters and web designers copy a remote website, including the complete directory structure of the site.
Snake E-mail Addresses Project -- With the incredible E-mail Addresses Project, you can copy e-mail addresses referenced in a website's HTML files. These e-mail addresses can later be exported into a comma or tab delimited file.
Site Map Project -- The powerful Site Map Project can build a map of the HTML files referenced from a starting address/URL. This is useful if you wish to know the structure of a remote website.
Search and Retrieve Project -- The Search and Retrieve Project will search for HTML files that contain defined keywords. Or, you can search and retrieve files by looking for keywords in the filename and/or by file type. WebSnake can also automatically download any files found by the search.
Check out our Competitive Matrix to see how WebSnake sizes up to the competition.
New Features in 1.23
WebSnake's enhanced features make snaking websites faster and more comprehensive than ever!
Bookmark Import
Snaking your favorite websites is a breeze with WebSnake's bookmark importing. Whether you use Netscape, Internet Explorer, or another browser, you can convert your bookmarks into projects that can be downloaded with just a few clicks of the mouse.
Parsing Java Scripts
Given all the cool effects on the Web, you'll come across lots of Java and Visual Basic (VB) scripts. Within these scripts, there may be support files that are required for the script to run properly. WebSnake goes the extra mile to retrieve all the necessary files and link them so that everything will work off-line.
Netiquette
WebSnake's enhanced netiquette features make sure you interact with other users on the Internet in a polite manner while giving you the powerful controls you need to snake websites effectively.
Smart Dispersion -- When snaking a website, WebSnake may span multiple servers to retrieve all the necessary files. This process can be slowed considerably if WebSnake encounters a slow server. The Smart Dispersion feature pursues retrieval threads on other better-responding servers, meaning you get the information you want often twice as fast!
Robot Exclusion -- Don't waste time trying to snake areas on a website that are restricted. The Robot Exclusion Standard is used by webmasters to limit your accessibility to certain parts of their site. With this feature, WebSnake will quickly spot the off-limit areas and move on.
Multi-thread and Request Control -- You'll never overload a slow server or bring a website to a grinding halt again. With WebSnake's flexible multi-thread and interval-between requests control, your snake projects are fast and thorough.
Zip Your Projects
Depending on which site you snake and how deep you go, the downloaded files can take up a fair amount of space. If you're running out of room but don't want to lose your data, WebSnake's handy zip tools let you compress the contents of an entire project to save valuable disk space.
Other Great Features
Help and Tutorial Files
Our Help files are extensive with over 50 defined keywords. The mini-tutorial covers all five project types with actual examples.
View File Details
The view file details feature will give you useful information such as the file name, size and type. In addition, WebSnake may also (but not always) retrieve additional file information such as date created and last date modified. WebSnake will also display the full path in which the file was originally found.
Snake Status Bar
As you run a WebSnake project, useful information such as server messages, files received and/or searched, and transfer rate will be displayed in real-time.
System Requirements
486/33 or higher PC
Windows Platform
8MB RAM
5MB available hard disk space