Product Frequently Asked Questions

INTERNET applications

• Portable Offline Browser
• Offline Explorer
• Offline Explorer Pro
• Offline Explorer Enterprise
• Mass Downloader

DESKTOP applications

• AutoDialogs

mp COLLECTIONS

• Internet Collection
• MP Collection

1. How many Web sites can I download?

   The number of web sites you can download is limited only by the size of your hard disk.

2. How many Web sites can I download simultaneously?

   You can download up to 100 web sites simultaneously.

3. Can I only download specific web pages?

   Yes. You can download single pages by file type, filename, or keyword.

4. Are there any web sites that cannot be downloaded?

   OE cannot download (1) some complex JavaScripts, (2) Gopher. Real Audio/Video support is available in the Pro and Enterprise versions of Offline Explorer.

5. What does Java Classes support mean?

   Java classes have become more and more popular in web pages, and many offline browsers, including OE, can download them. However, you may experience the following problems: (1) MS Internet Explorer raises a Security error when a Java class tries to load from a local disk. (2) Many Java.class files could refer to other files or Java classes. Most offline browsers do not investigate them and the loaded page appears to be incomplete--the Java class file simply refuses to load when browsing offline.

   Offline Explorer offers better Java support. First, OE includes an internal web server, which solves the MS IE security problem. Second, OE parses Java.class files to find related files and classes and then loads them. You may notice that some files (some with .class extension) cause a "404 Not Found" error. This is because OE checks every possible link included in the Java applet. Some of them may appear to be void, but others will lead to real files.

6. What does JavaScript support mean?

   Many web sites contain dynamic graphics, advertisements, menus, etc. Many of these are implemented in JavaScript. Other offline browsers may omit the JavaScript files, rendering the dynamic content useless. OE allows you to download them.

7. Does OE save files in their original directories and filenames?

   Yes. OE tries to keep the original servers/directories/filenames structure. The exception is complex filenames, such as:

   file.cgi?jkqwes8769q3xvv657it+kq6v8&sfsnh7=73265mnwsbn

   In such cases, OE will replace symbols such as "?" with others to fulfill FAT/FAT32/NTFS filesystem requirements.

8. Does OE support MacroMedia Flash files?

   Yes, OE v1.1 and later supports Macromedia Flash (.swf) files.

9. What are the .primary files?

   When Offline Explorer (OE) loads an HTML file, it creates a copy by adding an extension to the filename called ".primary". Since all links in the HTML file are translated, the primary copy contains the original untranslated links. These primary files are used when OE updates previously-loaded sites. When an HTML file appears to be unmodified (and therefore should not be loaded,) or the "Do not download existing files" mode is selected in the Project Properties, OE uses the links in the primary copy to locate other Web files. OE 1.1 uses a more intelligent parsing technology, and creates fewer primary files because in most cases the original links can be retranslated from the offline URLs. However, if an HTML file contains very complex links, the primary copy will be retained. In future versions of OE, the parsing algorithms will use fewer primary files. Eventually, we plan to eliminate the need for them entirely.

10. How I can change the Download directory and move loaded sites to the new location?

    You should move the download directory to a new location using Windows Explorer and then change the Download directory in Ofline Explorer - Options | Advanced | Download directory. However, there will be one problem. Since map files contain hard-coded paths for all loaded files, the Project Map feature will not work. Offline Explorer will also be unable to remove loaded files when the Project is deleted from the list.

    We plan to improve this in the next version - 1.4. If you change the download directory in that version, all files will be moved and map files will change links to the new files destination.

    If you want to copy loaded files to another computer, you should use the Export feature, included in 1.3 version. It allows you to copy loaded files for selected Projects to any location (on local or shared network drives) and change filenames, so they will be better browsed without internal Web server in Offline Explorer

11. How I can limit the Offline Explorer downloading speed to balance the traffic of all programs?

    You can adjust the speed using the Download menu. Also, you can lower the data flow in Options dialog setting number of connections to 2 or 3 and delay between downloads from 5 to 20 seconds.

12. A site has download limits - how I can overcome them or maybe use proxy servers to route requests, so it looks like they come from different computers?

    Offline Explorer support multiple proxy servers. If you have more than one working proxy, the program will make every next URL download via another proxy server.

    You may enter the proxy servers lists in the Options dialog - Proxy Server section (or Internet tab of the Ribbon - Proxy... button).

    One of Offline Explorer customers suggests:

    With google i have searched "proxy list", then i have examined some sites, in particular "http://www.proxyserverlists.net. Here you can choose your preferred port number list.I have used some of those addresses but i have found them too slow, in term of response time.
    Then i have choosen http://www.xroxy.com, then select "Premium Proxy", then click on "free open proxy list" ( in red color ), there you can select "proxy port number",type of proxy,country, latency and reliability.
    I have selected port 80, anonymous,china with the best latency and reliability.Then i have manually copied them into Offline Explorer.
    I will be very glad if this my experience will be useful to other Offline Explorer users.