 Perhaps
the most frustrating aspect of using the Internet is the seemingly endless
time it takes to load a site for display. After typing in the URL address,
the site is usually quickly accessed. Then begins the wait for the page(s)
to assemble on your hard disk so you can actually view them. Text seems
to be fairly quick, but graphics and images are tree sloth slow.
If you are one of those who still use an Internet account that bills on an hourly basis, you should check out one of the new offline browsing tools. ForeFront publishes just such a tool, WebWhacker for Windows 95/NT. The basic premise of WebWhacker is accessing one or more web sites, preferably during off peak hours, and downloading the entire site(s) onto your computer for viewing at your convenience. WebWhacker refers to this process as "whacking", but you can think of it as "saving". You can set up WebWhacker to access any web site just as you would program a vcr. The day and time can be preset along with the sites you want to access by using the "schedule" part of the program. After programming it for your choices, you can walk away and leave it to do the dirty work while you sleep. WebWhacker does not require a web browser to accomplish it's function, only an Internet connection. By now you are probably wondering what benefit this is. Two major ones come to mind; less time online may mean money in your pocket, and faster access to some of the more popular sites. By automating, you can access sites when most users are asleep, and downloading without waiting for the time killing graphics and images to load. WebWhacker simply transfers the site to your hard disk much as you download a file from the Alamo PC BBS. The site is stored in a database that you can open with WebWhacker and your Internet browser and view just as if you were online. The site can be traveled much faster than when online, because you are running off your hard disk, and not through the modem. You can view text, graphics, and whatever images are on the site. By the term "the site", I mean on that particular web site. If there are parts of the site that are linked to another site, you must allow WebWhacker to dial up that site, or, set it up to download both sites at the same time. WebWhacker can be set up to download all, or only part of a site. You tell it to got to a site (URL), the number of levels of the site to "whack", and whether or not to include any or all links to other sites. After "whacking" the first site, WebWhacker travels to the next and repeats according to instructions until all requested sites have been "whacked". When finished, it disconnects from your ISP (Internet service provider), and goes to sleep. Be sure to leave your computer turned on, and do NOT turn it off as you would your vcr. It's good, but not that good. One really nice use is if you have a favorite site that changes often, program WebWhacker to "whack" the site on a regular basis. WebWhacker is interactive, as you can use it with your browser while online, but I think it's best use is as described above. Installation is from two floppies, with an install wizard to guide you through. It will automatically configure your browser to work with it, and unless you are fairly knowledgeable about setting up an Internet connection, I suggest you allow it to do so. It must be configured as a proxy server, and it does tell you how to do it if you want. The manual is fairly easy to read, though the instructions are somewhat redundant. Most of the commands are accessed in the same manner, and each has it's own set of instructions, which are generally the same. ForeFront apparently feels it's better to give a little too much instruction, rather than too little, and I agree. There is a nice glossary in the back, along with a list of some known problems. There is a tutorial inside the online help section. The manual and online help are really enough, as they are pretty complete, and there were no problems. If you do need to contact ForeFront for help, the prefer you use their Web site, or an online "RoundTable" conference site. I still prefer talking direct to a living, breathing person. The one complaint I have is that when you delete a URL from the database, WebWhacker does not free up the space. The space IS available for use, but apparently only by WebWhacker. It will fill in that space with new data before using any new hard disk space, but I would prefer it be available as soon as I delete it. ForeFront is aware of this however, and says a fix is due in the form of data compression. System requirements are:Windows 95/NTInternet connectionWeb browser386/33 cpu4MB RAM10 MB hard disk spaceTest system:486/10024 MB RAMNetscape Communicator Street price is around $45.00, or less with a discount from some of the PC Alamode advertisers. The ForeFront Group, Inc.
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