In another article we talked about how it is possible to study the history of the internet, seeing how all the sites of the past have evolved and how they have changed, which ones still exist, which ones have disappeared and so on, from WayBackMachine.
A comment stimulated this post because on the WyBack Machine there are old web pages but not those of a few months ago. The Internet is a world in constant evolution, just as many sites are born, many others are scattered, eliminated or totally change their contents. There are other sites, then, that have a very high attendance and therefore often go offline and cannot be reached for several hours on certain days. If these sites also contain important and useful information, it can be frustrating to have to wait for them to come back online. Another field of application could be to want to browse internet pages from a PC not connected to the network.
As written in another post, you can always open disappeared sites and web pages not found (404) using cached copies, especially the Google Cache Copy.
Without discovering hot water, we remember that it is possible download an entire internet page as an HTML file on Chrome and Firefox using the Save Page option named from the Options> Other tools menu. More quickly you can save the web page you are looking at by pressing the buttons together CTRL + S. For more options to download a web page in HTML, you can use the extension on Chrome Save Page WE which allows you to download the HTML file in full, without any exclusion. The downloaded file is saved as a single HTML file that can be opened in any web browser.
Another extension, SinglePage, which works on Chrome, Firefox and Edge allows download a web page as a single HTML file.
Download entire websites
In this list we see some programs to download a backup copy of a site in full on the PC, also useful for the purpose of consult it without being connected, even if the site no longer exists and, if you want, modify it.
1) The best tool for creating copies of websites instead it is another program that is called HTTrack.
The program is easy to use for everyone but it has several options also for advanced users and webmasters who want to take advantage of the code of already made sites to find development examples and import them on theirs.
On the HTTTrack website there is also a detailed step by step guide to understand the main features and use it efficiently. HTTrack, available on Windows, Unix, Linux and BSD, allows you to download an entire website, directly on the computer and is able to save all the paths, the site directories, the html code, the images and all the files that are on the server where the domain is hosted.
2) A good program is simpler and allows you to download entire websites and all pages with links and it's Fresh WebSuction.
Just indicate the address of the site and, if you want, also the type of file to download such as, for example, html pages, images, photos, audio files, videos, documents and archives.
3) Excellent is also PageNest, free, for Windows, which describes itself as "browser offline"to save a web page or entire internet sites to be able to view them offline, without connection. Easy to use, just write the internet address of the site and then click on Download to save the selected web pages and all the links inside.
4) Cyotek WebCopy is a powerful program to copy a website to a folder on your computer, access the site map, download administrative areas of the site after entering the required credentials, and more. The application can prove to be really useful for those who want to download websites without using an FTP client. You can download an entire website or just a select number of pages. Just enter the website URL in the field, select the download folder and press the Copy Site button from the toolbar. Other useful features are the ability to switch user agents, add domain aliases, export images downloaded from websites, and verify URLs that have HTTP redirection. Cyotek WebCopy works on Windows 10, Windows 7 and 8.
5) You can also save files from the internet and web pages in Google Drive with just one click using the appropriate extension for the Chrome browser.
Other services to create a copy of a website in order to always keep it online even if it disappears is the Codeguard.com website that creates a cached copy of any web page.
