Website-mirroring software Website mirroring software is software that allows for the download of a copy of an entire
website to the local hard disk for
offline browsing. In effect, the downloaded copy serves as a
mirror of the original site.
Web crawler software such as
Wget can be used to generate a site mirror.
Offline mail and news readers Offline mail readers are
computer programs that allow users to read
electronic mail or other messages (for example, those on
bulletin board systems) with a minimum of connection time to the server storing the messages. BBS
servers accomplished this by packaging up multiple messages into a
compressed file, e.g., a
QWK packet, for the user to download using, e.g.,
Xmodem,
Ymodem,
Zmodem, and then disconnect. The user reads and replies to the messages locally and packages up and uploads any replies or new messages back to the server upon the next connection. Internet mail servers using
POP3 or
IMAP4 send the messages uncompressed as part of the protocol, and outbound messages using
SMTP are also uncompressed.
Offline news readers using
NNTP are similar, but the messages are organized into news groups. Most e-mail protocols, like the common
POP3 and
IMAP4 used for
internet mail, need be on-line only during message transfer; the same applies to the
NNTP protocol used by
Usenet (Network news). Most end-user mailers, such as
Outlook Express and
AOL, can be used offline even if they are mainly intended to be used online, but some mailers such as
Juno are mainly intended to be used offline. Off-line mail readers are generally considered to be those systems that did not originally offer such functionality, notably on
bulletin board systems where toll charges and tying up telephone lines were a major concern. Users of large networks such as
FidoNet regularly used offline mail readers, and it was also used for
UseNet messages on the internet, which is also an on-line system. The two most common formats for FidoNet BBS's were Blue Wave and
QWK. Less well-known examples include Silver Xpress's
OPX, XRS, OMEN,
SOUP and
ZipMail. ==List==