If there was any universal immutable truth to the internet, it’s that things vanish from it all the time. Those pages you bookmarked last year? They may be gone. Those forums posts that contained a wealth of useful information? They may be gone as well.

There are several different ways to archive web pages.

You could use ScreenGrab for Firefox. But the problem is that you can text-search anything in an image.

You could use PDF Creator and "print" pages to PDF. This does allow text searching, but the PDF rarely looks anything like the original page and any images present look "off."

What truly works are MHT files. I’ve mentioned this before but have a few extra goodies to make it even easier.

What’s the difference between an MHT and a regular "Save Page As.."? The MHT is an actual single-file archive that contains all the code and images. It’s a great way to archive web pages that contain information you want to save.

Firefox does not have native ability to read or save MHT files, however with UnMHT, you can. It will even read MHTs saved by Internet Explorer, and IE will also read MHTs saved by Firefox. In addition to that, UnMHT has the ability to save all open tabs at once – something that IE 8 doesn’t do.

See video below for details on how it all works.

The definition of a web site that refuses to upgrade is one that does not "understand" anything other than Internet Explorer 6 or 7. For many this is a constant source of frustration for three very good reasons:

1. Internet Explorer 8 has been in existence for almost seven months at the time of this writing. The administrators of these "IE only" web sites couldn’t figure out how to write in support for 8 in this span of time? Apparently not.
2. Many choose not to use IE, but they’re out of luck when certain web sites will only support IE 6/7 and nothing else.
3. Windows 7 comes provided with IE 8 (unless you’re in the UK.) These computers will be on the shelves very soon and in come places already are. What does one do in that situation since they can’t "degrade" to IE 7 or 6 just to get certain web sites to work?

There are two ways to get around problematic web sites like this.

Method 1. Using IE 6 or 7 in WINE for Linux

WINE has had the ability to run a whole bunch of different IEs for some time now. Versions 1 all the way thru 8 are available, but the ones you would be interested in for compatibility’s sake are 6 and 7.

The only problem you may encounter running IE this way is that certain plugins for IE may not work when used in WINE. This is rare, but it can happen if it’s some ActiveX oddball plugin or something like that.

Method 2. Windows 2000 or XP virtual PC

On my Windows 7 desktop I purposely keep a barebones setup of XP running with IE 6 in VirtualBox. When I upgraded to Win 7 I already had an existing fully licensed copy of XP Professional Edition, so that’s what I have used in the virtual PC.

In Windows you have three major choices for computer virtualization, that being the aforementioned VirtualBox, Microsoft’s Virtual PC or VMware. I choose VirtualBox because it operates exactly the same in Windows, Mac or Linux – and I truly like that kind of compatibility because no matter what OS I’m on, VirtualBox is always familiar. However you may like Virtual PC or VMware better as far as your personal preferences are concerned. I will say the easiest of the bunch is Microsoft’s version because it’s very straightforward – but it only works under Windows.

Setting up your virtual PC with IE 6 or 7, and other notes

If you have a fully licensed OEM disc of Microsoft Windows XP, such as I do, this comes with IE 6 as its bundled web browser. What I’ve done in my virtual XP PC is used Microsoft Update to patch up every single thing I possibly could except the browser. This can be done easily. What I have is an XP that does have IE 6 for those web sites that absolutely refuse to work right with anything else.

VirtualBox running XP Professional Edition with the IE 6 browser

A bunch of updates in the virtual PC with XP, including Service Pack 3 – but still on IE 6

It is the fortunate case that web sites that are IE6-only are dwindling slowly but surely off the internet, but instead of embracing multi-browser capability, they’re latching on to IE 7 which is just as bad.

For the time being, I use a virtual XP with IE 6 and if I have to go to 7, this can be downloaded without going to 8 with XP, and I’m sure Microsoft will be keeping this download on their web site for at least a few more years.

Even if you are running XP with IE 8 now and plan to stick with that for a while, you can still use Virtual PC or VirtualBox to install another Windows XP (assuming you have another legal licensed copy) with IE 6 or 7. This will work fine.

The only thing you cannot do is have both IE 7 and 8 in the same Windows OS at the same time. While that would be really great if you could do that, it’s simply not an option. The easiest workaround is to have a virtual PC with a previous-generation browser.

For those of you out there who do not have another legal copy of Windows, my suggestion is to use VirtualBox and install a distribution of Linux, such as Ubuntu, and use IE 6 or 7 via WINE. Most distributions make this very easy to install, and I may even write up another article on how to do just that so it’s even easier for you.

People save web pages to ensure they can retrieve information later without having to load it on the internet. It also is a way of retrieving a web page just in case the original web site has an outage or goes offline for whatever reason.

There are two basic ways of saving web pages, that being via the browser or "printing it" to a PDF.

Via the browser

The browser that has the absolute best web page save feature is Internet Explorer 8, due to the fact it can save entire web pages as a "Web Archive." When you click File/Save As (if you don’t see that in your IE 8, press ALT on your keyboard to bring up that menu,) you’ll see it as a save option:

When you choose to save it will "crunch" everything into a single file:

Why is this the best? Because it’s a single file that contains everything (and that’s why it’s labeled as an archive.) All the text, all the images and everything included. If you load it afterward, it looks exactly the way it was originally. It is to the best of my knowledge the only browser that does it right.

Other browsers, such as Firefox, save as "Web page, complete" and it’s nothing but a huge mess. An HTML file will be saved which is the web page, but a subfolder will also be created with all the images, JavaScript files, etc. You can literally get 20+ files out of a single web page save.

Love or hate IE 8, it rules the roost when it comes to web page archiving.

Drawbacks:

• Only one – it’s proprietary to IE 8. Otherwise it’s the best way to archive a web page.

Via PDF Creator

If you don’t use IE 8 and want a web to save web pages a single files that include images and so on, the best way to do this is to use PDF Creator to create PDF files. This is free software that will install a virtual print driver and can be used in your web browser of choice.

Once installed, go to any web page, load it, then click File/Print or press CTRL+P. 

Choose PDF Creator from the window that appears:

..click OK.

The page will be crunched and made ready for PDF rendering:

You’ll see this:

Click the Save button at bottom right. You’ll be asked to name the file and where you want to save it to. Once done, the page is archived as a PDF.

Drawbacks:

• Many times the PDF creator will default to a serif font (Times New Roman) instead of the font seen on the original web page.
• Any links in the web page will not work in the PDF.

These drawbacks are usually acceptable being it’s the text you care about the most when it comes to a web page. Any images on the page will be embedded in the PDF; all text is searchable as well.

In addition, the PDF created even for very large web pages will be small in file size, suitable for sending in email if you want to send it off to a friend.

Via ScreenGrab

This is for Firefox only.

ScreenGrab is a FireFox plugin. It allows you to save a PNG or JPEG screen shot of any web page, but does so far better than ALT+PrintScreen. ScreenGrab will take an image of the entire page including the full length. The screen shot taken will look identical to what you see on-screen.

Drawbacks:

• Since the output file is an image, none of the text can be searched and links won’t work either.
• The default output file is a PNG. If the web page you save is very long, the file saved will be enormous.
• On very large web pages it can cause Firefox to freeze up when attempting to take a full screen shot, particularly on slower computers.

You can make the screen shot ScreenGrab takes to be smaller by purposely not using the browser maximized, because yes, ScreenGrab captures everything – including all the white space on the sides.

To use ScreenGrab, install the add-on, then on any web page, right-click and choose ScreenGrab:

"Complete Page/Frame" will save the entire page, length and all.

"Visible portion" only captures what the browser is displaying at that moment.

"Selection" allows you to select what you want captured.

"Window" acts like ALT+PrintScreen does.

Choosing to Save will save the file. Choosing to Copy will copy the image to the clipboard buffer where you can paste into another program such as an image editor, Word, etc.

For those who remember installing Internet Explorer either an an upgrade or fresh install, the process was specifically tailored to replace your default browser settings when electing to use the "Express" installation method. This is no longer the case.

This comes shortly after it was announced that Windows 7 upgrade for UK users would not come with IE 8 preinstalled due to an anti-trust ruling.

What will happen now is that if you choose to install Internet Explorer 8, the first run will be much more straightforward, directly asking you, "Do you want to make Internet Explorer your default browser?"

This is a welcome change that was applauded by not only Windows users but other competing browser software makers, such as Mozilla.

From then to now

Fortunately we now live in a time when most software we install doesn’t try to hijack any settings you don’t want changed. This is drastically different compared to what it used to be like 10 years ago.

For example, in 1999 software like AOL and RealPlayer tried to hijack everything. It was a sad time for computer software back then.

This is not to say that all software stays on the Light Side of The Force. Some titles still do things that are, shall we say, unethical.

Do you know of software that still pulls hijacking tricks?

Let us know in the comments.

The most-used browser on the internet is still Internet Explorer. It surprises me how many people do not know how to make basic customizations to this browser. This video will show you how to do it. You may learn a few things you didn’t know about the browser before. See video below.

How are pre-order sales of Windows 7 doing in the UK? Very well. However there are two major differences compared to the US version.

First, it is required to have a clean install. For most people this means the drive must be wiped in order to use it to get rid of the old Windows (Vista or XP).

Second, there is no Internet Explorer in the UK version. This is probably the reason why the clean install is mandatory for 7. UK’s 7 doesn’t have IE because of a European Commission anti-trust ruling.

Can you install IE 8 after you install the OS? Yes. It will most likely be listed as an optional (keyword there) download in Windows Update. There may even be an icon purposely placed on the desktop that says "Download Internet Explorer" or something similar. And to be honest I hope that’s the case because otherwise a whole bunch of people wouldn’t really know how to get it.

You can’t say, "Download Firefox to a USB stick from another PC, plug it in to the new one and install to 7 that way", because if it’s the only PC the user has, what are they going to do? Go to a command prompt, connect via FTP over to ftp.mozilla.org and get a browser that way? Would you want to instruct a newbie how to do that? Probably not.

This marks the first time Windows will be sold without a browser since Windows 95. For those who remember, the very first edition of 95 did not have IE preinstalled.

It is also clear that Microsoft does appear to have a winner on its hands with Windows 7 on both sides of the pond, even though the UK version is IE-less.

For those of you out there using the Internet Explorer 8 web browser, customizing the Command Bar makes it a lot easier to get to specific functions in IE 8 faster.

This is what mine looks like:

From left to right:

Home, InPrivate Browsing, Internet Options, Page, Safety, Tools, Manage Add-Ons, Zoom

In particular, I really like having the InPrivate, Internet Options, Manage Add-Ons and Zoom there because it saves me from having to hunt for them (as some are quite buried).

To modify, right-click an empty area of the Command Bar, then click Customize, Add or Remove Commands…, like this:

You’ll see this window:

Add, move or remove your selectable buttons in the Command Bar from here.

Also remember that to see all the icons you add in there, uncheck the option for Lock the Toolbars (see screen shot above) so you can drag the bar out to see everything, then re-lock afterwards if you like.

Most web sites will work with no issue using Firefox 3 or Internet Explorer 8. But there will be times you encounter a web page that will instantly crash your browser. One such example is crappy MySpace pages. It is very common to find pages with the following junk in it:

• Animated background graphic
• Animated Flash graphics
• Auto-play music player
• Other graphics pulled in from many different web sites (from the "comments" section on such pages)

It’s awful. And even if you have an absolutely default browser with no add-ons/plugins installed, pages like this can still crash your browser.

A way around this is to use the "No-Style" option which effectively kills almost all the crap on pages like this and keeps the browser from crashing.

In Firefox and IE: View / Page Style / No Style

In IE, if you don’t see the "View" on the menubar, just press ALT to see the menu.

Using No-Style will make web pages look Web 1.0-like. It reverts the style to the default font and makes otherwise "heavy" pages easy to scroll and read.

In addition, you can whiz thru the pages much faster. Granted, it may be "ugly", but it’s much faster than with everything loaded.

I do use this feature periodically because there are some web designs out there that are simply awful. And while (on Windows) Times New Roman 16-pixel size in black on a white background may be not-so stylish, it sure is easy to read.

Also remember that selecting "Basic Page Style" or "Default Style" puts the browser back in normal viewing mode, which it’s in by default.

The last time I wrote about IE 8 was on March 19. It’s March 30 today, I’ve been using the browser here and there, and here’s what I have to report on it.

Is IE 8 good enough to make me switch back from Firefox?

Not a chance. When I switched to FF way back in the day when Firefox was still called Firebird, I did so with a clear conscience. While the IE 8 browser is decent (and it truly is), I can’t give up the plugins I have in FF that aren’t available in IE.

Is the InPrivate feature useful?

Yes. I really like it. Google Chrome has this with its Incognito feature and IE 8 has it with InPrivate. It’s really nice to know with a quick CTRL+SHIFT+P or by doing it the menu/tab way I can pop up a session that will completely delete itself cache/cookie wise once the window is closed.

Firefox really, really needs this. Now.

Have I noticed any weird/odd problems with some sites I use?

Yes. However it’s only been on web sites that have been programmed improperly. Part of the way IE 8 renders web pages is that it pays stricter attention to whether it’s code compliant or not. Programmers who go "by the book" have applauded IE 8 for finally paying attention to this in much better detail, but the users of the browser have complained certain sites just don’t work like they did in IE 7.

To those people I say blame the programmer, not the browser, because the browser is in fact doing what it’s supposed to do.

The complaint I’ve seen the most from 8 users is that certain web forms do not work properly. Again I say blame the programmer. Take the PCMech site for example. All the forms, the forums and so on work just as they did with 7. If 8 was so bad, PCMech wouldn’t be accessible using that browser whatsoever. But obviously 8 works anywhere on PCMech just like it should.

It also should be noted that if you notice a site that doesn’t work proper with 8, use the "Compatibility View" feature, like this:

The "broken page" icon, which is Compatibility View, will correct issues. So it’s not like Microsoft didn’t prepare for this.

Does it use less memory/run faster than 7?

In my experience, yes. I won’t say it’s like a night-and-day difference, but overall the memory use is less with the 8 browser compared to 7.

I particularly noticed this on my father’s computer, which is an older single-core 2.4GHz with 512MB RAM. Not only does 8 use less memory but it loads faster, renders pages faster (even when not cached) and has an overall better experience.

What’s your take?

Have you upgraded to 8 yet? If so, is the browser to your liking or do you think it sucks? Let us know.

Microsoft released Windows Internet Explorer 8 today at 12 noon EST. I downloaded, checked it out and here’s what I have to report.

First I’ll say that I’m not going to rehash what’s going to be on hundreds of other blogs out there. I’m only going to concentrate of the nitty-gritty of what matters to most people in question-and-answer style.

Q: Does it work with Microsoft Update?

A: Yes. In all honesty this is the one thing that kept me from running IE 8 betas and RCs. It was well known that the update was "broken" with the pre-release versions, hence why I absolutely would not use it.

The official release of IE 8 does and does so well. And faster.

Above: This is what I like to see. IE 8 working just fine with Microsoft Update, the way it should.

Q: Is it faster than IE 7?

A: Yes. You will immediately notice that the tabs launch and close much quicker, pages render faster and overall performance is better.

Q: Can you move the buttons on the right to the left?

A: Yes.

Right-click, if "Lock The Toolbars" is checked, click to uncheck. Then drag it wherever you want.

Check this out:

Above: Large icons selected, icons on the left. It’s a thing of beauty.

Q: Is there a "porn" mode?

A: Yes. This is called "going incognito" in Google Chrome and in IE 8 it’s called "InPrivate". Open up a new tab and select "Browse with InPrivate", like this:

You get a new window with this:

This is jokingly called "porn mode" for any browser that offers this, and now IE 8 has it. Yes, it’s a good feature. I particularly recommend it for any web site that has to do with your money, such as banking web sites.

Firefox officially has to play catch-up now. Google Chrome and IE 8 have the edge with this feature. I’m sure with FF 3.1 it will be there. Watch for it.

Q: Should you get it?

A: Yes. IE 8 beats the crap out of IE 7. It’s leaner, faster and just plain better. This is a no-brainer upgrade. Get it. Even if you don’t use IE, if you use a Windows operating system, get it for better/faster update capability.

According to a recent news story, the official release of IE 8 will not be in 2008 as once planned. Basically put, Microsoft feels it needs more shakedown and testing before becoming official – and to be honest I am in 100% agreement with this.

I’ve used the beta version of 8 (which obviously isn’t finished since it’s beta), and while the browser is better at some things than 7 it does need some buttoning up. I do sincerely appreciate that Microsoft is basically stating "We want to know every single possible complaint you have about 8 and address it before release."

Some are quick to say to use Firefox or Opera as an alternative instead of IE, however there are those who (believe it or not) like IE and want to stick with it. As long as 8 delivers (primarily with its enhanced security and privacy), it will be a worthy upgrade.

On a personal note, some have written that 8 is slower than 7. In the time I used beta 8 that certainly wasn’t the case. Tabs were faster, rendering was better and simply put, it was just easier to use than 7. I will be happy to ditch 7 for 8 and will do so without hesitation – but not until official release.

[Source: ChannelWeb]

The last time I used IE 8 I had to stop using it because it was reported that it broke Windows Update. But being that I just reinstalled XP on my older Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop I decided to give IE 8 a go to see what had been improved since it’s in Beta 2.

My particular laptop was a good test bed for this because it’s an older machine with a 1.5GHz Celeron M with 1GB of RAM, and testing newer software on older hardware is a good test to see if performance has improved or not. Continued