Offline reader

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An offline reader (sometimes called an offline browser or offline navigator) is computer software that downloads e-mail, newsgroup posts or web pages, making them available when the computer is offline: not connected to a server. [lower-alpha 1] Offline readers are useful for portable computers and dial-up access.

Contents

Variations

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, OMEM, SOUP and ZipMail.

List

NamePublisherLicensePlatform
Golden CommPass (GCP)Creative Systems Programming CorporationPaidOS/2 [lower-alpha 2]
HamsterMathias Dolidon Free software Windows, Linux, OS X, Unix [1]
HTTrack HTTrack.com Free software Windows, Linux, OS X, Unix [2]
Leech Universal Commerce, Issaquah Shareware Windows [3]
MR/2Knight Writer Software Company Shareware OS/2 [lower-alpha 3]
MR/2 PMKnight Writer Software Company Shareware OS/2 [lower-alpha 3]
MR/2 ICESecant
Alphacat		 Shareware OS/2
Windows		 [lower-alpha 4]
Off Line XpressMustang Software, Inc.Paid DOS [lower-alpha 5]
ScrapBook Mozilla Add-ons Freeware Cross-platform [4]
TapCIS CompuServe Information Service (CIS) Shareware DOS [lower-alpha 2]
Offline ExplorerMetaproductsPaidWindows [5]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ This includes the user not being connected to a dialup server, not having Internet access and a server on the Internet that is unavailable.
  2. 1 2 Mail reader for Compuserve
  3. 1 2 BBS reader
  4. ↑ Internet mail and news reader
  5. ↑ The free test subset of OLX is called Off Line Xpress - Test Drive (OLX-TD)

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bulletin board system</span> Computer server

A bulletin board system (BBS), also called a computer bulletin board service (CBBS), was a computer server running software that allowed users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users through public message boards and sometimes via direct chatting. In the early 1980s, message networks such as FidoNet were developed to provide services such as NetMail, which is similar to internet-based email.

FidoNet is a worldwide computer network that is used for communication between bulletin board systems (BBSes). It uses a store-and-forward system to exchange private (email) and public (forum) messages between the BBSes in the network, as well as other files and protocols in some cases.

In computing, the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is an Internet standard protocol used by email clients to retrieve email messages from a mail server over a TCP/IP connection. IMAP is defined by RFC 9051.

A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on the World Wide Web. Newsreader software is used to read the content of newsgroups.

In computing, the Post Office Protocol (POP) is an application-layer Internet standard protocol used by e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail from a mail server. Today, POP version 3 (POP3) is the most commonly used version. Together with IMAP, it is one of the most common protocols for email retrieval.

In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but could refer to any piece of equipment or functional unit that is connected to a larger system. Being online means that the equipment or subsystem is connected, or that it is ready for use.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Email client</span> Computer program used to access and manage a users email

An email client, email reader or, more formally, message user agent (MUA) or mail user agent is a computer program used to access and manage a user's email.

M+NetMail was an ISP-grade E-mail package by Messaging Architects. It was designed to deliver scalable messaging and calendaring services, using Internet-standard protocols, across a large enterprise, or to a large group of users who are not particularly associated. The original name for the product, when owned by Novell, was Novell Internet Messaging System (NIMS). Messaging Architects showcased NetMail on its MyRealBox website, this service was discontinued on June 1, 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTTrack</span>

HTTrack is a free and open-source Web crawler and offline browser, developed by Xavier Roche and licensed under the GNU General Public License Version 3.

The following tables compare general and technical features of notable email client programs.

Mystic BBS is a bulletin board system software program that began in 1995 and was first released to the public in December 1997 for MS-DOS. It has been ported to Microsoft Windows, OS/2, OS X, and Linux. Mystic was designed to be a spiritual successor to the Renegade (BBS) and Telegard bulletin board systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blue Wave (mail reader)</span>

Blue Wave is a file-based offline mail reader that was popular among bulletin board system users, especially users of FidoNet and other networks that generated large volumes of mail. It allowed users to download all of their mail and messages, read and edit them offline, and then upload any replies. This reduced the amount of time they spent on line. The name "Blue Wave" originally referred to the client software, but as new clients were written that supported the same file format, the name came to refer primarily to the format itself.

QWK is a file-based offline mail reader format that was popular among bulletin board system (BBS) users, especially users of FidoNet and other networks that generated large volumes of mail. QWK was originally developed by Mark "Sparky" Herring in 1987 for systems running the popular PCBoard bulletin board system, but it was later adapted for other platforms. Herring died of a heart attack in 2020 after being swatted. During the height of bulletin board system popularity, several dozen offline mail readers supported the QWK format.

cc:Mail is a discontinued store-and-forward LAN-based email system originally developed on Microsoft's MS-DOS platform by Concentric Systems, Inc. in the 1980s. The company, founded by Robert Plummer, Hubert Lipinski, and Michael Palmer, later changed its name to PCC Systems, Inc., and then to cc:Mail, Inc. At the height of its popularity, cc:Mail had about 14 million users, and won various awards for being the top email software package of the mid-1990s.

The JAM Message Base Format was one of the most popular file formats of message bases on DOS-based BBSes in the 1990s. JAM stands for "Joaquim-Andrew-Mats" after the original authors of the API, Joaquim Homrighausen, Andrew Milner, Mats Birch, and Mats Wallin. Joaquim was the author of FrontDoor, a DOS-based FidoNet-compatible mailer. Andrew was the author of RemoteAccess, a popular DOS-based Bulletin Board System. JAM was originally released in 1993 in C, however the most popular implementation was Mark May's "MK Source for Msg Access" written in Pascal which also saw its initial release in 1993.

GT Power is a bulletin board system (BBS) and dial-up telecommunications/terminal application for MS-DOS. It was first introduced in the 1980s by P & M Software, founded by Paul Meiners. GT Power can be used both to host a BBS as well as to connect to other BBS systems via its full-featured dial-up "terminal mode". GT Power was a shareware package that required a registration fee in order to access its proprietary network mail transport/handling software and, by default, the GT Power Network. The software is distributed in two "flavors": a terminal-only version, nicknamed GTO, and the full-featured host and terminal version.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Usenet</span> Worldwide computer-based distributed discussion system

Usenet, USENET, or "in full", User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was established in 1980. Users read and post messages to one or more topic categories, known as newsgroups. Usenet resembles a bulletin board system (BBS) in many respects and is the precursor to the Internet forums that have become widely used. Discussions are threaded, as with web forums and BBSes, though posts are stored on the server sequentially.

Ipswitch IMail Server is an email server application with groupware functionality that runs on Microsoft Windows OS. It was developed in 1994 by Ipswitch, Inc., a software company based in Lexington, Massachusetts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tor Mail</span> Defunct Tor email service

Tor Mail was a Tor hidden service that went offline in August 2013 after an FBI raid on Freedom Hosting. The service allowed users to send and receive email anonymously to email addresses inside and outside the Tor network.

References

  1. ↑ "Hamster : hoard the web". github.com. 2018-01-04. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  2. ↑ "HTTrack Website Copier - Free Software Offline Browser (GNU GPL)". Httrack.com. 2012-06-23. Retrieved 2012-07-07.
  3. ↑ "Aeria Leech". www.aeria.com. Archived from the original on 16 November 1999. Retrieved 5 June 2020. Leech is a high-speed offline web browser for Windows 95/98/NT that downloads web site content to your hard drive.
  4. ↑ Gomita (2012-04-03). "ScrapBook :: Add-ons for Firefox". Addons.mozilla.org. Archived from the original on 2012-05-01. Retrieved 2012-07-07.
  5. ↑ "Offline Explorer Enterprise - MetaProducts". metaproducts.com. Retrieved 2021-06-20.


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