Undoubtedly, the best browsing experience is achieved with a stable and constant connection. While speed is important, there are times when it's preferable to wait a bit longer in exchange for guaranteed access. However, connections drop, data plans are relentless, and as if that weren't enough, some sites disappear overnight. That's when local backups come into play, and HTTrack Website Copier is one of the best tools for creating them.
Why Offline Copies Matter
Anyone needing old copies of a webpage has the fabulous Internet Archive as a first stop, with millions of backed-up portals. But its database is not perfect, and sometimes we find very important gaps. At the same time, there are many sites out there that block Internet Archive indexing, and once they are lost… it's forever. There are also other cases, such as traveling to a place without connectivity, or far from mobile coverage. As users, we are used to saving our favorite pages in the browser, but something we certainly don't do is create offline copies of those pages.
Although browsers offer the option to download a website, there is a much more robust tool called HTTrack Website Copier. HTTrack allows us to obtain the HTML, images, and other files that are stored on the server, preserving the original structure. We also have the possibility to update the content (so that it is not necessary to create a new project for each update), or pause the download and continue later, since creating offline copies can take a long time if the site is large.
In the advanced parameters, we find format filters (very useful if we want to avoid specific content), depth restrictions, number of open connections (if we hit a site too hard, our IP address may be blocked), and identity options (change the user agent and more).
HTTrack is compatible with all versions of Windows from 2000, either with a traditional installer or in portable version. It also has packages under the main Linux distributions, and an APK for Android 2.2 or higher. It has translations into dozens of languages, among which we find Spanish under the label 'castellano'.
