How to Use the Built-In Browser

1. Background Information

Offline Commander remembers every page you visit while browsing the Web with the built-in browser. The saved Web pages are stored in a project database. You can clear the project database by selecting Clear Project from the Project menu. This will erase the data stored in the currently open project file. You can also create a new empty project or open an old project. When you first launch Offline Commander it prompts you for the name of a new project file. Offline Commander will use this project database every time you launch it until you either create a new project or open an existing project previously saved to your disk. Note that you do not have to explicitly save project files because Offline Commander does this automatically.

Click the Browse button on the main toolbar at the left to launch the built-in browser. By default, the browser windows open in tabs inside the main application window. You can undock any tabbed page by clicking on the undock button in the top-right corner of a window.

Offline Commander will not download anything from the Internet until you switch the program to Online mode. Click Go Online before entering anything into the Address bar of the browser. After you disconnect from the Internet you should click Go Offline if you want to browse the previously saved pages in Offline mode.

2. Prefetching Links

You can do this using one of the following methods:

1. Hover the mouse over a link and you will see in the status bar if the link was already retrieved or not. If it was already retrieved you can click on it and it will be loaded immediately. If it was not retrieved you may either click on it and wait until the page will download or you may enqueue it with just two clicks of the mouse and continue browsing. To do this, right-click on a link and select Enqueue Target from the context menu to schedule this link for immediate download. If at a later time you will click on this link again it will be loaded immediately.

2. You can also prefetch multiple links on a Web page by clicking on the links in a quick succession.

3. You can also prefetch multiple links with a few clicks of the mouse. To do this, select a text fragment containing the links you want to prefetch, right click on the text fragment, and select 'Enqueue all links in selected text' from the context menu.

Dragging the text selection to the Drop Box will have the same effect but it will also create shortcuts to the pages referenced by these links in the Tasks window.

3. Removing Advertisements from Web Pages

Select Options from the Tools menu. This will bring up the configuration Options for Offline Commander. The Browser tab contains options for the built-in browser. Uncheck the box "Allow scripts to open new browser windows" if you do not want to view pop up advertisements.

If you do not want to view ad banners on Web pages you should specify project-wide filters. Copy and paste the following text into the bottom text box for Images, Embedded objects, and Dynamic objects:

not (
*doubleclick.com* or
*humanclick.com*
)

These are two most popular ad serving Web sites. This list is not complete and is provided here only for example. You should add other ad serving Web sites to this list.