WWWOFFLE

wwwoffled application is a simple proxy server with special features for use with dial-up internet links.

This means that it is possible to browse web pages and read them without having to remain connected.

Features:

• Basic Features:
• Caching of HTTP, FTP and finger protocols.
• Allows the 'GET', 'HEAD', 'POST' and 'PUT' HTTP methods.
• Interactive or command line control of online/offline/autodial status.
• Highly configurable.
• Low maintenance, start/stop and online/offline status can be automated.
• While Online:
• Caching of pages that are viewed for later review.
• Conditional fetching to only get pages that have changed.
• Based on expiration date, time since last fetched or once per session.
• Non cached support for SSL (Secure Socket Layer e.g. https).
• Can be used with one or more external proxies based on web page.
• Control which pages cannot be accessed.
• Allow replacement of blocked pages.
• Control which pages are not to be stored in the cache.
• Requests compressed pages from web servers (compile time option).
• Requests chunked transfer encoding from web servers.
• While Offline:
• Can be configured to use dial-on-demand for pages that are not cached.
• Selection of pages to download next time online
• Using normal browser to follow links.
• Command line interface to select pages for downloading.
• Control which pages can be requested when offline.
• Provides non-cached access to intranet servers.
• Automated Download:
• Downloading of specified pages non-interactively.
• Options to automatically fetch objects in requested pages
• Understands various types of pages
• HTML 4.0, Java classes, VRML (partial), XML (partial).
• Options to fetch different classes of objects
• Images, Stylesheets, Frames, Scripts, Java or other objects.
• Option to not fetch webbug images (images of 1 pixel square).
• Automatically follows links for pages that have been moved.
• Can monitor pages at regular intervals to fetch those that have changed.
• Recursive fetching
• To specified depth.
• On any host or limited to same server or same directory.
• Chosen from command line or from browser.
• Control over which links can be fetched recursively.
• Convenience:
• Optional information footer on HTML pages showing date cached and options.
• Options to modify HTML pages
• Remove scripts.
• Remove Java applets.
• Remove stylesheets.
• Remove shockwave flash animations.
• Indicate cached and uncached links.
• Remove the blink tag.
• Remove refresh tags.
• Remove links to pages that are in the DontGet list.
• Remove inline frames (iframes) that are in the DontGet list.
• Replace images that are in the DontGet list.
• Replace webbug images (images of 1 pixel square).
• Demoronise HTML character sets.
• Stop animated GIFs.
• Remove Cookies in meta tags.
• Provides information about cached pages
• Headers, raw and modified.
• Contents, images, links etc.
• Source code unmodified by WWWOFFLE.
• Automatic proxy configuration for Netscape.
• Searchable cache with the addition of the ht://Dig, mnoGoSearch (UdmSearch) or Namazu programs.
• Built in simple web-server for local pages.
• Allows CGI scripts
• Timeouts to stop proxy lockups
• DNS name lookups.
• Remote server connection.
• Data transfer.
• Continue or stop downloads interrupted by client.
• Based on file size of fraction downloaded.
• Purging of pages from cache
• Based on URL matching.
• To keep the cache size below a specified limit.
• To keep the free disk space above a specified limit.
• Interactive or command line control.
• Compression of cached pages based on age.
• Provides compressed pages to web browser (compile time option).
• Use chunked transfer-encoding to web browser.
• Indexes:
• Multiple indexes of pages stored in cache
• Servers for each protocol (http, ftp ...).
• Pages on each server.
• Pages waiting to be fetched.
• Pages requested last time offline.
• Pages fetched last time online.
• Pages monitored on a regular basis.
• Configurable indexes
• Sorted by name, date, server domain name, type of file.
• Options to delete, refresh or monitor pages.
• Selection of complete list of pages or hide un-interesting pages.
• Security:
• Works with pages that require basic username/password authentication.
• Automates proxy authentication for external proxies that require it.
• Control over access to the proxy
• Defaults to local host access only.
• Host access configured by hostname or IP address.
• Optional proxy authentication for user level access control.
• Optional password control for proxy management functions.
• Can censor incoming and outgoing HTTP headers to maintain user privacy.
• Configuration:
• All options controlled using a configuration file.
• Interactive web page to allow editing of the configuration file.
• User customisable error and information pages.

What is new in this release:

• Some small fixes for: HTTPS offline requests, handling certificate expiration, Web bug detection, and the configure script.

What is new in version 2.9f:

• Bug Fixes:
• Some compilation warnings caused by flex have been removed.
• When making a HEAD request use the cached version if possible.
• Don't use the libgnutls-config program in the configure script.
• Only remove "authorization" header if it is "basic" authentication.
• Send a 304 header when online if cached page won't be refreshed.
• Clarify SSL/HTTPS error messages and documentation.
• Clarify last online/offline messages from 'wwwoffle -status'.
• Perform MIME type tests case insensitively.
• New Features:
• A new option to the wwwoffle program closes and re-opens the server log file.
• Documentation:
• Several small fixes to documentation.
• New SSL Features [*]:
• A faster but less cryptographically secure key generation option is provided.
• The expiration time of the SSL certificates can be increased from one year.
• *NOTE* *These only apply if WWWOFFLE is compiled with SSL/https support*

What is new in version 2.9e:

• A small set of minor bugfixes collected over the last 12 months.