WWWOFFLE - Web proxy with features for dial-up users

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Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2003 13:38:14 CST

          WWWOFFLE - World Wide Web Offline Explorer - Version 2.8a
          =========================================================

The WWWOFFLE programs simplify World Wide Web browsing from computers that use
intermittent (dial-up) connections to the internet.

Description
-----------

The WWWOFFLE server is a proxy web 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.

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.

Changes
-------

Since version 2.8:

Bug Fixes:
 Fix compilation problems on Win32 (Cygwin). Fixed upgrade-config.pl script
 error with WWWOFFLE User-Agent. Fixed bugs with detecting type of compressed
 data. Fixed compilation problems with dietlibc. Fix installation permission
 problems. Added additional paths to search scripts. Perform a cleaner socket
 shutdown. Fixed CSS in wwwoffle.css file. Fix potential and actual problems
 with io functions.

New Features:
 Modify response headers before performing HTML modifications.

Documentation:
 Added FAQ question about Content-Length header.

Availability
------------

Version 2.8a uploaded, but may not be available yet

FTP server: ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/apps/www/servers/wwwoffle-2.8a.tgz
FTP server: ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/unix/httpd/wwwoffle-2.8a.tgz

Web page: http://www.gedanken.demon.co.uk/wwwoffle/

Author & Copyright
------------------

This program is copyright Andrew M. Bishop 1996,97,98,99,2000,01,02,03
(amb@gedanken.demon.co.uk) and distributed under GPL.

email: amb@gedanken.demon.co.uk
[Please put wwwoffle in the subject line]

-- 
Andrew.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew M. Bishop                             amb@gedanken.demon.co.uk
                                      http://www.gedanken.demon.co.uk/
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