View the web without an Internet connection, create your own ‘virtual web’, or archive information found online. All that and more is possible with your first of many options, Webwhacker 2000 (http://www.webwhacker.com/). It acts as a perfect filter as well as a fast offline browser for those tired of page loading time. The browser lets users download favourite web pages and even whole web sites directly to their hard drives, laptops, desktops, zip disk, CD, or storage device – letting them view them all offline at much faster speeds. It’s a lifesaver for parents who want to create safe, approved directories of Web sites for browsing, giving them complete control over what to allow in, and what to keep out.

For institutions, WebWhacker can archive favourite sites, safeguard Internet content, update sites automatically, and maintain complete site structures for offline viewing. This eliminates worries about modification to information, site reliability, and slow access time. Businessmen can use the program to create ‘virtual webs’ for employees. One can also print out web pages or entire web sites for meetings; besides monitoring sites for changes on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Option two: SurfSaver 1.5 (http://www.surfsaver.com/). While its occupying 5.5MB may make you rethink using this browser, its features soon ease your worries. For a start, it lets its users store browsed Web pages directly from IE or Netscape, and retrieve them at will long after their modems have stopped blinking.

All pages are stored in searchable folders, which means that once downloaded on to your hard drive, the information remains even if the site does not. These folders are instantly searchable, and can also be shared on a network using – what else – the ‘Network version.’ SurfSaver can save folders on ZIP, network drives, or anywhere else. Pages can be exported to HTML and edited using an HTML editor. Which brings us to its price: $29.95 online, $39.95 on CD ROM, and $49.95 per user for the Network version. Still worth the money though.

Like its many predecessors, instant websites minus the Internet connection is what WebVCR (http://www.netresultscorp.com/fs_webvcr_info.html) offers. It's the additional features that give it that all-important edge. For example, it lets you create and update local copies of web pages from a remote Web site, on any media. If Internet traffic’s bothering you, simply programme it to record your favourite sites during off-peak hours. It can also snap up pages overnight, getting them ready for you to view first thing every morning. Simply put, think of it as your portable VCR, only online.

A major plus point is its fully-programmable recording technology called Smart Retrieval that, while ‘re-recording’ a site, only gets pages that have changed since the last time you ‘recorded’ the site. Needless to say, this saves you a lot of time and money. That’s not all, it’s Smart Cache transparently checks pages while you browse, automatically updating your cache if pages have changed on a particular site. Beats a secretary hands down, doesn’t it?

Another browser that looks up web sites and performs multipage text searches offline, is AtomNet 1.2 (http://www.change7.com/atomnet/). It’s shareware, takes up a minimal 688K, and can run from a floppy disk, CD-ROM or hard disk. Downside: It doesn't support JavaScript or Activex controls, though the program demands few system resources.

ATV Surfer 2000 1.7 (http://users.bigpond.net.au/atv/whatisr.htm) is probably the smallest of the lot -- 182K to be precise. It’s actually a webpage caching system that utilises all available resources on your computer and line bandwidth, to increase caching speed. It's secret lies in it's amazing capability to simultaneously cache several web sites by using advanced multi-threaded techniques. Users can list up to 2000 tasks in its task queue, along with up to 2000 sites for one caching session. What this boils down to is the optimum use of your time spent online. Additional plus points include the browser’s ability to ‘snapshot’ your cached pages with a single click.

If it’s name is anything to go by, Blackwidow (http://www.winplanet.com/winplanet/reviews/466/1/) is a killer -- pun intended. Not only does it have the ability to download a site onto your hard drive for offline viewing, it can also create a mirror site of an existing site, duplicating its file structure. The sites downloaded are displayed in a Windows Explorer like interface, giving you long file names, details such as size, date and time. The download can be controlled to get exactly what you want from a particular site – which means you can pull only content, or background gifs or sound files, if your heart so desires. You can also run more than one download window for the same site, or different sites, and then check their individual size, download time, etc. And for those who hate the idea of another Explorer-like window, simply turn the browser ‘off.’

If shelling out some moolah doesn’t hurt you too much, why not give BackStreet Browser 1.4 (http://softwaresolutions.net/backstreet/) a shot? It ’s yet another high-speed site retrieval and viewing program, occupies 3.0MB, and costs $29.95. As for the costs, they even out if you consider the fact that this little program can make multiple simultaneous server requests, thus enabling quick downloads of entire websites including HTML, Java Applets, sound, graphics, etc. All it asks you to do is point at any site, click, and come back after a few minutes to find a complete copy on your hard drive, ready to be viewed off-line any time you want it.

There are always a couple of sceptics, of course, who will simply shake their heads and stubbornly stick to browsing online, heavy bills and lots of time notwithstanding. For those cynics, there are still a number of options that could come in use without calling upon an offline browser. Screen capture software, for example, can be used to perform the same deed, though not half as efficiently. The programs can be used for simply ‘snapping’ up entire screens that can be used as part of, say, a PowerPoint slide presentation. SnagIt (http://www.techsmith.com/products/snagit/index.htm) is one such famous example. Then there is Catch-The-Web(http://www.catchtheweb.com) that comes closest to doing the work of an offline browser. The difference is it cannot grab an entire site, only a single web page at a time. A CTW presentation can be saved as an executable file that is capable of fitting on to a floppy disk even without compression. The files can then be viewed using any standard browser. Pages captured can then be arranged according to one’s whims and fancies to create a complete CTW presentation. Just like PowerPoint, only easier.

Getting back to the actual offline browsers, downloading entire websites to your hard drive for later viewing is also what WebSnake 1.23 (http://www.sharewarejunkies.com/8w3/websnake.htm) does. The difference lies in its ability to duplicate or mirror a website, and also to build a site map of any webpages and then search for specific keywords or file types. User Wizards, built-in tutorials and an extensive Help file make the task extremely easy to use. Best of all, you can set limits on the size of a site you want to download, delineating the amount of space you want to keep free that is never takes more of your hard disc then you can spare.