HTTrack Website Copier
Free software offline browser - FORUM
Subject: Re: From a webmasters perspective
Author: Xavier Roche
Date: 10/24/2003 20:39
 
> I just want you to know that last night this tool was 
used 
> on one of my websites and it literally took down my 
entire 
> webserver. 
> How about thinking twice before ripping off entire 
> websites? This is how I make my living and I don't 
> appreciate this type of abuse.

I perfectly understand you point of view - and default 
httrack settings are normally smart enough to avoid this 
kind of problems (a maximum of 4 connections, kept alive to 
avoid httpd process respawn, and a maximum of 25KB/s 
overall to limit the speed on big files)

Unfortunately, a minority of users are sometimes using 
offline browsers with unreasonnable settings. This is 
something I discourage, as it has a very bad effect on all 
other users: many webmasters are now banning all offline 
browsers, and are preventing many people from downloading 
their site. Teachers, IT consultants, researchers, and many 
people with slow or pool connectivity do rely on offline 
browsers, and website that can not be downloaded with them 
are simply not viewable by these people.

The httrack online documentation contains more information 
on this problem, and potential solutions:
<http://www.httrack.com/html/abuse.html#WEBMASTERS>

You can limit abusers by setting protections - but also 
remember that "good" users might want to capture parts of 
your site, because they can not have an online access.
 
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All articles

Subject Author Date
From a webmasters perspective

Peco

10/24/2003 20:17
Re: From a webmasters perspective

Xavier Roche

10/24/2003 20:39
From a consumer's perspective

Padraic I.M. MacUidhir

10/25/2003 20:34




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