| > 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.
| |