Understanding offline browsing

Online information

Sometimes people use Internet to get access to the most current information. If this information stales, they visit web sites again to view updated data, This applies to news, weather, stock rate sites. For example, the weather report for yesterday is usually useless.

Online information and browsing

However, there is information that is updated rarely or never and that remains actual for years. This applies to online books, articles, documentation sites. For instance, online versions of books by Sir A.C. Doyle remain actual for long time while you read or reread them. This information never or rarely changes and it does not expire. However, if you started reading and want to continue it later, you'll have to revisit that web site and reload the page. You will need Internet connection again regardless of the fact that you already visited that site some time ago. So, here arises the need to browse documents not only while you are connected to the Internet, or online, but when Internet connection is unavailable, or offline. Such browsing is hence called offline browsing.

Ad Annihilator features its ability to browse web sites offline.

With Ad Annihilator you may keep and access vital information not only while you are connected to the Internet, but also when you are not.

You may instruct Ad Annihilator to open any document you visited earlier without requesting it from the Internet. See Understanding browsing modes to know how to do this.

Offline browsing is closely related to browsing modes. See Understanding browsing modes to learn more about them.

You may ask where Ad Annihilator takes documents from if Internet is unavailable. The answer is: from cache. Cache is special files stored on the disk in Ad Annihilator project folder. Ad Annihilator refers to cache and retrieves documents and their resources from there when necessary.

While Internet Explorer has its own built-in cache, Ad Annihilator provides its own, improved cache. With Ad Annihilator you are able to browse documents offline in much more cases that with pure Internet Explorer. To start using Ad Annihilator cache you have to do nothing. As soon as Ad Annihilator is installed and enabled, you may browse Internet as usual and the rest is done by Ad Annihilator. With Ad Annihilator you will not worry if you can access the same information again. Ad Annihilator keeps the documents you visit and later you will be able to retrieve them from cache even without Internet connection.

Access of information that is no longer online

Another variation of offline browsing usefulness is access of information that is no longer online. Many Web sites change rapidly and it is hard to find information that was there before. With Ad Annihilator you can make an archive of files that are of interest to you and access them at any time, even if the original Web site no longer exists.

Even for online information offline browsing may appear useful

Remember what we told of online information above: it is updated frequently and usually there is no need to access expired information. However, there are cases in which it is still needed to access old information, for example, to read a week-old news article. See Understanding document versions for information on how to achieve this.

Speeding up browsing

Besides ability to access documents when Internet connection is unavailable offline browsing offers another advantage - it speeds up browsing. Retrieval of documents from cache is much faster than downloading them from the Internet. So the more documents and resources are taken from cache, the less time it takes to open a document. To control browsing speed Ad Annihilator offers mechanism of browsing modes. See Understanding browsing modes to learn more about them.

Reduction of network traffic

Another useful consequence of offline browsing is reducing of volume of data that is transferred to your computer from the Internet. When documents and resources are taken from cache, no network traffic is produced. This feature makes sense when users pay for Internet access by traffic.

Offline browsing with Ad Annihilator saves you not only time but also money!