An Offline browser is a software that lets you download websites and browse offline, even when you are not connected to internet. Such free offline web browsers are really handy when you are travelling, and not connected to internet. In such cases, you could have downloaded websites to your computer, and then browse web offline even when you are not connected to internet.
Such offline browsers come with varying degree of sophistication. The best free offline browsers are complete website downloader that let you automatically download a whole website on your computer. Others can just keep building an offline cache of web pages that you visit when you are connected to internet, and then let you browse web pages offline even when you are not connected to internet.
Either way, such offline web browser can be very useful if you need to access web pages even when you are not connected to internet. This could also come handy if you have to pay for your internet connection by the time that you are using it. In such case, you can just quickly browse the web pages that you want to visit, then disconnect your internet, and then browse those web pages offline at your leisure.
Here are 5 Best free offline browsers that we have come across. You can choose one of these offline web browser-based on level of sophistication you are looking from such a software.
HTTrack Website Copier
HTTrack Website copier is a complete website downloader, and can download a whole website to your computer. It is really the most sophisticated and feature rich website downloader that we have come across. HTTrack Website copier is a completely free software, and released under GPL License. These free website downloader works on Windows, as well as Linux.
HTTrack Website copier can recursively download an entire website to your computer. You just need to provide website name, and HTTrack Website copier will download all the pages and images from that website. It will then build the complete website structure on your computer, as is the original website. When you open any page of that website offline, you will be able to click on links and navigate to other pages of the website, as if you were browsing the actual website online.
HTTrack Website copier also lets you update an already downloaded sites. HTTrack Website copier also comes with a built-in download resumer, so that if a website download is interrupted, it can resume from that point.
If you are looking for a complete website downloader, HTTrack Website copier is our favorite pick for that. Download HTTrack Website copier here.
BackStreet Browser Website Downloader
BackStreet Browser is another comprehensive website downloader to download complete websites on your computer. It works a lot like HTTrack website copier, but actually provides some of the features that are not even available in that. One of the interesting features that it provides is to download the website in a zipped format, and then browse the zipped website with the built-in offline browser, so that you do not have to zip the files. Of course, you can also unzip the file, and then view the website offline with any browser.
This free offline browser lets you download complete website pages, including HTML, images, JavaScript, Java applets, sounds, and any other file. Once downloaded, this website downloader is able to recreate the same navigation and directory structure of original website. This also comes handy if you want to move your website from one server to another. This website downloader also comes with resume broken download feature. All-in-all this is a really powerful and comprehensive website downloader to view websites offline.
Download BackStreet Browser here.
PageNest Free Offline Browser
PageNest Free offline browser is another feature rich website downloader. In a way, it is even more feature rich than HTTrack and Backstreet Browser. However, it appears at number 3 in our list simply because it is free only for Non-commercial use, and you need to use paid version of PageNest for commercial use. But if you need an offline browser for your home, then PageNest Free offline browser is definitely a good choice.
PageNest Free offline browser lets you download complete websites, or just selected web pages. You just need to provide URL of website or web page that you need to download, and PageNest Free offline browser takes care of rest. PageNest uses advanced multi-threading technology to download up to 40 files together from website, so that your offline web cache is built quite quickly. It will download all types of files from website, and will convert all the links too, so that when you browse website offline, any link you click will redirect to the downloaded page on your computer.
PageNest Free offline browser also comes with some dedicated features of dial-up user. For example, when you start browsing web pages offline, it prevents your browser from automatically using dial-up connection to connect to internet. It also comes with a feature to use dial-up connection when downloading a website, and then disconnect the connection once website download is complete.
PageNest Free offline browser is easy to use, and feature rich. If you are a home user, this is one of the best free website downloader that you can choose.
Download PageNest Free offline browser here.
For regular download acceleration, check out Download Accelerator Plus, and Orbit Downloader.
WebAssistant Proxy Offline Browser
WebAssistant Proxy Offline Browser is completely different in its functionality than the offline browsers that we reviewed earlier, but it might be the most helpful one for you. WebAssistant Proxy Offline Browser does not needs you to download a website that you need to browse offline later. Instead, whenever you visit a website, it also saves a copy of that page offline. So, any web page that you visit is also stored locally on your computer. When you later try to visit that web page without being connected to internet, WebAssistant Proxy Offline Browser will fetch copy of that web page from your cache, and will show that to you, so that you don’t have to do anything different to browse web pages offline. You can even click on a link in your favorites while offline, and WebAssistant Proxy Offline Browser will show that web page from your cache.
The way WebAssistant Proxy Offline Browser is by sitting between your browser and internet connection. Whenever you visit any web page in your browser, it is first routed through WebAssistant Proxy Offline Browser so that it stores a local copy of that web page, and then your browser renders that web page. When you are offline and your browser requests a web page that you had earlier visited, WebAssistant Proxy Offline Browser quickly gets that web page from the offline cache that it had built, and sends that page to browser to render. So, both you and your browser do not need to worry whether you are online or offline, and just let WebAssistant Proxy Offline Browser take care of sending you the web page content. The free version of this freeware offline browser is for Private use only.
Download WebAssistant Proxy Offline Browser Here.
Hooeey Webprint
Hooeey Webprint is another free offline web browser, that I find least feature rich, but still does what it intends to. Hooeey Webprint saves screenshots of web pages that you visit, so that you can browse them offline. You can tag and search for the web pages in your offline cache. However, because web pages are saved as screenshots, it means you can just read them, but cannot copy data from them. Still, if you just intend to read web pages, then Hooeey Webprint serves the purpose well. Hooeey Webprint is an Adobe air app, and works with IE and Firefox.
Read more about Hooeey Webprint, or download free here.
All these offline browsers are simple to use, and make your life a lot easier if you travel a lot, or are not connected to internet all the time. Download the one that meets your needs.
