Product Reviews

We'd all like to cut down on the time we spend connected to the Internet because even the cost of local calls can add up to a large bill. Secret Agent helps do so by storing web pages for reading offline. When you visit a web site using a browser such as Netscape Navigator, copies of the web pages are stored in a directory on your hard disk. This is called a cache. and when the browser visits a page that it has already seen it uses the pages stored here.

Secret Agent collects information stored in the cache and restructures it in a form the browser

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can read offline. It can also be given a list of web page addresses (URLs) and tasked to download these pages at high speed without the aid of a web browser. Secret Agent does very well here, working faster than any other offline web browser we've seen. It can be set to ignore links between pages, or to follow local links only. It can also be set to follow all links but half the Internet would then be destined for your hard disk. Alternatively it will update pages if they have changed since the last visit.

Collected files can be organised in archives called dumps. These are automatically indexed and can be browsed offline using a web browser. After you've saved the pages you want, the disk cache can be cleared to save hard disk space.

The shareware version of Secret Agent can make a short summary of GIF files stored in the cache while a registered version can deal with a larger number of files including JPEGs. The shareware evaluation copy on this month's cover CD lasts for 21 days after which you must register - which is definitely worth doing. Avid Internet users could save the asking price within a few months.