Compared to other web robots...

There are a number of WWW robots that perform mirroring operations similar to Templeton. We have compared the features provided by some popular software packages to Templeton.

WGet is provided by the GNU Free Software Foundation. It is a text-based, non-interactive tool for retrieving Web and FTP documents automatically. It is freeware with source code available. We have reviewed version 1.4.3.
WebWhacker by The ForeFront Group, Inc. is a graphical Windows-based application for retrieving web documents. This commercial application has a crippled shareware release for users to try before they buy.
GetURL by James Burton is a simple HTML retrieval program for use in scripts. The largest drawback with this application is its inability to retrieve multiple documents.
Web G.R.A.B. by Asbjorn Pettersen is an OS/2 based PM application. It is an early beta release and is provided as freeware. We have evaluated version 0.22. It should be noted that this version is still an early beta and crashes occasionally. It is also difficult to use.
WWWGrab/2 by J. Rubes is an OS/2 text mode application. It is "a utility for mirroring complete websites." We have reviewed version 1.2. Since imitation is the best form of complement, we are pleased that WWWGrab/2 has copied large sections of the Templeton documentation even though it infringes on copyright.
WebMirror 1.15 by Marco Maccaferri Software Development. (Re-reviewed on 21-April-1998.) This is a graphical program which acts as a proxy server for viewing the mirrored URLs. Retrieved URLs are stored in an internal cache file rather than written as separate files on the local machine. It's most frustrating feature is the URL length limitation; manually entered URLs cannot be longer than 32 characters. The unregistered version will only retrieve one web page, but the registered version follows links. Although it is available for many operating systems, a different registration code is required for each version. Only the unregistered version for OS/2 is has been evaluated.

Supported Operating Systems	WGet	WebWhacker (1)	GetURL	Web G.R.A.B.	WWWGrab	WebMirror	Templeton
OS/2	Yes	Win-OS/2	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Windows 3.1	Portable	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Windows95	Portable	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Under development
Linux	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Other Unix Variances	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	Yes: SunOS, Solaris, IRIX, HPUX, and portable to others
Retrieval	WGet	WebWhacker	GetURL	Web G.R.A.B.	WWWGrab	WebMirror	Templeton
Retrieved Format	Files	Files	Files	Files	Files	local database	Files
Link rewriting	Yes (Optional)	Yes	No	No	Yes	N/A	Yes
Automatic Retrieval	Yes	Yes	No	Yes(2)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Image Retrieval	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes(3)	Yes	Yes
ImageMap Retrieval	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Java Applet and Object Retrieval	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Long filename support	Yes	Win95 only	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes
Converts filenames to FAT (8.3) if required	No	No	No	No	No	N/A	Yes
Only update newer files	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
File case format	Mixed-only	Mixed-only	Manual(6)	Manual(6)	Mixed-only	N/A	Upper, lower, or mixed
Run other applications on the retrieved files	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Maximum retrieval attempts	Configurable	1	1	1	Configurable	1	1
Restrictions	WGet	WebWhacker	GetURL	Web G.R.A.B.	WWWGrab	WebMirror	Templeton
Depth restriction	Yes	Yes	Only retrieves 1 document	Depth of 0 or 1 only	Yes	Yes	Yes
Host restriction	Yes	Yes	N/A	No	Yes	No	Yes
Path restriction	Yes	Yes	N/A	No	Yes	No	Yes
Domain restriction	Yes	No	N/A	No	No	No	Yes
Stop-time specification	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Run-time restriction	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Custom restrictions	Yes	No	N/A	No	No	No	Yes
Robot exclusion	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Logging	WGet	WebWhacker	GetURL	Web G.R.A.B.	WWWGrab	WebMirror	Templeton
Log files	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes
Remote server mapping	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Server identification	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Log errors	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Network	WGet	WebWhacker	GetURL	Web G.R.A.B.	WWWGrab	WebMirror	Templeton
Spoofing	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	Yes
Proxy support	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes
Proxy authentication	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Password support	Basic(4)	No	No	No	Basic	Basic(4)	Basic
Variable sleep durations	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
Supported protocols	HTTP, FTP	HTTP	HTTP, NNTP, Gopher, FTP	HTTP	HTTP	HTTP	HTTP
DNS name resolution	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Other features	WGet	WebWhacker	GetURL	Web G.R.A.B.	WWWGrab	WebMirror	Templeton
Generate mailing lists	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
User additions while retrieving	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes
HTML corrections	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes
Interactive	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Usable from scripts	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Graphical interface	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Documentation Availability	WGet	WebWhacker	GetURL	Web G.R.A.B.	WWWGrab	WebMirror	Templeton
Format	Unix man page, Unix info(5)	MS Word	Text file	Text & HTML	Text file	OS/2 INF	HTML
Readability	Detailed	Detailed	Brief	Brief	Brief	Brief	Detailed
On-line	Yes: man page	Yes: WinHelp	None	None	None	No	Yes: Web browser & limited built-in
Documentation Content	WGet	WebWhacker	GetURL	Web G.R.A.B.	WWWGrab	WebMirror	Templeton
Table of Contents	Yes(5)	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Index	Yes(5)	Yes	No	No	No	No, but searchable	No
Description	Detailed	Detailed	Brief	Brief	Brief	Brief	Detailed
Configuration	Detailed	Detailed	Brief	Brief	Summary	Brief	Detailed
Examples	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Languages	English	English	English	English	English & Czech	English	English

Notes:

(1) Comparison with WebWhacker is based on documentation only.

(2) Although the documentation says Web G.R.A.B. supports this feature, we could not get it to work.

(3) WWWGrab does not retrieve images generated by CGI calls.

(4) Only one (1) username and password allowed. in WGet and WebMirror.

(5) The Index and Table of Contents for WGet's documentation are only available in info and postscript. The distribution does not contain the postscript documentation, but source code and a makefile are available for generating it.

(6) The user must specify the file name.

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