[GUIDE] How to Rip a Website in 1 Minute

Hey BHW,

This is my first share and wanted to give back to the community that has helped me out so much. Today, I saw a member asking how to rip a website and I decided to help him out. I realized there are probably other members in the community that don't know how to do this either. So I thought this would be a great share to the community.

So lets begin. There are a couple of methods that you can try out (Free, Paid or Torrent D/L)


***(FREE)***
Use the following program

HTTrack Website COpier (Its open source)
www(dot)httrack(dot)com/page/2/
(Pretty straight forward program to use; even has proxy support)


***(Another FREE WAY)***
This free way involves just by simply using your browser (Firefox and IE; didnt test it with Chrome yet)

Step1 - Simply visit the page you are interested in ripping
Step2 - Click on the File Tab on the browser
Step3 - Click on Save As (CTRL+S)
Step4 - A new window will pop up asking you what to save. Make sure the "Save as Type" is Webpage, complete
Step5 - Your done

*The downside to this method is that it just downloads most/all the files with no structure. Everything is downloaded into one folder. So the images, css, etc aren't in there own seperate folders.


***(PAID) ***
Pay for the following program

WebExtractor
www(dot)webextractor(dot)com/ (I use this with HTTrack if I cant download all the files)

Telport Pro
www(dot)tenmax(dot)com/teleport/pro/home.htm (I have not used this program personally)


***(Torrents)***
You guys are smart here. Visit your favorite torrent site and do a search for 'webextractor' and 'telport pro'. You guys will know what to do next.



I hope this helps everybody that is struggling with this situation. Have yourself a great day guys and now hit the thanx button.


HAPPY RIPPING

Does it do scripts too?
Posted via Mobile Device

The last time I tried to use httrack I couldn't get it to work.

So, I found backstreet browser which is free and used it instead:

It downloads the entire site with structure and images and makes it navigable on your HD.

wondering the same thing

If the script is database driven; the answer is NO

Crixus's, thanks for the alternative

Standard said:

Does it do scripts too?
Posted via Mobile Device

Click to expand...

scripts run serverside so I don't know if it's even possible. Nothing I've found so far will get a php file, just whatever the script is sending to the browser.

One thing I've found helpful when I want to get a known file is to create a temp html file with just a href link. If you open the html file, then right click on the link you can 'save target as' and you can download most files you might find when viewing a page source. Works great for mp3 files, video files, css, etc. but even that doesn't work for script files.

I'm a mac user and use sitesucker, it's available for iphone too!

thanks sherbert for letting the mac users know that theres a tool for them also

But Still we will be able to download all the files if it was for script. this included php files.. About the database, is the least that we can expect to get. We can do our database later.

yes thats correct but since most scripts install themselves after you enter your database info you would have to manually configure everything.......if you know how to do this then your golden because you have all the files. you just have to have some knowledge doing this. if you dont, dont even bother; monster headaches awaits you

GreyWolf said:

scripts run serverside so I don't know if it's even possible. Nothing I've found so far will get a php file, just whatever the script is sending to the browser.

One thing I've found helpful when I want to get a known file is to create a temp html file with just a href link. If you open the html file, then right click on the link you can 'save target as' and you can download most files you might find when viewing a page source. Works great for mp3 files, video files, css, etc. but even that doesn't work for script files.

Click to expand...

how are you able to grab css/style sheets that way? i can get html usually but not the css.

honestly all the options i said above, ive been able to grab the css 99.9% of the time. if one doesnt get it for me another one will; i can guarantee that to you.

and if it doesnt allow me to download it, i will manually donwload it. just look at the source code of the index file and look at the directory where they are calling their css. put that in in the URL bar. it will display the css for you. then copy and paste the code into your editor and save it as an css.

hope that helps as you can ALWAYS get the css to a website

hmm thanks for the info.

no problem donsnfury, glad to help. cheers

awesome thanks heaps

glad i could help you out 'just rolling'

werrich said:

GreyWolf said:

scripts run serverside so I don't know if it's even possible. Nothing I've found so far will get a php file, just whatever the script is sending to the browser.

One thing I've found helpful when I want to get a known file is to create a temp html file with just a href link. If you open the html file, then right click on the link you can 'save target as' and you can download most files you might find when viewing a page source. Works great for mp3 files, video files, css, etc. but even that doesn't work for script files.

Click to expand...

how are you able to grab css/style sheets that way? i can get html usually but not the css.

Click to expand...

OK say you want to get the html based website hxxp://somewebsiteyouwant.com, the quickest way is to just visit the main page of the website, the click File>Save As, select Save as type=Webpage,complete(*.htm,*.html) and then Save. The files will be saved as a main html file and a directory by the same name containing all the image files and css files used for that page. If it's a multipage site then just repeat for the other pages. Once you've done that then it's fairly simple to use the files you got to recreate your own site using that one as a template.

If any of the files are not saved for any reason or you only want a few of the files from the site, then you can just view the source to find what you want.

Say you want the main stylesheet and you look in the source and find this line:
<link rel='StyleSheet' type='text/css' href='hxxp://somewebsiteyouwant.com/styles.css' >.
Then what you can do is create a text file containing this line:
<a href='hxxp://somewebsiteyouwant.com/styles.css' >right click to "save target as"</a>
Then save it to your desktop or wherever and rename it something like getfile.html.
Then just click on the getfile.html and it will bring up your browser window with a single link on it.
Right click that link and select Save Target As and it will save the file you want.

This will work on .css, .mid, .mp3, .mp4, swf, .html, etc. It's a pretty quick and easy way to get just about any file (except php scripts) from a website. The only thing you need to know is the exact name and url of the file. (If you find a relative url in the view source then you'll need to determine the absolute url in order to get the file. It's usually pretty easy to figure that out though.)

I use WinHTTrack when I want to get a large or very complex website, but for simple websites or if I just want to get a few files from the website the method I just described works very well.

I use this a lot to get video files.

Thx for sharing

Thanks for clarifying GreyWolf, much appreciated addition to the thread.