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DESCRIPTION
Blue Crab is a versatile program that you use to copy the contents of a web site to your computer, in whole or in part.
- Conduct fast offline browsing and searching without an internet connection.
- Perform batch downloads of URL's
- Create a snapshot of a website for historical archiving.
- Collect specific types of resources such as images or email addresses.
- Search current content more thoroughly than a search engine right on your own computer.
- Check a site for broken links, or generate an HTML sitemap
- Create full page images of URL's (JPEG, BMP, TIFF, PNG, PSD, etc.)
With Blue Crab you can download all the content including HTML, PDF, graphics, video, file archives, etc., or use selective filtering to restrict downloads to specific kinds of files. For example, you can choose to save only the JPEG images Blue Crab finds, or just the PDF's.
Blue Crab has a special feature called the "Media Grabber" which you can use to easily download just the images (or movies) on a web site Moreover, you can view a slide show of the images as they are downloaded. You also have the option of "flattening" the images, i.e. putting them all into one folder, or preserving the folder structure on the server (just as when downloading a complete web site for offline viewing.)
Blue Crab is always gentle on the server, processing only one URL at a time. (You can even make it pause between successive downloads so as to not overwhelm the server.)
The demo version you download now is fully functionaly and runs for about ten days.
Major Features:
- Unique URL extraction algorithms yield very complete downloads compared to other products of this type.
- You can download web sites either for offline browsing, via re-linking of URL's, or to create virtual copies of them on your hard drive, i.e. backup a web site as-is.
- Supports both HTTP, HTTPS protocols as well as server realms. Detailed Grabber window shows server HTTP header response fields.
- Optionally display web pages as they are crawled using either your own web browser or Blue Crabs own web window.
- You can restrict a crawl to just the initial domain, or allow the program to "stray" into offsite URL's
- Blue Crab can remap "dynamic" URL's which contain path and search arguments so that resulting disk files are navigable offline.
- Image URL's into JPEG files (or any other graphic file type supported by Quicktime) to create complete pictures of web pages not possible simply by taking a single screen shot yourself.
- Blue Crab provides its URL imaging ability as a service menu item available from other applications.
- URL's can be imaged into files, or onto the clipboard.
- Built-in directory search displays found files as a hierarchical list, with double-clickable entries.
- A "batch window" enables you to download your own list of files. Simply drag and drop URL's into the batch window, or import them from an HTML file , or text file.
- Grabbing in "images-only" mode just downloads image files, optionally "flattening" the results (i.e. putting all images into one folder.)
- Reusable configuration settings control what is grabbed, saved or crawled:
- Filter by size, date, file type or even content
- Filter by filename, extension or path
- Bookmarks window for storing frequently crawled web sites
- Supports form submissions to enable you to begin a crawl from a login page.
- Supports cookies for more accurate downloads.
- Generate site maps that consist of a hierarchical display of URL's Such maps can be optionally filtered by extension.
- Find email addresses.
- Customizable user-agent (spoofing) enables you to download web sites which are platform specific.
- Optionally receive email notifications of Blue Crab's progress during a lengthy crawl.
- Dock badging provides visual feedback or progress when the program is in the background.
Updates are always free!
Note:
It's simple to register all our software: just make a donation in one of four amounts, $10, $15, $20 or $25 - the choice is yours.
After your donation is received you get permanent passwords which activate all of our software, including Mailings.
In other words you get all the software with one donation! Donations can be made via our website.
WHAT'S NEW
Version 4.9.21:
- In the Batch Downloader, the MIME Import Filter window's "Lookup MIME types..." button now loads "http://www.feedforall.com/mime-types.htm" in your default browser.
- The program now can read its property list to access the value of the URL for MIME selection. This way you can specify your own URL by editing the property list (com.limit-point.BlueCrab.plist in Home>Library/Preferences.) The key is "Batch Import MIME Types URL"
- The user interface for the MIME import feature has been improved for clarification on how to use it. In particular accessing the Console log for the filter progress, as this can be time consuming, depending on how many URLs are on the web page being imported.
Version 4.9.20:
- Made changes related to the new "everything" registration policy, i.e. one donation provides access to all Limit Point Software products. When notification of your donation is received permanent passwords are delivered to you for all our products, including Blue Crab.
REQUIREMENTS
Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
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| Blue Crab User Reviews (15 posts) | Write A Review |
 | Oct 24 2009 |
SHMK Doesn't seem to work on snow leopard. Spinning beach ball and crash when ever I tried to input a url
(Version 4.9.18) | |
| [ 3 Replies - Reply ] | |
Replies:
| Jan 24 2010 |
KOBALT Hmm. My registered copy (ie not the demo) works fine under Snow Leopard. I have had no crashes and no lock-ups. I haven't come across a site that's too large to 'grab' yet and some downloads via Blue Crab have been in excess of 800MB (that usually includes videos, or trial apps, etc).
(Version 4.9.19) | |
| Mar 8 2010 |
SCONNELL I have successfully used this program in the past, but have just tried it for the first time in Snow Leopard & I too am getting the spinning beachball for a very small site.
(Version 4.9.21) | |
| Mar 10 2010 |
KOBALT Sounds like something you guys should be taking up with the dev. Don't rely on your msg being read here (although it might be for all I know), but email to joe@limit-point.com.
(Version 4.9.21) | |
 | Oct 22 2009 |
FOTODIVR I have used Blue Crab(p) for a while and liked it. So, I sent my money to the developer. I wanted to unlock the product and felt the developer had earned his/her/their money. Paid for it - no registration code returned. Sent a reminder letter the next day. Nothing. Sent a reminder letter three days later. Still no response. And my use of the programme will be crippled in two days. If I do not have a registration number by them, I will ask PayPal to reclaim the payment. (Yes, you can do that). Developer! if you want people to buy your product, you need to learn about service AFTER the sale. One star for service!
(Version 4.9.18) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Sep 24 2008 |
RC I just downloaded a copy and using it to download a graphics heavy site. The application quits after 5 min or so. It says this is a "fully functional demo" but is this "auto-quit" part of the demo? If so, how can I fully evaluate the program? As I wrote this "review" I already had to restart the program 3 times so that "5 min" interval is getting shorter. I may start looking for an alternative. Too bad HTTrack is not available for the Mac..... iMac G5, 2Ghz, 1GB RAM
(Version 4.9.12) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Sep 1 2008 |
BINARYPACKRAT Yes, this app rocks! It does download images from PHP sites like Blogger. Seems to be very stable as well. The best one of all of the ones I have tried.
(Version 4.9.11) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Apr 19 2008 |
ITTY The most important feature I've been wanting for years, from ANY downloader, is the ability to download images from PHP sites. (Coppermine gallery, Gallery II gallery, WordPress gallery, etc.) This is a big feature that should be proudly boasted. Now I can finally download full size images from my favorite artists galleries with lots of options. Tested on MacIntel Leopard 10.5.2
(Version 4.9.6) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Dec 10 2007 |
SAME AUTHOR AS HELLOPIG, TRIAL REVIEW i dont know why people say blue crab is slow when operating although downloading can be slower than others. make sure you download the latest version of blue crab. -check whether there is virus. -check whether you have enough memory space and hd space. All these may slow the program down.
(Version 4.9.3) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Dec 10 2007 |
SAME AUTHOR AS HELLOPIG, TRIAL REVIEW Site sucker is not really good. it have many limitations. -no javascript, nonlocalize (meaning that you cant download websites with animations...) -cannot download tools from website. Blue crab has many advantages: -able to download flash and 99.9% of all file types. -nice graphic of websites downloaded. -Provide many updates and help -I can guaranteed almost any website can be downloaded. (you have to be patience) Why buy any other software? this product have one of the most updates!
(Version 4.9.3) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
 | Jun 27 2007 |
JPPAGLIARO Some users were complaining of sluggish text field's in the Configuration editor. The cause was: The current browser URL is displayed in certain menu items of the "Grab" menu. As it turns out keyboard processing is related to menu updating, unfortunately, and that caused an overhead when the program was checking for the current URL in the your browser as characters were being typed into certain text fields of the program. This has been fixed by adding an option in Preferences to display full menu items in the "Grab" menu. This option is off by default. To edit the option select "Preferences..." from the Blue Crab menu, and then select the "Behavior" pane. Turn the option on by selecting the "Show full titles in "Grab current web page" menu items.
(Version 4.9) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| May 29 2007 |
JPPAGLIARO Well, I don't consider your review "real" for a few reasons, which boil down to a sense of unfairness I have about it. I'll point out some of them: First of all your star rating is highly suspcious. For example, you give stability a 1 star rating yet didn't provide any examples of how the program is unstable. The other ratings also seem a bit harsh. I think that people who give 1 star overall ratings are likely being unfair. Then you list your problems with the program, the first of which was the startup window. Restricting demo programs in such ways is common practice, and I don't think it warrants mention in a "review." When real reviewers want to use the program I usually provide a free password so that the window isn't a usiance and they can conduct their experiements without the window displaying. You also don't point out what specific sites you had trouble with, at least in a personal email to me. If you had then I could at least determine if there is indeed a problem that needs to be addressed or not. I'm just curious about why you won't send me the URL of the websites that are causing you problems. Perhaps I can offer a suggestion on how to get it to work better on those sites, or resolve a possible bug in the program, if one exists. The web is a big place, and I know there are sites that don't work as well as others. But I find it hard to believe that Blue Crab doesn't do as well as others on your sites. And until you can prove me wrong I can't change my opinion on that. But if you can then I will openly admit I was wrong ;-) As for the sluggish text field, I do know that there was once an issue of that nature, fixed a long time ago. I'd like to know what version of Blue Crab you are using to be sure you have that fix, because I am not receiving problem reports from others of that nature. Finally, and most importantly, most real reviews provide the pros and cons of each program, not just the one they are seemingly trying to knock. It seems to me that your "review" is more of a means to another end.
(Version 4.8.9) | |
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