[General Topics] Menneisyys:
1.4.	What should I do when I need to save some resource but my Web browser doesn't let for saving its type?

With browsers not supporting saving resources (for example the pre-WM5 PIE or Opera Mobile), there is another way of saving resource files by finding them and copying them off the local file cache.

(Quick note: in file caches, caching-capable Web browsers store the (recently) browsed Web pages and all the accessed resources. For example, if you don't disable displaying images and go a Web page that have five in-line images, six files will be created in the cache: the HTML file (the webpage itself, containing the text and the page layout markup) and the five images. Therefore, by manually browsing the cache, you can easily find all the (cacheable) pages, images and even other resources used by the HTML web page. This makes it possible to find resources in the file cache that, otherwise, would be inaccessible / not savable.)

This assumes the browsers

do have a local cache and

the files in there have the original, non-tampered (without, for example, added HTTP response headers - as is the case with NetFront) content

with either somewhat or vastly different names.

Depending on these three conditions, Pocket PC Web browsers belong to one of three groups.

1.4.1.	Browsers lacking in (native) resource saving capabilities but having a local file cache that has all the files in the original, non-modified form

There are three browsers in this category. I've already written a fully-fledged tutorial on finding the resources these browsers store in the local file cache; please follow the links in the bulleted list below:

Opera: TUTORIAL: Here's how you can save images from inside best Pocket PC Web Browser, Opera Mobile!

PIE/IEM: Ever wondered why some of the Web pages saved with MultiIE or Spb Pocket Plus are completely unreadable? (alternatives: PPCT, AximSite, PPC Magazine, MobilitySite, FirstLoox) - it, in addition to explaining the GZIP problem, also contains a complete tutorial on manual page/resource finding and saving.

Minimo: you can easily browse the cache files of this browser. First, you need to enable the, by default, disabled caching in Preferences / Advanced. (Fortunately, now, caching works, as opposed to some earlier Minimo versions.) Then, all you'll need to do is scrutinizing the contents of the cache to find the files you want to save (it's a bit more complicated than with PIE/IEM or even with Opera Mobile because of the cryptic, machine-generated filenames Minimo uses in the cache.)

1.4.2.	Browsers both lacking in (native) resource saving capabilities and NOT having a local file cache

With

Opera Mini (with this, you can save images but not explicitly pages or link targets) and

Thunderhawk,

you can't do the same because these browsers don't have local file caches. That is, in no way can you save for example the current Web page in either of these browsers - not even with looking for it in the (again, non-existing) cache.

1.4.3.	The rest

Of the cases remaining, there is only one browser: NetFront. It, as of version 3.3, offers everything as far as resource saving is concerned (except for non-MHT - that is, HTML - saving). It also has a cache, which, as opposed to the first subcategory in this section, doesn't store the cached files in their original form but with the HTTP response headers embedded in them.

This means you won't necessarily want to use the binary files in there (as you already have "Save target as" functionality). Textual HTML files are different as you can very easily edit them and delete the additional HTTP headers. That is, if you REALLY need to export / save HTML files from NetFront (as opposed to saving pages in the default, only-supported .MHT format), browse the cache as with how the PIE / Opera Mobile / Minimo cache must be browsed by hand.

1.4.4.	A comparison chart of the different caching cases

In the following comparison chart, I compare all these cases (whether a given browser has a cache, whether it contains the files in their original, non-modified form and, in addition, whether the filenames are easy to guess or have at least some kind of similarity to the original filenames). In addition, as a bonus, I've also added cache relocation information (and links to related articles), which can be VERY useful in a lot of cases, particularly on WM5-upgraded devices like the HP iPAQ hx4700 and the Dell Axim x50 series (see for example this article for more information on this problem).

Also note that, should you want to relocate the cache to even a volatile (one that gets deleted upon soft resets), but still highly useful RAMDisk, you can safely do this with ALL the cache-enabled Web browsers. This is pretty straightforward with Minimo (where you can select the RAMDisk from the drop-down drive menu), PIE and NetFront (please see the article relocating the Pocket Internet Explorer / NetFront cache (alternatives: PPCMag, iPAQ HQ, AximSite, FirstLoox, BrightHand) for a complete PIE / NetFront tutorial). With Opera Mobile, you need to do some additional work explained here. Make sure you only relocate the cache, not the history / cookie files (you don't want your cookies / browsing history to be entirely deleted upon soft resetting your device, do you?)

Note that I've also listed the three most important desktop Windows Web browsers - this information can be highly useful for you when you browse the Web and want to, say, save Flash animations or Java applet .jar archives for further use without third-party tools.

THE CHART IS HERE - CLICK THE LINK!

2.	More thorough elaboration on "Save Target As..." and downloading in general; benchmarks

Particularly hardcore leecher... I mean downloaders (for example, people that would like to download hundreds of Megabytes off the Web on their PDA's) will find this chapter hugely useful. Based on the information contained here, you will be able to choose the best tool for a given task: if you can download a, say, 700 Mbyte .AVI with the fastest browser in, say, 10 minutes, why suffer with a slower browser that takes four or five times more time to download the same file?

Even if you "only" make smaller downloads right on your Pocket PC, you will want to read this chapter as it's full of tips, tricks and real-world benchmarks, explicitly telling you what browsers you should use and how, what to avoid and what pitfalls you may run into with some of them. After all, time is money - the faster the browser, the more efficiently it utilizes the available bandwidth, the better.

Note that, in addition to the desktop Windows and Pocket PC Web browsers, I have included two additional, stand-alone downloader applications, one of them (EzDownload; a free, fully WM5-compliant, slow, particularly when downloading files straight to storage cards, application; it, additionally, doesn't support a lot of other functionalities; for example, non-standard (non-80) Web server ports) being already known to the readers of my older, Web browser & downloading-related article. The other, new one is WinMobile Download Accelerator, which deserves special attention & treatment and will be introduced in the next section.

By the way, if you thoroughly read the above download-related article, you may rightfully ask why I have purposefully left out ViTO Downloader and ftxPBrowser from the current roundup. The reason for this is pretty simple: the former, ViTO Downloader is pretty unreliable (and hasn't been updated since my review); and the latter, ftxPBrowser, isn't at all WM5-compliant when it comes to downloading files. Needless to say, there is no new version of ftxPBrowser ; that is, the above-linked, previous review is still topical.