Snooping Around
I wrote in 1999. It's done its job so well that I've never felt the urge to upgrade it.
You're undoubtedly aware of the fact that some browsers display only some of the source code used to render pages. Some browsers won't display non-HTML URLs like .js (JavaScript) and .css (Cascading Style Sheet) source code pages, as examples. And, you can never get a browser to reveal the source code of a frameset page.
was created to answer "I wonder how they did that" questions. There's no charge for the software. Use it at our site or download and install it on yours. See /a/24t/pl.pl?snooper
There are three types of places can't snoop.
First, the destination must be an http://... URL.
Second, the destination may not require a password.
Third, if the destination server allows only certain types of browsers, can't get in the door.
Note that was created to see how things are done. It was most emphatically not created to steal content or copyrighted works.
How To Use It
When you suspect your browser isn't giving you the whole scoop, give the URL to .
won't run JavaScript, ignores cookie requests, has no need to use CSS formatting directives, and doesn't follow frameset rules. Therein lies its power.
When you give a URL to , you get exactly what's there -- no more, no less.
If the URL is to a frameset page, you get the source code. You can see exactly how they created the frames you see in a regular browser.
If the web page uses external files, you can get the external file URLs from the source code and put those into also. For example, if you're interested in a certain effect that's created with CSS but the CSS code is in an external file, can fetch it for you.
If the URL to the external file is a relative URL, paste the two portions together: (1) The URL of the page you gave to plus (2) the relative URL found in the source code. Then give the resulting URL to .
In that way, you can view the contents of every file the web page uses.
Let's take our own CGI Information Resources web page as an example. It's at /support/howtoinfo/
The web page uses an external CSS file and several external JavaScript files.
When you give the http://bontragerconnection.com/boncon.css URL of the CSS file to , you can see exactly what style definitions are used on the CGI Information Resources page.
Similar, when you give the URLs of the several JavaScript files to , /library/c/acgiht.js for example, you see exactly what JavaScript code was used by the CGI Information Resources page to display the content.
If external files import other external files, simply use the same idea and give the URLs found there to .
There is a lot to learn out there. People are constantly coming up with new ways of doing things.
makes it feasible to see how things are done.
Question:
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Will Bontrager
©2004 Bontrager Connection, LLC
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