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I have a local copy of a website with 98,000 pages (I just checked). The uncompressed size is somewhere around 8gb. I'd like to put it all in one file maybe, and compress it, then just use a standard browser to view it. Is there software with which I can do this?

I don't even know what keywords to Google for. (I later searched for 'web archive'.)

  • I use Firefox 43.0 on Windows 8 64-bit.
  • I already downloaded the site, I don't want to download it again via Scrapbook or similar Firefox plugins because it took me about 60 hours (because I used low bandwidth to be nice). The links in the website have already been "localized" to work on my external USB drive.
  • I found Mozilla Archive Format plugin but I'd still have to download the site again it seems, and my OS may not handle a single 4GB file.

EDIT:

File composition: It's mainly html (text) and text can be compressed 65% or more via zip. 2) Format is 98,000 html files, unknown number of images, no movies or audio (I disallowed those) using up 8GB of space. Compression.ca is a really cool website that compares compression rates on different types of files with different compressors even if it hasn't been updated in a while.

Goal: Goal is for the web site to take up less space and be easier to copy to a flash drive.

NOTE: Keep in mind that not every file (uncompressed) takes up the whole disk cluster so with 98,000 files there is a LOT of wasted disk space in the unused parts of 98,000 disk clusters. So putting this in a single ZIP file saves space by eliminating wasted space in each disk cluster.

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  • For Windows? And free I guess? Please edit into your question.
    – user416
    May 24, 2016 at 18:37
  • Do you know what comprises the bulk of the data? If it is images, compression probably won't buy you much.
    – user151841
    May 24, 2016 at 20:41
  • What format is your local downloaded copy of the site? Also, what is your main goal in doing this? To shrink the size?
    – user151841
    May 24, 2016 at 20:43
  • 1) It's mainly html (text) and text can be compressed an average of 50% via zip. 2) Format is 98,000 html files, unknown number of images, no movies or audio (I disallowed those) using up 8GB of space. Goal is for the web site to take up less space and be easier to copy to a flash drive. NOTE: Keep in mind that not every file (uncompressed) takes up the whole disk cluster so with 98,000 files there is a LOT of wasted disk space in the unused parts of 98,000 disk clusters. So putting this in a single ZIP file saves space by eliminating wasted space in each disk cluster.
    – Bulrush
    May 25, 2016 at 11:45
  • When I looked yesterday, logical disk space taken up is 8.19gb, physical disk space taken up is 9.1gb. So I'm wasting 1GB, or 11%, of space right there.
    – Bulrush
    May 25, 2016 at 11:53

1 Answer 1

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One possibility, which I have to admit I haven't tried, is to use just about any compression software that can create a ISO or ZIP file, some of the mount tools can do this for you and some support other formats as well, to compress/save the directory tree to a single file and then use a tool that will allow you to "mount" that file as if it were a separate drive.

  • Work from existing download - Yes
  • Use standard browser - Providing your existing download works Yes.
  • Single file saving space - Yes note that if the web site contains a lot of images you will still save space due to the lack of "wasted" space after each file
  • Windows - Yes

Possible Mount Tools

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    you can create a compressed iso image (magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-compressiso.htm) and then you can mount a compressed disk and view all your precious pages with a low space footprint. aka without decompressing the whole thing.
    – StefanS
    May 25, 2016 at 10:42
  • A compressed ISO file, of course! And windows 8 supports/mounts ISO files natively. Good idea. It took me 90 minutes to copy the files to a flash drive via USB 2.0. I think that particular flash drive (Sandisk 32gb) is only USB 2.0. I got it like 2 years ago.
    – Bulrush
    May 25, 2016 at 11:48
  • Just want to make sure: Can Windows 8 mount a compressed ISO file directly? Or does it have to be uncompressed first before I mount it? Because the ISO file will likely reside on a flash drive. Also, how crippled is the free MagicISO?
    – Bulrush
    May 25, 2016 at 12:13
  • @Bulrush I haven't tried mounting compressed ISO on Windows 8. Not very crippled.
    – Steve Barnes
    May 25, 2016 at 15:30

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