Web Content Extractor for Windows

User Reviews

• Could reduce your data collection time by hours or days

  mrliioadinFebruary 15, 2014

  Pros

  The learning curve is not that bad and there are a couple good video tutorials online. You'll mostly get the hang of it with a little trial and error. I would encourage using a a fairly simple website to practice with. One in which the data is consistently laid out in a predictable fashion will be most helpful for getting started. The trial will allow you to test whether the tool will work as expected on the website you intend to crawl. Exporting your data is absolutely simple. And when it is crawling appropriately, it does so pretty quickly (of course dependent on your internet connection).

  Cons

  I have heard others complain about the customer service. I wouldn't be surprised but I have not had cause to try to acquire support. At times the program can get hung up. It will get stuck or get into a loop where it fails to crawl through URLs successfully. It's not difficult to reset, but it does require a little baby sitting. I set up an old laptop in a spare room and simply check on it every time I walk past. The built in keyboard shortcuts mean that getting it back on track when it gets stuck takes less than about 30 seconds. Don't crawl more than a few hundred URLs at a time. Break them up into smaller blocks. Spread out your scheduled crawls. If the website you crawl is unpredictable in the way with the way it presents its data, the program will misapply the data to the wrong fields. This isn't catastrophic in my experience. But it requires a little more work on the back end after you export to get all of the appropriate data in the appropriate fields.

  Summary

  It has revolutionized the way I collect data from the internet. Though it has its problems, the gains have outweighed the disadvantages. Test out the trial for yourself. Find the online video tutorials if you need them. If it seems like it's working for you, you probably won't regret your purchase. I certainly haven't.

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• The most useful of all extractors

  dulouz11December 30, 2012

  Pros

  Linear thinking, program goes one page to the next

  Cons

  Takes a awhile to learn, instructions minimal, tinkering required, had a few "can't do's"

  Summary

  I scraped lots of data from a large job site reliably but it took lots of testing. Works with table heavy data well, may be befuddled by more complex data arrangements.

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• Bad customer service

  tinybushkingdomNovember 19, 2012

  Pros

  Neat tool if you know how to use it.

  Cons

  No support at all. Need proficiency in HTML/java/vb programming in order to use independently.

  Summary

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• Good but a few quirks.

  bncplugSeptember 20, 2010

  Pros

  A small (ish) program quite good at saving web content. Can export it in a variety of ways.

  Cons

  No user manual and just a few examples of how to use it. You may need to add some VBScript for some extractions. The Tech support are not helpful and won't answer emails. The program (now at Version 4.0) is expensive for what it does.

  Summary

  I originally tested this product for a specific task. Newprosoft sent me a project file which worked fine, so I bought the program. Since then I cannot get a response from them.

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• Very good! Worth the money.

  dulouz11August 8, 2009

  Pros

  Works very well for regularly formatted data. The product worked well for me. I have evaluated about ten similar programs. This was the cheapest and most robust.

  Cons

  I can't program between extracting columns until the scrape is over. This results in me downloading more than I need too.

  Summary

  I liked this program because I could do the application work myself without hiring a programmer to tweak the program after I needed a small change. Some programs cost in the $1000 range, other offered a strange set of abilities that I had no use for. After using this program I have evaluated others but still no one matched.

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• One of the best for sure

  mich029June 10, 2009

  Pros

  * Easy to use GUI * Fast & Reliable (can set multiple instances to run similtaneously) * Advanced features such as being able to set time between hits, only index data from pages including "blah", dont follow links that include "blah" etc..

  Cons

  * Accuracy of visual form /GUI being able to pick up the correct elemtents could be better * Uses a machine-gun spray style approach rather than a structured follow specific links approach which suits some sites but not others.

  Summary

  Overall I found this to be an excellent , easy to use product and well worth the low asking price when others out there are charging many hundereds of $$ and are really no better.

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