Hi,
I understand that most of the sub-forums in this forum are going to be "frozen" from 19 June 2015 onwards.

Can the admins PLEASE consider creating another "searchable database" of this forum (the one available at the link at the bottom of this page is dated 1 Jan 2013) so that we all can browse and use the contents of EXTREMELY VALUABLE TOME of information for reversers, that this forum is, OFFLINE as well ?

I can help in any way that I can, if needed (for example, to make an offline RIP of this forum etc)...

I would really appreciate it (as would MANY others here I am sure), if this can be done

Thanks a lot !

Regards

I 2nd this notion, but there are tools that can provide some of this functionality and they do provide a download of the archive.

Don't worry, the forum isn't going to be frozen in the immediate future. Unless you know something we don't

@Kayaker:

Was worried seeing the second post on this thread here :



Happy to hear from you though that it won't be frozen
Was a member here for the past at least 9 years !

@BanMe_2:
Can you please tell me which tools you are using that work best for THIS forum, to make an OFFLINE rip ?

I usually use Teleport Pro, HTTrack, etc to make offline copies of websites, but I want to know if you or ANYONE here, please, can suggest anything that they have ACTUALLY USED for making a copy of THIS forum that works much better than these tools..

In general, I was not sure if the owner of this site would be happy with all the traffic, in case I attempted a rip, and hence didn't go very far with my attempts..
I do know for a fact that many WebMasters actively discourage such offline rips, in view of the fact that it could create a lot of traffic etc...

Cheers

Hi Techlord,

Nah, that was just to change and simplify things a bit here. As in every other reversing forum, activity has declined here over the years and we felt there was no need for the multiple category forums any longer, so they were archived. I think that June 19 date was just the vBulletin expiry date of that "Announcement" post.

As for the offline archive, I created those chm files regularly for many years on my home network from the forum database, using a combination of Teleport Pro, a search and replace app to format/clean up some things, and HTML Workshop to produce the chm file. It was a bit laborious but worked well enough. That setup disappeared when I upgraded my system to Win7x64 and I haven't tried/bothered to set it up again.

Frankly, I haven't felt that there have been that many quality contributions since the last chm file was made, so my enthusiasm to try to create a new one hasn't been there to be honest. Though it probably is about time after 2 years if for no other reason but to have a new setup running for the future possibility of this site being frozen for real.

We've had many discussions about how things have changed and questioned the relevance of forums like this for disseminating reversing knowledge. Twitter/Reddit/Blogs seem to be the much more popular choice these days. We were hoping to perhaps add a new focus for the forum, such as mobile reverse engineering, but you need people to contribute to such things and so far that hasn't happened.

Never worry though, the past knowledge on this site will never disappear entirely, we all want it preserved in one manner or another no matter what happens.

Cheers,
Kayaker

Thank you very much Kayaker. You have put my mind at rest

SO MUCH of knowledge should not EVER disappear, whatever may be the reason !

Cheers,
TL

You can rip this place if you dare .

It is rather large so, you have been warned.
When I rip a site I use HTTrack.
Do you want a complete rip of everything or just the forum?

Woodmann

Hi Woodmann,

Thank you for the reply

Initially I want to just have the rip of the Forum only.

But I would prefer the WHOLE site if possible...

I can set aside a few GB for it.... What is the estimated size for the WHOLE SITE ?
Will it come to maybe 20 GB ? or 60 GB ? or more ? Just so that I can plan the time taken carefully....

Is HTTrack a good prog for ripping THIS site ? If so, are there any "recommended" settings so that I do not have to do trial and error or do it from scratch ?

Of course, I can't do the rip of the WHOLE site in a night
Would be doing it a little by little every night... So the software should have the options to save and continue....

I am asking for the options for the ripper not because I am "lazy" to search but I don't believe in "re-inventing the wheel" and so would prefer to start-off from the point where someone had already done the research and learnt something about it.

Cheers
Techlord

https://www.httrack.com/
They have a faq that includes command line options.

The html directory contains more than just the forum.
It has all the hosted sites as well.

Woodmann

Is that a stick in my pants or am I just happy to read that.

Have Phun

A stick? You mean a woody?

If you want a manageable copy of just the forum discussions, without all the extra vBulletin crap files the main forum would link to, point your slurper starting address to the simpler Archive version of the forum. This is actually what the CHM file is based on.