Clicca QUI per le istruzioni in italiano.

multi-browser Internet-cache or and organizer 

by JB (JB@fenice.info)
© www.fenice.info
v5.4 (July 13th, 2011)

  • Getting started: the main "drawer" and the sieving process [a must-read]
  • Settings: folders, sieving definitions, extra functions, frisking, load/save/reset all settings [a you'd-better-read]
  • "Small drawer" and advanced features: batch trash-duplicates, batch file-frisking, re-grouping files and/or folders, custom sieving [read in case you use these features]
  • A closer look at "drawer" options, exclusions, the report, quick-erasing of the cache, trashing duplicates, frisking files and extracting embeddings, re-grouping files and/or folders [read to learn how to tweak WinSieve]
  • "Techie" stuff: images classification, junk, finding duplicate files, file operations, sieving log, data structure, known limitations [egg-head stuff]
  • What's new in this version and history of the previous versions
  • How browsers work
  • How to remove all traces from your computer
  • How to install more browsers
  • Glossary
  • Terms of use
  • Why the nags?
  • DOWNLOAD IT NOW: IT'S FREE!
  • SUPPORT FREE SOFTWARE! (and get rid of the nags )

    Let everybody know about WinSieve! Here's the HTML to paste in your site or blog:

    Here's how it's gonna look like..
    Retrieve images, videos, sounds and whatever you saw while surfing the net!
    (Also extracts'em from Powerpoints & Word DOCs, plus finds duplicate files.. and more!)

  • Clicca QUI per le istruzioni in italiano.

    GETTING STARTED

    WinSieve requires no installation: just un-zip it and launch it.

    The first 5 buttons enable/disable the sieving on that specific browser.
    (eg: you might normally want to only sieve the browser you use the most)


    If a browser can't be found on your computer, its button will be "turned off".
    See how to install more browsers.

    Following up, you find "settings", letting you adjust WinSieve exactly to your needs. You're already familiar with "help", for it likely brought you here. But your favourite button is definitively gonna be the last one: the one which starts the whole process.
    Notice how it's conveniently pre-focused: so you can just launch WinSieve and hit ENTER to go.

    WinSieve auto-configures, so you probably won't ever really need to tamper with the settings. However, especially on your first start, you might want to check out..


    THE MAIN "DRAWER"

    Click the bottom margin of WinSieve (the one with the tiny arrow down), and the main "drawer" will pull open: here you can choose "a la carte" the kind of stuff you want to retrieve, how accurately, and what to do with it. The usage of the "drawer" is supposed to be absolutely intuitive, just a few highlights to clue-you in:

    No need to get any more specific than this, right now. It's finally time to get started with..


    THE SIEVING PROCESS

    It basically consists of four steps, obviously repeated for each selected browser:

    ..which by default is called NewCache, and is placed on your desktop. (Or wherever you wish.)
    The data containted there is normally grouped by browser, and is stored in sub-folders according to its type (eg: documents, media, programs, fonts, etc.) and cathegory (eg: all images are shunted in banners, graphic elements, thumbnails, small pictures, etc.).

    When the sieving is done, you can close WinSieve. And perhaps clear the internet cache from your PC, not only for safety/privacy reasons.
    An overgrown cache may slow down the performance, not to mention the total waste of time it would be to keep re-sieving previously acquired data. Furthermore, when a certain amount of cache is reached, the browser automatically erases older portions of it in order to make room for new data: that's one more reason to regularily use WinSieve and then emptying the cache.

    And finally, bulk-copy the NewCache folder to your USB-key, for "harvesting" it later at home. Or open it right now, and check out what WinSieve has fetched for you.

    It couldn't be any easier than that! Just move out of that sieved-data folder whatever you're interested to keep, then trash it.
    You could also keep it there, but it's not recommended: sieving after sieving, NewCache can easily grow up to be quite a large "no man's land" - if you know what I mean.

    Oh, by the way: you can interrupt any step of the sieving anytime by closing the progressbar window.

    If you reply NO, the process will resume.
    (So that's also a handy way to pause, should you ever need to.)

    If you say YES, the sieving will stop.
    PS: thanks to Windows file-caching, if you then start another sieving the process will be much faster (until you reach back the point when you aborted).


    SETTINGS

    FOLDERS

    The first tab tells WinSieve where the internet cache of each browser is located.
    This normally auto-configures, but you're free to browse using the ".." buttons (or typing-in another path).

    It also lists the folders whose data must be excluded.
    eg: if a picture is already in "My Pictures", it will be skipped

    "Extract to" indicates where the sieved data shall be stored.
    If the folder does not exist, it will be created at each sieving. Otherwise, new data will be appended to it.

    After sieving ("once done") you can have WinSieve automatically pop-up the Internet Options, and/or open the NewCache folder, and/or.. take leave.

    SIEVING DEFINITIONS

    The second tab instructs WinSieve about what a thumbnail or a banner is, when and how files should be renamed, etc.
    eg: if an image is at least 20 pixels large and 50 pixels tall, and smaller than 100x80 pixels, and does not weight more than 4000 bytes, then it's a thumbnail.
         Also if its name begins with "THUMS" or ends with "_T" or has "_TH" anywhere in its name, but only if it's a JPG.

    These parameters are (supposedly ) pretty intuitive, so just change them and see what happens - at your own risk. :-7
    Or better still: take a look at the techie stuff to learn more about each of them.

    EXTRA FUNCTIONS

    The third tab enables/disables the advanced features of WinSieve, and also allows you to tweak them.

    The other parameters will become clear as you later-on learn of the report and the regrouping feature.

    FRISKING

    The fourth tab lets you adjust the type (and accuracy) of the file-frisking feature.

    LOAD / SAVE / RESET SETTINGS

    Whenever you start WinSieve, you always find it exactly as you had configured it.

    However you might want to use the program on another computer, keeping the same settings. Or maybe you need to reinstall/upgrade Windows, and those data would be lost. In those cases, just save your settings: when you copy WinSieve's program folder, you'll bring'em along with you.. ready to be loaded back.
    Reset obviously restores the default-settings, ie: those WinSieve had before you messed around with them. :-7


    THE SMALL "DRAWER"

    If you click the right margin of WinSieve (the one with the tiny arrow right), the extra-features' "drawer" will pull open:


    ADVANCED FEATURES

    If you click the "drag'n'drop" button, or (as its name suggests) if you drop files and/or folders onto it, WinSieve will turn into this:

    ..although likely larger than that, and placed at the top of the screen for your convenience.
    The easiest way to go drag'n'dropping is to open windows below and then drag their content to the drop-area above.
    However you can place it anywhere and resize it as you wish, also minimize it or go full-screen

    This is where you can batch-process multiple files and folders: simply drag'n'drop them to the textbox "with the bouncing double-icon", or type-in their full path. Then select the desired function. (Or close the window to go back to WinSieve.)

    BATCH TRASH DUPLICATES [LEARN MORE]

    It's the same as the right-clicking option, but on a wider scale: here you can find duplicate files across different folders, and/or single files.

    BATCH FILE-FRISKING [LEARN MORE]

    The same as the the right-clicking option, but performed on multiple files and/or all files contained in any folders.
    The embeddings will be extracted in a folder called "Extracted", by default on your desktop - but you can browse for another path with the ".." button.
    No separate embedding-extraction logs will be generated, but you can still find all the details in the main log.

    RE-GROUPING [LEARN MORE]

    Copy (or move) a bunch of scattered data to separate folders containing up to N files (and/or folders) each.
    The re-grouped data will be stored in a folder called "Grouped", by default on your desktop - but you can browse for another path with the ".." button.

    CUSTOM SIEVING [LEARN MORE]

    To extract your chosen types of data from anywhere on your PC, and have it organized WinSieve's way.

    PS: in order to keep the batch operations steady, very large files won't be processed for embeddings extraction and batch-sieving.
    By default the limit is 100MB, but you can reduce that - or increase it.. at your own risk. ;-)
    The trashing of duplicate files, and the re-groupings, will be performed regardless of the filesize.


    A CLOSER LOOK AT..

    "MAIN DRAWER" OPTIONS

    EXCLUSIONS

    THE REPORT

    QUICK-ERASING OF THE CACHE (Internet Explorer only)

    TRASHING DUPLICATES

    FRISKING FILES

    EXTRACT EMBEDDINGS

    RE-GROUPING FILES AND/OR FOLDERS


    "TECHIE" STUFF

    IMAGES CLASSIFICATION

    JUNK

    FINDING DUPLICATE FILES

    FILE OPERATIONS

    SIEVING LOG

    DATA STRUCTURE

    KNOWN LIMITATIONS


    WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 5.4

    PS: to enable the quick-erasing of the cache: click "settings", tab "folders", then for each browser select "trash" to move it to the Recycle bin (so you can restore it in case of need), "wipe" to permanently delete it (be careful: there's no un-do to this), "ask" to be prompted every time (first you're asked if you wish to wipe it permanently; answer no and you'll be asked if you wish to trash it), or select "keep" to leave it as it is.

    Click here to read the complete history of the previous versions.


    HOW BROWSERS WORK

    While you surf the internet, your browser writes into the so-called internet cache each single page that you visit: text, images, multimedia files, the programs you downloaded.. In this way, the next time you open that page, the computer won't have to reload it allover: just the elements that have changed since your last visit. (eg: if a picture was added or modified.)

    This makes the browsing much quicker, and also allows you to view the pages off-line, but also means a potential risk for your privacy: in fact, anybody could see not only which sites you visited (peeking inside the history), but also examine the exact pages you viewed. This can get to be pretty embarassing with erotic sites, but turns out to be even dangerous if you visited the site if your bank or if you read your email on a site. In a few words, your privacy is at risk with every page containing your bank accounts, credit-card IDs, phone-numbers / address, etc.

    Not to mention all the stuff that is being downloaded without you knowing that (such as the hidden pop-ups), or without you asking for it (eg: advertising banners of erotic sites, even full porn images)..

    The only way round this nuisance, is to erase the history and the cache every time before you close the browser - and make sure that you haven't added (maybe without even realizing that you were doing so) some undesired bookmark to your "favourites". In this way, you'll remove every trace (well, at least those that can be removed without reformatting the PC and/or being an hacker) - but you'll also lose the chance to view offline the things you had downloaded (unless you've already saved them elsewhere).

    Not to mention the fact that many things cannot be saved: some sites (bastards!) disable the right-click (so you can no longer "Save image as.." etc.), and it's not always possible to save the whole page (File|Save as|Complete webpage). And sometimes the browser "forgets" to copy some mandatory components (eg: some JAVA classes), and as a result the page you've saved does not work.

    Sometimes (due to the imprecision of an automated server-side procedure, or with the precise purpose to cheat expert users who might want to check out the temporary internet files) it also occours that some contents are masked, unrecognizable because they're indicated with a different filetype than the one that would be due (eg: images saved as HTML or text pages, or viceversa).

    Well then: WinSieve is the definitive answer to these (and many more :-) nuisances!


    HOW TO REMOVE ALL TRACES FROM YOUR COMPUTER

    Once gathered everything you want to keep and secured it elsewhere, it's a good rule for preserving your privacy to permanently remove the temporary internet files and clear the browsing history - so that nobody else will be able to access off-line the pages and the URLs of the sites you've been. (further details here)

    Each browser has its own way to do that:

  • Internet explorer: quick-erase the cache, then click the "IE options" button on WinSieve and follow these steps
  • FireFox: see here
  • Opera: see here
  • Safari: see here
  • Chrome: see here

    (The screenshots are in Italian, however they're plain to understand by comparison with those your browser will show you.)


    HOW TO INSTALL MORE BROWSERS

    Click "settings" and go to the folders tab, then click the icon of the browser you wish to install: its homepage will pop-up, allowing you to download the installer.

    Try out your new browser, and it'll be automatically recognized and configured the next time you start WinSieve.
    If it doesn't, you can always try browsing with "..".


    GLOSSARY


    TERMS OF USE

    WinSieve is freeware: you're free to use it without paying me - however donations are highly appreciated.

    You are also free to distribute it, as long as the following conditions are respected:

    1. you don't make any profit out of it
    2. you distribute the complete package (WINSIEVE.ZIP), unaltered (=without adding or removing anything)
    3. if you put WinSieve as download on a site, add a crediting link to www.fenice.info/WinSieve (at least near the download)

    For any other use, get in touch with me. All rights reserved.
    (That is to say, you're not allowed to steal the idea. But if you wish to port WinSieve to Linux/Mac or other platforms, we can talk about it.)

    You're also welcome to inform me of program-bugs, or if you have any idea about how to improve it.

    PS In order to reward free software supporters, I had to implement a (puny) nag-system for non-donors. Now, after having fetched 700MB of sieved internet cache and/or having tried out the special functions for more than 5 times each, thus proving you enjoy using my program on a rather regular basis, you'll be reminded (although never obliged) to support my work. Fair is fair, after all - and the basic sieving functions always remain available for everyone.

    LEGAL DISCLAIMER WinSieve comes "as it is", with no implicit or explicit guarantee whatsoever. You agree to use it at your own risk. (If any.) Under no circumstances will I be held responsible for the use that you make of it. Some sites feature copyrighted material, and to copy or use it without a written authorization of the owner may be a violation of international laws. Also, WinSieve is in no way meant to spy on people: you're supposed to only extract the contents of your own Internet cache, or you might be prosecuted on the charge of stalking.