(Guide/Review) SingleFileZ is a fork of the SingleFile Firefox and Chrome extension with better file compression

[Karlston]

SingleFileZ is a fork of the SingleFile Firefox and Chrome extension with better file compression

Want to save an entire web page for offline reference? There are add-ons which can help you, such as SingleFile, or its fork SingleFileZ.

 

 

All you have to do is click on the add-on's button on the toolbar to save the current web page as a single HTML file.

 

If you're thinking this sounds similar to what the SingleFile extension does, that's because it is made by the same developer, Gildas Lormeau.

 

SingleFileZ is a fork of the original add-on, so it retains most of its features while adding some new ones. Though the saved pages are in the HTML format, these are actually compressed ZIP archives. The developer calls these "self-extracting HTML/ZIP hybrid files".

 

In order to learn how the two add-ons differ, I began using them both in Firefox. You can do this as well. Try saving the same pages using each extension, you will notice that there is a noticeable difference in the file sizes.

 

 

Here's a quick comparison between SingleFileZ vs SingleFile compression levels

• Ghacks article - 129 KB vs 144 KB
• Steam homepage - 14.7 MB vs 20.8 MB
• Google.com - 87 KB vs 422 KB
• Add-on's GitHub page- 10.5 MB vs 14.8 MB
• SourceForge - 228 KB vs 325 KB

 

Total file size: 25.1 MB vs 35.7 MB

 

That may not seem like a huge difference, but the compression level helps save precious storage space in the long run. The important thing is that there was no visual difference between the saved pages, i.e. the content saved by both plugins was the same.

 

 

Are the saved pages cross-browser compatible? Yes. When I saved the page using the Firefox add-on, and tried opening it in Microsoft Edge (without the Chrome extension), it didn't work.

 

 

But there a message was displayed on the screen that said the extension must be installed and the option to allow access to file URLs must be enabled, or start the browser with the following switch: "--allow-file-access-from-files".

 

 

So I installed the Chrome extension, enabled the required option from its settings and that fixed the issue. Safari users will need to go to the "Develop" menu and toggle "Disable Local File Restrictions" to get the saved pages working.

 

 

SingleFileZ has a tab bar context menu that's similar to the original add-on. You can use it to save multiple tabs at the same time including the current tab, selected content or frame or links, all selected tabs, pinned tabs, or all the tabs. The extension does not have the "Annotate and save the page" menu item in its tab context menu.

 

 

Moving on to the add-on's options page, you will find some new settings. In addition to the HTML content options, there is now a section for Zip Content. It lets the add-on create self extracting archives and makes text searchable. The third option under the section is for "creating a root directory", but this option is not pre-enabled.

 

 

Unlike the original extension, SingleFileZ does not support "group duplicate images together", "save to clipboard", "add proof of existence".

 

Download SingleFileZ for Firefox and Chrome. The add-on is open source.

 

SingleFileZ offers better file compression compared to SingleFile, this can be helpful if you've limited storage space, cloud storage or when you're sharing the saved web pages as email attachments.

 

Landing Page: https://github.com/gildas-lormeau/SingleFileZ

 

 

SingleFileZ is a fork of the SingleFile Firefox and Chrome extension with better file compression