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Frequently Asked Questions

What is FreezePage?

FreezePage is a free service for taking online snapshots of web pages.

With FreezePage you can freeze web pages so they can be recalled in their exact form at a later time or date.

Web pages change all the time, but with FreezePage you can be sure they stay the same.

What can I use FreezePage for?

FreezePage can be used for a number of things. If you use FreezePage instead of saving Web pages to your own hard disk, you can access your saved pages from anywhere on the Web. And you can easily show the pages to friends, colleagues, or a greater public exactly as they were when you froze them.

Since you cannot change a frozen page, FreezePage can also be used to prove exactly how a Web page looked at a specific date:

  • Journalists or researchers can make references to web contents easily and safely.
  • Content managers can save and recall site sections that change often.
  • Lawyers and other professionals get a third party authority to back them you in relation to copyright infringement, defamation cases, etc.
  • Consumers can document special offers, prices, terms, etc. from the web.

What can I compare FreezePage to?

You can compare FreezePage to these other services:

  • Google Cached Pages saves pages as they are crawled by the search engine's robot. However, Google only makes the latest version available in relation to your searches and it doesn't save images and other page elements like FreezePage does.
  • The Wayback Machine takes more complete snapshots (including images and some other elements), but you do not control when individual pages should be copied. If you are looking for a historic page, you can be lucky to find it here.

As far as we know (please let us know if you think otherwise), we are the only service that allows the user to freeze any web page at any time and to get full control of the frozen page.

How reliable is FreezePage?

We have been in operation since 2003 and during all this time, we have not experienced data loss of any kind.

We do run full daily backups from a remote location.

Please notice, however, that our Terms of Use do not give any guarantees.

Does FreezePage cost anything to use?

Our basic service is free. From this moment, you have your own, fully-functional personal account ("My Frozen Pages").

If you use FreezePage a lot, you may consider a Premium Account for more storage space, priority access, and advanced features.

How does FreezePage work?

In principle, it's very simple. When you enter a Web address, we take a snapshot of the Web page and save it (cache it) on our system. Along with the main Web page, we also download and save all the elements on the page (images, stylesheets, script files, etc.). It all happens within a matter of seconds, depending on how fast the other site is. We then add the page to your list of frozen pages so you can easily recall the page in its original form.

How do I share a frozen page with other people?

When you freeze a Web page, we automatically add it to your list of frozen pages. But we also provide you with a unique shortcut to the page, like this: www.freezepage.com/1234567890ABCDEFGHIJ. It always consists of 10 digits (based on the time) and 10 random capital letters.

With this unique shortcut (Web address), you or other people can recall the page at any time. To share the page, either create an ordinary email and include the Web address yourself or use our "Tell A Friend" function. Our "Tell A Friend" function creates an email with the necessary Web address and sends it to the address(es) you specify.

Can I freeze any kind of page with FreezePage?

Our system works properly with the vast majority of Web pages, including secure pages (those starting with https:). However, two noticeable exceptions exist:

  • You cannot freeze pages which have been personalized to you. For instance, if you try to freeze your online mailbox, you will not see your personal mailbox, but probably a log-in/sign-up screen. The reason is that the email service provider will not recognize you behind the FreezePage service. Instead, the email service provider will assume that FreezePage is a new user who is logging on for the first time.
  • Finally, you cannot view contents based on scripts. In most pages, this does not affect the main contents, but only means that banner ads etc. do not appear (for more information, please see the question below). A few pages, however, check if the users have enabled JavaScript and shut them out if they have not. If you try to freeze a page like this, you may get a message like "You must enable JavaScript to access this page".

What page elements are retrieved?

When you freeze a page, you can choose to retrieve and save:

  • All elements. With this option, everything is saved: the page with all text and formatting (HTML+CSS), images, other embedded elements, and script files.
  • All elements except script files. As all scripts (embedded or linked) are automatically disabled by FreezePage, script files are usually not important.
  • Text only. Only the page with all text and formatting (HTML+CSS) are retrieved; images and other embedded elements are skipped and replaced by generic images.
    Use this option to speed up the freeze process and use less space, when you are only interested in the text contents of a page.

You can also skip remaining images, script files, etc. at any time during the freeze process by clicking the "Skip Images" button.

Why does this frozen page not look (exactly) as when I view it in my browser?

You can be sure that FreezePage always displays pages exactly as they were retrieved from the Web site. There are, however, three main reasons why a page may appear different when you freeze and view it at FreezePage and when you visit it directly:

  • The most obvious explanation is of course that the page has changed since you froze it. By nature, the front page of online news providers and similar services can change from one minute to the next. This is also true with advertisement contents, which is typically rotated and replaced constantly.
  • Another reason is that some Web sites use technology to personalize their pages according to who they are sending it to. As explained in the above answer, you cannot freeze pages, which have been personalized to you via a login. But there are also many Web sites that send different pages to users who have never logged in. For instance, some Web sites look at your IP address and determine where you are located. They can then send you a Web page in your own language, possibly containing local contents. If you are from another country or region than FreezePage, which is located in the U.S., you may get a different page than us from the same address.
  • A final explanation is that the contents you view is based on scripts. Some HTML pages contain JavaScript and other client-side script languages, which add to or modify the Web page after it has been downloaded to the browser. We automatically disable these scripts to avoid redirects and conflicts with FreezePage's system. For that reason, some frozen pages may be missing dynamic contents or interactive elements such as drop-down menus that appear when viewing the page directly with your Web browser.

Are there limitations to the frozen pages?

In order to save resources, we have set a few rules for the size of Web page you can freeze. The Web page must:

  • Not be bigger than 10 MB (or 50 MB for premium user accounts),
  • Include less than 500 embedded elements (images, stylesheets, script files, etc.),
  • Be retrievable within 120 seconds.

In practice, these limitations rarely enter into effect and, if it happens, we will let you know when you try to freeze the Web page.

How long are frozen pages stored?

From the moment you enter our site, you have your own personal account. When you freeze pages, they are automatically saved to your account as "My Frozen Pages".

To save space on our system, we require that you use your account regularly, i.e. that you log in or visit any page on our site. If you don't, we will delete your account and frozen pages in it.

  • If you are an unregistered user, you must visit our site every 3 days.
  • If you are a member (sign up for free), we only require you to log in once a month (every 31 days).
  • Premium Users are, of course, not subject to this requirement.

FreezePage does not work on my computer. What should I do?

If you have found a bug in FreezePage, we would be very happy to know. Please notice, however, that we only support relatively recent browsers. A Web service always has a trade-off between innovative features and the ability to run on all platforms and browsers.

Our system should work flawlessly with any of the following browsers:

  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Google Chrome
  • Internet Explorer 7.0 or higher on Windows
  • Safari on Mac OS X
  • Opera
  • iPhone + Android browsers (WebKit)

If you are using one of these browsers, please let us know if you find any bugs. If not, please consider upgrading your browser first.

Why is scripting disabled?

JavaScript and other client scripts are always disabled in frozen pages in order to avoid popup windows, automatic redirects, and other unwanted behavior.

As a result, dynamic contents such as rotating ads may not appear and interactive features such as drop-down menus may not function on the page.

A few pages uses javascript to change the formatting of the page, but most of the time disabled scripts will just result in a blank spot where rotating banners or certain flash animations or video applets would have been.

I am running a Web site. Can I prevent you from freezing my pages?

No. You cannot prevent users from freezing a page from your server, just like you cannot prevent your visitors from manually copying pages to their own computer. In this context, the FreezePage engine does not obey robot tags (such as <META name="ROBOTS" content="NOARCHIVE">), since we do not consider FreezePage a robot. FreezePage acts as an agent between the user's browser and your Web server, but there is a real person behind each request.

It is, however, our intention to respect copyrights and other legal issues. FreezePage provides a system for saving and recalling Web pages, but we cannot effectively check all frozen pages on our system. It is the responsibility of the users to respect copyrights and other contents-related issues. If you encounter misuse of any kind, please contact us through your local authorities and we will help you identify offenders through our log files.

Why does FreezePage sometimes get another page than I do?

Our servers are located in the United States. Thus, when you freeze a web page, the web site thinks you are American.

Some web sites are programmed to give their visitors localized contents. In this case, you get contents targeting an American audience.

 
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