Firefox does not save .html files correctly so as to be opened and read
Okay, so just as I have stated in the subject, this is my direct experience at this time. I've found on the forum people having trouble saving .html, but those were other issues unrelated to Firefox. I cannot find specific reports relating to my issue. To those, if you see this, who saved your web pages to .html (only or complete), did you open those files to check that you could read them? The unreliability of browsers in the past leads me to distrust this expectation that saved data is done and preserved without checking/validating.
Here is what I did. I saved a page (and for sake of accuracy and precision, it was search results from duckduckgo.com) to an .htm file. (Again, for sake of accuracy, I'll insert here that Windows Save As dialog box provides the "Save as type:" options list, which are: "Text Files", "Web Page, complete", and "Web Page, HTML only".) I chose "Web Page, HTML only"; now, while it says "HTML", Firefox creates the default extension of ".htm", so this is the extension used; and I simply used the default filename, no changes. Then, I simply went to my "Recent Items" menu in Start menu and opened the just saved file. It opens to a blank page, except for a very small text box with my search query in it and two little tiny buttons next to it; the content of the page is not displayed. (And, after post analysis, the file size was 7kb, which indicates that it did not really save all the data of the page content.) I then tried opening the file on a different computer with Firefox - same result. I also opened the same file with Chrome - same result. At least there is consistency here. Therefore, the conclusion must be that Firefox is not saving correctly.
There is no help to be given in this case, as I have done nothing wrong. I have done exactly as instructed by and to others in other forum posts and as described in other help pages on how to save web pages to a file. Everyone talks about the actions of how to do; but not about the results of reading saved output.
So, I make the post in hopes that this get to the developers to fix this problem. If this does not happen on all computers or in all situations (for all web pages) ... well, I think it still lies with Mozilla to fix it, because here is one case where it positively does not work! If my situation is unique, I do not know why ... and if it works for others (to save from duckduckgo) then I don't know why ... again, not for me to figure out; just take it as fact, this action of saving web pages in Firefox does not always work.
Thanks.
PS - I'm using SingleFile as an alternative work around (but I don't see why the "Save As" should not have worked perfectly for all of web browser history).
All Replies (2)
It happens pretty fast, but maybe you've noticed that when you load a DDG results page, at first only the header area appears, and then the results appear after another half second or so. The page is just a shell that is styled by external style sheets and filled in by scripts.
When you save "HTML only" Firefox saves the original source of the page before modification by scripts and without external styles applied. If that doesn't give you the results you want, you can use "complete" which saves the page with those modifications.
Or if you do not want the separate folder full of related files, you can use SingleFile.
If you use "Web Page, HTML only" then you only save the main HTML file and not other elements like images an JavaScript and CSS files (and images loaded via these files) referenced in the file. Even with "Web Page, Complete" is it possible that you miss content loaded via JavaScript or background images loaded via a CSS file. It is usually best to verify that the page is saved properly. You can also check the page source to see whether external references (i.e. not local file:// links) are present in the file.
Alternatively, you can make a full page screenshot of the webpage.