The portable software monitors a network adapter for Internet traffic. It automatically saves select Internet file types to a custom storage location so that those files remain on the system even if the browser cache itself is deleted.

It is necessary to configure the capturing on the first start of the program.

You can define the base folder where all downloaded Internet files are stored in and the file types that you want to capture. Available for selection are among others image, video, audio and text file types.

The capture method supports three different methods. First raw sockets which is not as reliable as the others, and then WinPcap Packet Capture Driver or the Network Monitor Driver, both available for free on the Internet. All network adapters of the computer system are displayed in the same configuration menu. If multiple are installed it is up to the user to select the one that needs to be monitored.

WebSiteSniffer from that moment on monitors the Internet traffic on the system. It displays all host names, the number of files and file types, the transferred size and the storage location in the interface. It is possible to stop the capturing at any time with the F6 key or a click on the stop button in the toolbar.

Selected items can be saved as text, xml or csv files on the system. The reporting options hint at other uses, like creating reports or logs for specific websites or projects.

Users who want to download Internet files can configure the program to only specific file types like image formats. There is unfortunately no filter available to restrict the downloads to files of a certain size or resolution.

Windows users can download the monitoring software WebSiteSniffer from the Nirsoft website. The program is compatible with all recent 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system. Please note that some Windows users may need to run the program with elevated privileges if they want to select the Raw Sockets capturing method.

Download at Work, steps in by routing downloads through their own server changing the file extension of the download to one that will slip through the company’s security systems. The principle is simple but effective. The user needs to paste the file url of the file that he wants to download into the Download At Work form. The Download At Work server downloads the file when the user clicks on the Do It button and provides a link to the file on the same page of the website.

Users can customize the file name and extension before clicking the Do It button. Downloading uTorrent.zip might be less suspicious than downloading uTorrent.exe which might get blocked but if an administrator spots the download it might still be problematic to explain what the file did and why it was downloaded.

Available file extensions are zip, doc, pdf, xls and aaa. Download At Work will use the original file name of the download which can be edited by the user as well.

Downloading the file does not mean that it can be executed on the computer and it also might cause some alarm bells to ring if the user downloads several files from a service called Download At Work but it can be a lifesaver for an important file that could not be opened otherwise.

Update: The program has been discontinued and is no longer available. If you really need to download files at work, you best prepare them at home so that they show up as different file extensions.

Actually, two situations can turn up at that moment:

1) Listing the contents of a particular website is permitted and you can simply paste the path to a download manager which should be able to manage downloading the files. Though, it’s not very common.
2) Listing the contents is prohibited and your download manager probably won’t be able to manage downloading the files. You’re not gonna download the files one at a time, are you?

Since in my case a “Access denied” message appeared, my download manager was unable to download contents of the website and I had to find another way. I couldn’t remember any Windows’ built-in utility that could do that job for me so that I checked the net and found a nice tool that can download files from the command-line. File Downloader [via Softpedia] is a useful tool working in command-line mode, able to download files with several parameters. Now, this tool wouldn’t be of much use if we didn’t combine it with the power of command-line itself, right?

That’s when creating loops with the “for” statement comes in handy again. Meeting the two requirements:

• base path of desired files remains the same for each file
• each file is (sequentially) designated with a number

we continue our effort-saving journey. To download those multiple files from a single source, fire up your Command Line Interface and set the working directory to File Dowloader’s home folder. Here we can start the loop with proper parameters:

for /L %i in (#,1,#) do download http://web.site.net/Podcast%i.mp3
the first # represents the number included in first filename
the second # represents the number included in last filename
replace this example URL with the real one, %i substitutes number in filename

Here we go. Hit Enter, sit back and watch File Downloader do that time-consuming process for you. I’ve just finished downloading 329 podcasts for my mp3 player w/o a single mouse click which saved me more than enough time to write this article ;)