Show HN: Kage – Shadow any website to a single binary for offline viewing (github.com)

Article summary

Kage is a tool that clones a website into a folder, allowing for offline viewing by stripping out JavaScript and saving the site's content to local files. The tool uses a headless Chrome browser to render the site, waits for the page to settle, and then snapshots the DOM, deleting all JavaScript and pulling down CSS, images, and fonts to local paths. Kage can also pack the cloned site into a single file or executable for easy sharing. The tool is designed to provide a way to save websites for offline viewing, similar to the 'Save As' feature in browsers, but with the ability to handle sites that require JavaScript.

Main themes

• website archiving
• offline viewing
• JavaScript stripping
• web scraping
• content preservation
• browser extensions

What commenters say

• Some commenters suggest that Kage is similar to existing tools like SingleFile, which also strips out JavaScript and saves websites for offline viewing.
• Others argue that Kage is more robust because it can handle entire websites, not just single pages, and can be used for mirroring sites that require JavaScript.
• A few commenters express concern about the potential load that Kage could put on websites, and suggest that features like rate limiting or image/video exclusion would be useful.
• Some users propose additional features, such as the ability to save websites as Markdown files or EPUB format, or to use Kage as a replacement for the WARC format.
• There is disagreement about the best approach to archiving websites, with some arguing that Kage's method is more efficient and others suggesting that it would be better to use a combination of tools like mitmproxy and Kiwix.
• A few commenters mention the potential benefits of using Kage for preserving online content, such as company wikis or technical documentation, and suggest that it could be useful for disaster recovery or offline access.