Offline browsing in Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome is what many users are looking for. When you are connected to the Internet and visit any website, it shows the latest web pages by fetching from the server. But what if you are not connected to the internet and still want to access the web pages which you have recently visited? Suppose you are traveling and not in the condition to get the internet connection, but still want to access the previously visited webpages. Then, this article is for you. I will let you know how to do offline browsing in Firefox or Chrome.
Work Offline in Firefox browser
Mozilla Firefox offers the option for offline mode. When this is ON, then every copy of the webpage you visit is saved as the cached copy when you are connected to the internet and it can be accessed when you are not connected to the internet or offline.
To work offline in the Firefox browser:
- Open Firefox and visit the site
- Press Alt key to show the Menu bar
- Select Tools
- From the drop-down, select Work Offline
Offline browsing will be turned on on Firefox.
Offline Browsing in Google Chrome
UPDATE: THis flag has been removed in Chrome so this feature does not work in Chrome anymore.
First make sure that, you have the latest version of Google Chrome installed. \Next, open the Google Chrome and type “Chrome://flags” in the address bar and hit enter.
Chrome shows the warning message as you should be careful with these experiments.
Next, search for “Enable show Saved copy Button”. Enabling this option, shows you the “Show saved copy” button when you are trying to access the webpage in offline mode.
From the drop down, select either “Enable: Primary” or “Enable: Secondary”. BY choosing the first option, it shows the “Show saved copy” button in the salient position and by choosing the second option, it shows the “Show saved copy” button secondary to reload button.
Select the desired option and you are asked to relaunch Chrome. After relaunching Chrome, now to test this feature first you need to get your laptop or any device disconnected from the Internet, either by removing the LAN or disabling the WiFi.
Now that you are offline and try to access the webpage which you have recently visited. You will be shown the “Unable to connect to the Internet” message along with the dinosaur image in Google Chrome. If you look carefully, you would see the “Show saved copy” blue colored button. When you click on it, it loads the webpage from the cache which was saved when you are connected to the internet.
All this happens as Google Chrome and many other web browsers save the images, CSS, JavaScript, HTML in the browser Cache. But, videos and other components on the web page which needs an internet connection will be replaced with the error message or placeholder message.
This is what offline browsing is. This comes in handy when you are in flight or in a no-internet place and want to access the already visited web pages.
How do I save a website for offline use in Firefox?
Firefox browser can’t save an entire website for offline use. But, you can save a webpage in Firefox to your computer for offline usage. For this, open a webpage, and press Ctrl+S hotkey. In the Save as window, you can select Save as type to TXT, save the whole webpage as HTML, or save the webpage without pictures. You can also save a webpage as a PDF file from Firefox on a Windows 11/10 computer. Press the Ctrl+P hotkey on a webpage, select Microsoft Print to PDF option as the destination printer, and hit the Print button.
Can you save a browsing session in Firefox?
There is no direct option to save a browsing session in Firefox. You can either bookmark all tabs or use some free add-on like Tab Session Manager to save and restore a browsing session. You can also use a native option of Firefox that helps to restore the previous session. It is helpful if you accidentally closed tabs. For this, open the Firefox browser, click the Open application menu icon, access the History section, and click on the Restore previous session option.
Related: Restart Chrome, Edge, or Firefox without losing tabs in Windows 11/10.
