I'm looking for a program which will check for changes to selected webpages. After doing some searching, I found the Page Monitor addon for Chrome a few days ago, and I currently use it to monitor 15 webpages for updates. While it does the job, I am looking for something smarter. Quite often the main content on a page remains unchanged, but other elements on the page are changed such as ads. I want software that I can configure to only monitor certain parts of the page, so that I am only notified when main content on the page is changed, rather than when other unimportant content on the page is changed.
Quick search on a search engine comes up with some choices... however, buggered if I knew one could monitor pages for changes. This is pretty cool! NOTE: Update Patrol & Web Monitor are no longer developed, but still used by fans... Firefox addon 1: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/update-scanner/ Firefox addon 2: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sitedelta/ Firefox addon 3: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/check4change/ Program 1: https://www.copernic.com/en/products/tracker/ Program 2: http://www.internetowl.com/ Program 3: http://aignes.com/ Program 4: http://www.updatepatrol.com/ Program 5: http://www.right-soft.com/webmon/ Program 6: http://www.notipage.com/en/index.php Hope this helps somewhat...
This isn't a "program", but it's something that I've used for years to monitor webpages that I'm interested in following or keeping track of: https://www.changedetection.com/about.html
@marzametal Thanks for the links, it looks like a few of these programs will do exactly what I'm looking for. @Alexhousek Thanks for the link.
I'm currently trialing all 6 programs @marzametal suggested. Except for WebSite-Watcher, they haven't been updated for a few years, with it being nearly 6 years since Copernic Tracker was updated. But, I guess there isn't much need to reguarly update these types of programs. So far, Right Web Monitor looks like it best suits my needs, as you can get it monitor just a certain section of a page by specifiying the text to start and end monitoring at. So, for a number of pages, I've specified a starting text pn the page to start monitoring from, so that any changes in the page before that text will not be monitored. Hopefully I can configure it to so that I only get notified when the main content on the watched pages get changed.
@phalanaxus I am using Page Monitor, and mentioned it in my first post. But, it is too limited for my liking, as I only want to be notified when the main content on the page is changed, and not for minor changes like advertising, and headings, etc.
Hmm sorry didn't notice that part. Are you using rss? If the pages provide rss it should be easy to follow, if not there are some sites to create rss feeds from pages (if the structure is similar enough for the part you follow).
@phalanaxus Some of the pages I want to check have RSS feeds, and some others don't, so using RSS is not a complete solution. I downloaded FeedDemon Pro just to try using RSS, as I've never used any RSS software - despite spending way too much time on the interet, so I thought it was about time I did so.
Can you give links of the pages which doesnt have rss, if it's not a problem ? I can check whether I can create Rss feeds for them.
@phalanaxus Here are two examples: http://www.dealsmachine.com/android...&page_size=48&freeship=f&sortby=new&newpage=1 http://www.gizmochina.com/ As long as I can use software to monitor page changes, than ability to do it via rss is not really a big deal for me.
2nd one has a feed. Below should work for the first Code: http://feed43.com/5101326081775800.xml P.S. A monitor might be a better idea for shop lists though.
@phalanaxus Thanks. The only rss feed I could find for Gzimochina was one as page2rss.com. @deugniet Thanks for the link, it looks like a nice program, and was actually published more recently than most of the other programs I tried.
@marzametal I'm still liking Right Web Monitor a lot, however it seems that WebMon can be configured in a simlar way, and it is free. I still need to make some changes to how some pages are monitored to stop them being flagged as being changed, when the main content hasn't changed. If I can get that sorted out in Right Web Monitor, then I will try to do the same in WebMon, since its free. One feature that Right Web Monitor is missing, is popup alerts when change are detected.