Startup Webaroo to put the 'Web on a Hard Drive'?

An anonymous reader writes "A new startup called Webaroo is launching Monday with an audacious proposition: You can search the Web without a net connection of any kind. Initial release consists of 'Web packs' on specific topics such as news, city guides or Wikipedia. Later this year they're promising a full-Web version that you can carry on a laptop -- provided you're willing to devote something in the neighborhood of 80 gig."

Sounds like a cache to me

[liliafan]

After reading the article, it sounds like they are just selling their web cache, nice idea but really unless they are selling really cheap I just can't see it picking up, especially considering the difficulties of getting the data to your drive, I mean an 80G download!

Additionally what if I decide to follow site links that leave the cache?

Yeah I can't really see this picking up.

All of the Web on a laptop?

[omeg]

"The Internet Archive Wayback Machine contains approximately 1 petabyte of data and is currently growing at a rate of 20 terabytes per month. This eclipses the amount of text contained in the world's largest libraries, including the Library of Congress. If you tried to place the entire contents of the archive onto floppy disks (we don't recommend this!) and laid them end to end, it would stretch from New York, past Los Angeles, and halfway to Hawaii."

Internet Archive Frequently Asked Questions [archive.org]

Re:Copyright infringment.

[tepples]

How soon till the first lawsuit is filed.

US copyright law, 17 USC 512 [cornell.edu], excuses operators of automated caches that conform to established cache control protocols (meta elements, /robots.txt, etc.) from copyright infringement liability.

html has never cared where data comes from

[Glowing Fish]

This actually isn't by any means a new idea.

If you've ever written or read html, you know that html doesn't care if links start file:// or if they start html://. HTML has always been quite neutral on whether it was linking to a local file system or getting something over the internet. Of course, most people don't use html extensively for local content. So in theory, this isn't a new idea at all.

In practice, I don't see a lot of points for it. I can imagine that some people might want a map of a new city, with clickable pictures and informations about various services there. Most features of a city map are going to stay the same for at least six months, so this is the type of thing that could be done staticly. But even with this, internet access is so widespread, that it seems like a solution for a minor problem. Also, if you want a handy city guide, it would make more sense to me to write it from scratch rather than use a cludge of cached web pages.

Cache exemption

[tepples]

Technically, they make a copy and the ISP doesn't.

Isn't the ephemeral copy in the RAM of a router still a copy? And don't operators of automated caches have a fairly broad exemption under United States copyright law, 17 USC 512(b) [bitlaw.com]?

Re:What's their useragent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting as AC because of terrible karma and don't want to waste posts: DOn't click the link, YAGL(Yet Another Goatse Link). Wow, I just invented a slashcrynom, I'm so happy.(BTW, I hate the /. karma systen)

Re:Transoceanic flights?

[timmyf2371]

I always fly Lufthansa whenever travelling trans-atlantic, providing you're willing to pay the WiFi premium, you get WiFi internet access for the duration of the flight.

For shorter flights within the UK and Europe, it's safe to say I can cope without internet access for two hours.

Re:Dotcom v3.0

[Mr Z]

Hmm... I'm guessing bandwidth better be cheaper than ads, otherwise they lose money with every page served. So, if the ads bring in more than the bandwidth costs, they still lose money here.