This is probably for Kari or Carl, or someone who may have a basic familiarity
with HTML. And while it _is_ OT for this list, it is also something of a
two-fer, or maybe even a three-fer. First, it ties in with an estimable thread
we had awhile back with Flash, on Win 10 privacy concerns. That springs from
this article:
http://links.giveawayoftheday.com/s/howtogeek.com/273513%2Fwhy-you-shouldnt-use-anti-spying-tools-for-windows-10%2F
[Several commenters took issue with the author's conclusions, by the way.]
When I wanted to save this to file for reference *or print it out*, I ran into
a problem that comes up every so often: an article is crafted in such a way
that it clearly blocks you from being able to do so. I'm thinking it must be
something they do in the HTML coding. I tried to print this out in FireFox, in
Chrome, and in IE, all to no avail. You get just about nothing. Then I tried
the usual tricks I resort to for this, starting with the browser Add-On
'Extended Copy Menu', which lets you save a defined block as HTML or plain
text. I'd usually go with the HTML option, dumping that into Notepad, which
allows me to reconstitute the saved article more or less as it originally
appeared, including illustrations etc. However, these options were greyed out
in the extension, and unavailable. (That seldom happens, in my experience.) I
next went into Inspect Page Source in the browser, but that was not
particularly illuminating -- at least to me.
I finally managed to save plain text from the article -- no links or
illustrations, though -- using an old x86 version of IE. I'd like to learn how
they go about "locking down" an article like this, even if there are not any
convenient and effective countermeasures. It is probably not quite comparable
to the way they lock down a PDF file ?
One thing I think they can never block is your ability to save something
page-by-page as snapshot images, using a graphics program. But that can become
rather tedious.
Jordan
