Save Page WE vs SingleFile for Reddit content question
TL;DR SingleFile saves more accurate Reddit content than Save Page WE, with Save Page WE not accurately displaying comments, buttons, or search bars. Why could this be? File sizes are also difference for Reddit content (~125MB for SingleFile, ~10MB for Save Page WE).
I've been a long-time user of Save Page WE (a browser extension to save a single-file HTML using Data URIs) and was recently trying to see how many of my extensions I could use on Android. I noticed an alternative extension, SingleFile, is supported on both FireFox and Kiwi, versus Save Page WE is supported only on Kiwi. That and in addition to seeing it's been a while since Save Page WE was updated (late 2023), I decided to do a more extensive comparison between Save Page WE and SingleFile. I noticed for the most part, they produced fairly identical looking pages with similar sizes. The one exception I found was Reddit - SingleFile was way more accurate with saving threads, and also had a lot larger files (100-150MB vs ~10MB for Save Page WE). The comments weren't clearly visible in Save Page WE without inspecting, and the buttons and search bars looked different.
Since the file size was smaller, I'm assuming it's not saving some sort of resource. I had it show the list of unsaved resources and they were:
https://accounts.google.com/gsi/style
https://emoji.redditmedia.com/p9sxc1zh1guz_t5_3nqvj/cat_blep
https://accounts.google.com/gsi/client
https://www.google.com/recaptcha/enterprise.js?render=6LfirrMoAAAAAHZOipvza4kpp_VtTwLNuXVwURNQ
I'm an amateur when it comes to web-archiving, mostly just using Save Page WE and Fireshot to save important webpages, so I was wondering if anyone who knew more about HTML and archiving would have any idea why SingleFile would save Reddit content so much better than Save Page WE. Could it be related to one of Save Page WE's unsaved resources above, or are there other possible explanations? I think I'm on the verge of switching to SingleFile due to its more frequent updates, customizable infobar, and it seeming to save at least Reddit content better and possibly other things I haven't run into yet. Thank you for any knowledge!
Update 2/12/2025: I noticed when saving some tax information, that Save Page WE did not format the surrounding areas well on the UKG/n22.ultipro employee software. So I installed SingleFile, and it saved a slightly larger file (only ~5MB larger this time) and it was formatted well. I decided to leave SingleFile installed and am going back and forth to see which extension generally saves webpages better. I've already noticed that SingleFile did not save Amazon tracking pages well (the file was a bit smaller, but it did not save the map in the background or the overlay when the details were displayed). I decided to keep a running list of differences here Save Page WE vs SingleFile List : r/DataHoarder if anyone is interested.
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Side question. I've only used SingleFile. Does Save Page WE do a similar thing where it saves images as data streams?
I believe so. I think they both use Data URIs, if that's what you mean. From what I understand, I THINK that means the images and everything are saved locally, but instead of being saved in an alternate folder and zipped with the HTML, they are converted to a string of characters and stored in-line in the HTML.
I noticed that typically, besides the one issue with Reddit with Save Page WE, that the single HTML files are generally formatted better than MHTML. Though when I tried downloading an image from a saved HTML with either extension, the name was just "download.png" while MHTML had the image with presumably the original name.
hey sorry to necro your post but i've noticed that singlefile works much better on a majority of the sites i try to save. i don't know what happened with save page we but it feels like it stopped working that well towards late 2024. before that i always preferred save page we. on related note, the extension hasn't been updated since sept 2023, so with sites constantly modifying and changing shit, that might have had something to do with it
Save Page WE has still been working well for the majority of webpages I save (store pages like Amazon and Best Buy and Gmail webpages mostly). I noticed a few months ago that Save Page WE hasn't been updated in a while, so I worry it may have been abandoned and I might have to switch to SingleFile eventually.
I've had both Save Page WE and SingleFile installed for the last few months to compare them if/when I find pages Save Page WE doesn't save well, and I've been keeping a running list here: Save Page WE vs SingleFile List : r/DataHoarder. I haven't noticed any issues recently so it hasn't been updated in a while. The main differences are that Save Page WE doesn't seem to save Reddit content well (it seems to be missing saving something, since SingleFile results in much larger files - like 100MB with SingleFile vs 10MB for Save Page WE), but I've had issues when saving Amazon tracking pages with SingleFile where the map does not show in the saved file. I try to set both SingleFile and Save Page WE to save more information rather than less (I set Save Page WE to save custom items and have all selected, for example), but SingleFile has so many settings that it's possible some of the SingleFile issues could be corrected with a settings change. I'm not sure where to even being to try to get it to save something like the Amazon map, though.
yeah save page we used to work for reddit up until they changed the layout (again). it doesn't get all css elements that well. i find singlefile to be much more reliable in that regard. the increased filesize doesn't deter me at all.
i have save page we configured similarly to yours.