Rated 4 out of 5 stars

by Cockbite on April 28, 2011 ·

I'm preparing to upgrade to Firefox 4 and since Save Complete supposedly isn't compatible, I need a new "page saving" Add-on.

I tested both Mozilla Archive Format (MAF) and UnMHT against Save Complete and Firefox's default saving method by saving the exact same webpage with each of the various methods. Here are the size results.

Default = 234 KB
Save Complete = 207 KB
UnMHT = 295 KB
MAF-MHT = 315 KB
MAF-MAFF = 195 KB
MAF-SaveComplete = 235 KB

Obviously the MAFF format was the smallest, but Save Complete was the only method that was 100% true to the original page. The 20 KB difference between the MHT files isn't much but it would still be nice to see MAF produce the smallest files possible.

~~~
I was just about to post this when I decided to do a bit more testing, and I made a couple of interesting discoveries.
~~~

I have determined that Save Complete is in fact compatible with Firefox 4 after modifying the install.rdf to change the maxVersion.

Also, the page that Save Complete perfected actually renders differently in Firefox 4 for some unknown reason. Taking this into consideration, all of the methods I tested will produce the exact same page in Firefox 4 regardless of size differences.

~~~
Conclusion
~~~
With the superior compression of the MAFF format, the built-in "Save Complete" functionality, and MHT support, I think that the Mozilla Archive Format extension is easily the best of the three Add-Ons. The MHT files could be smaller and the Save Complete functionality could be better, but this is definitely the Add-On I will be using from now on.

This review is for a previous version of the add-on (1.0.0.1-signed). 

by Paolo Amadini (Developer) on June 25, 2011 ·

Thank you very much for your post, I think it represents what a true add-on review should look like, with comparisons and results. To make it really super, I would add the details of the testing process (version numbers, source files, and so on), so that anyone could reproduce and verify the results. Also, the details would be useful to improve the add-on itself. You're welcome on the mailing list (http://maf.mozdev.org/feedback.html) if you want to provide more details!