WebFerretPro: Why not put a clever Ferret to work finding the often obscure but sometimes tasty treats on the Net? Like its counterpart in nature, WebFerretPRO, from FerretSoft LLC, combines speed, efficiency, and flexibility to easily and quickly uncover hidden valuables from the most unexpected places. This extremely small (728 KB) downloadable meta-search tool makes use of the multithreading capabilities of Windows 95 and Windows NT to query multiple databases and search engines simultaneously.

By default, WebFerretPRO searches AltaVista, Anzwers, AOL NetFind, EuroSeek, Excite, Galaxy, HotBot, InfoHiWay, InfoSeek, LookSmart, Lycos, Magellan, Open Text, Search.com, WebCrawler, What-U-Seek, Yellow Pages, Yahoo!, and three Veronica sites to help you rapidly locate whatever it is that you are looking for on the Web. New search engines and guides are automatically added as they become available through a link to the servers at the FerretSoft den.

In addition to simultaneous searches, WebFerretPRO's keen hunting capabilities include a number of advanced user configurable search features that let you narrow queries and eliminate duplicate returns. However, this crafty critter's tracking skills don't end there. It is also designed to keep up with the constant changes in search engine technology by checking for new querying techniques and automatically incorporating them into its repertoire.

When you launch WebFerretPRO, it displays a simple search interface, as illustrated in Figure 1. The Containing text box lets you enter keywords or phrases to locate pages that match the query. Immediately beneath, four radio buttons let you specify whether the program should search using all keywords, any keyword, exact phrase, or a Boolean expression (i.e., queries using the AND, OR, and NOT operators).

To test the program, I typed the phrase "Robby the Robot," selected the Exact phrase option, and clicked the Find Now button. The results, from various directories and search engines, began appearing within seconds! WebFerretPRO displays search results in rows divided into Name, Address, Relevance, and Source columns, as pictured in Figure 2.You can easily rearrange the results based on any column heading by clicking it (however, not all search engines and guides provide relevance scoring). 

To display any page in the results list, simply double-click it. This will open your default Web browser and load the selected page, while the query continues in the background (unless you click the Stop button). After scanning the page names in the list, I double-clicked "Robby the Robot." The MECA Toy Robot Gallery site appeared in my browser and, after a bit of browsing, I found one of my favorite robots (pictured on the right). This initial trial assured me that I no longer was in danger of  becoming lost in (cyber)space.  

For my second attempt, I decided to get a bit trickier and use the advanced search options in WebFerretPRO. Clicking the Advanced tab displays the Closeness of match option, which lets you choose to search entire pages, only titles and abstracts, or just page titles. I opted to search entire pages (the default) and set the Duplicate removal feature to ensure that only unique page names would appear in my search results.

As a big fan of the science fiction TV series Babylon 5, I have been looking, without success, for a poster of the show. With this in mind, I switched back to the Page tab and entered the phrase  "Babylon 5 Poster." Again, within mere seconds of sending out the query, the results began pouring in. When I spotted the "Concert Poster" page, a quick double-click brought me to the site where I soon discovered the nifty poster shown to the right. Of course, I immediately whipped out my credit card and ordered it online.

I must admit that, having played with a number of meta-search engines and search bots, I was more than a bit skeptical about a client-based bot like WebFerretPRO. The hassle of downloading (or ordering) such a program and installing it on your (typically overloaded and bandwidth constricted) system would appear, at first glance, to favor a server-based solution.  Nonetheless, the CEO of FerretSoft, Kirk Colvin, offers some compelling arguments in favor of using this particular bot.

First, and foremost, WebFerretPRO is FAST. According to Kirk, the reason for this uncanny speed is C++ programming taken to its barest form, where most class libraires have been rewritten to include only executing value code and not generic code. He stressed that, "We could have saved ourselves a ton of work and made a 3MB program, but then that would make the [WebFerretPRO] like all the other slow, bloatware programs being written."

Kirk also argues that WebFerretPRO "...gives the user more control [than a server-based tool] and doesn't require a server connection to work. Ours is a client-server meta tool. It attempts to contact our server when started to update search engine grammars, but if it doesn't connect, no big deal, it still works. If 10,000 users are doing searches with ours it doesn't matter but on a server-based solution imagine what happens if 10,000 users bang on it at once! Slooooow."

WebFerretPRO is part of family of products from FerretSoft, including 

• WebFerret is a free version of the WebFerretPRO without the advanced features.
• EmailFerret seeks out email addresses, querying Web-based email directories.
• FileFerret searches both Web-based file databases and the Archie protocol databases for shareware, public domain software and other files.
• IRCFerret lets you easily locate other users of various Internet Relay Chat (IRC) networks. 
• PhoneFerret finds peoples addresses and phone numbers.
• NewsFerret locates messages on newservers.

FerretSoft plans to release InfoFerret in late January, which will search newspapers, magazines, archives and other sites to provide information on a search topic. Also in the works for the first quarter of 1998 are a ShoppingFerret, GIFFerret, and LegalFerret.

According to Kirk, the freeware version of the search bot, WebFerret, has been downloaded by over 750,000 users in 9 months. You can get your free (non-expiring) copy at http://www.ferretsoft.com/netferret/webferret.htm. But if you like the freeware version you'll love the newly released WebFerretPRO (for $26.95), which features the ability to rerun previous queries and save search results to a text file for printing and importing to a database or spreadsheet.

With these new functions, plus WebFerretPRO's amazing speed and accuracy, it's certainly a real contender in the arena of power search tools for the Web. Maybe it's time for you to poke your head out in cyberspace and see what these digital ferrets are up to. Just watch out for the flying fur balls.

FerretSoft
MECA Toy Robot Gallery
Concert Poster

Searchbots

Classification Direct Internet Access: http://www.searchbots.com/

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