informer1
Lightweight, command line, html form handling
Usage
informer [-c
-cloaked]
[-c
-cloaked]
[URL]
Overview
This manual page briefly describes the informer commands.
informer allows you to fill out HTML forms from the UNIX command line. It is basically ment to be embedded in your own scripts.
Why informer?
Most commercial website designers do not want you to ignore their graphics, because that's where the money is. As a result, they come up with schemes to prevent you from accessing their data without looking at the pictures. The schemes I came accross so far are:
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browser name checking
Basically not allowing you to see a page if your browser isn't MSIE or Mozilla.
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Referer: header checking
To prevent you from sending a precomposed HTML form to a URL, some sites check whether you have just visited their source page.
Informer handles both cases. The first one by masquerading as a I browser :-), the second one by actually visiting the source page first, and setting the Referer: header accordingly.