February 15, 2026
Stop the web, I wanna save it
Gwtar: A static efficient single-file HTML format
One-file web dreams spark cheers, eye-rolls, and iOS drama
TLDR: Gwtar packs a whole webpage into one file that loads pieces only when needed. Comments split between praising the clever “stop loading” trick, pushing existing web archive files instead, and noting iOS browsers show blank pages—raising a real question: future of preservation or just a desktop‑only party?
Gwtar just dropped, promising one giant, self‑contained web page that only grabs images and scripts when you actually need them. The crowd reaction? Mixed and spicy. One dev had a eureka moment: the secret is window.stop(), the “slam the brakes” button that halts extra loading, which sparked applause and side‑eye alike.
Then came the skeptics. zetanor argued this is yet another format and “more complicated than WARC”—Web ARChive files that often need special viewing tools—questioning whether Gwtar solves more problems than it creates. The pragmatists chimed in too: why not just hit “Save As,” keep the words, and delete the tracking junk? Simple beats clever, they say.
The plot twist: mobile woes. renewiltord reported blank pages on iOS across Brave, Chrome, and Safari, poking at Gwtar’s real‑world readiness. And because this is the internet, the site itself got roasted for “inflated self-importance” and endless prose—cue memes about an about page that explains its own about page.
Amid guitar puns (it’s pronounced “guitar”), the community split: archival nerds cheered the single‑file magic, archivists asked why not WARC, and casual readers shrugged. Gwtar might be genius… or just a flashy solo that doesn’t play on mobile.
Key Points
- •Gwtar is a single-file, static HTML archival format that supports efficient lazy loading via JavaScript-driven HTTP range requests.
- •The format concatenates an HTML+JS header with a tarball containing the original HTML and all assets, enabling on-demand asset loading.
- •It aims to solve the archiving trilemma: achieving static, single-file storage, and efficiency in one format.
- •The article argues existing solutions trade off at least one property: MHTML/MAFF/SingleFile are not efficient; WARC/WACZ are not single-file to view without extra software.
- •Gwern.net uses Gwtar to host large, self-contained HTML archives to mitigate link rot and ensure forward compatibility.