A free program which I use is Outposted from Xequte Software,
available as http://www.dijialbum.com/download/outpostd.exe

They describe it as follows:

We all have a list of web sites that are important to us; sites for the software we use, news sites, blogs, etc.  While some of these sites change frequently, others remain static for weeks at a time.  Visiting all of these sites just to see what's new would take ages, so OutPosted does all of the work for you.  Give OutPosted a list of your favorite sites and whenever changes are detected the site is e-mailed to you.  Unlike similar software, OutPosted does not send a link to the site, or a lame "Notification of Change" message, but the actual web page, fully formatted, as an email message!             
  Usage and distribution is totally free. 

It works for me!