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DownThemAll (2019)

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Re: DownThemAll (2019)

#121

Post by KwanEsq »

einpoklum wrote: post #112
tn123 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Stefano, Nils here, long time no see. Yeah, it was 2006 when I joined you and Federico, if I remember correctly, while you and Federico started DownThemAll! in 2004. #201 is correct :D 2006 was really a long time ago... DownThemAll! went through a lot of revisions since that time, including the work it took to make it restartless, then make it compatible with "electrolysis" and so on. And in the meantime ensure it…

> I am still not happy mozilla decided they had to break all extensions Actually, the weird thing - for those who see FF or TB from the inside - is that the same kind of code we have in regular extensions is still what's used in FF and TB's own chrome (which is in many ways like a bunch of "core extension"). They haven't changed things in a way which makes using extensions impossible, they simply removed the loading…

This isn't actually (entirely) true.

One of the core technologies of the old extension model, XBL, has been completely ripped out. XBL-defined elements and XBL overlays were how a lot of the old UI customisations functioned, so even if you enable loading the older code it just flat won't work. Obviously custom JavaScript, as in the example you linked, can still do whatever when loaded without restrictions, but then you're at the mercy of changing internals, instead of the supported stable WebExtensions API.

Additionally a lot of XUL in the chrome UI has been removed, replaced with HTML equivalents or custom elements (a descendant of XBL), and the root documents that make up the browser chrome have transitioned from being .xul XUL documents with some HTML elements in to .xhtml HTML documents with some XUL elements in.

Re: DownThemAll (2019)

#123

Post by jinto36 »

tn123 wrote: post #68
steffoz wrote: post #40

Wow. Didn't expect this :) I was the author of this tiny extension back in the days (extension #201, I still remember it) together with a friend who recently passed away, Federico Parodi. We hacked the first version when we still didn't know much about JS, but it immediately exploded (500k daily users). Donations were super helpful at that time, being 22 years old with a newborn. After a couple of years (iirc) Nils M…

Hi Stefano, Nils here, long time no see. Yeah, it was 2006 when I joined you and Federico, if I remember correctly, while you and Federico started DownThemAll! in 2004. #201 is correct :D 2006 was really a long time ago... DownThemAll! went through a lot of revisions since that time, including the work it took to make it restartless, then make it compatible with "electrolysis" and so on. And in the meantime ensure it…

Thanks! This extension was great for archiving materials from MOOCs (Coursera and such) for future reference. Also finding it useful for retrieving a bunch of things from some collections on Internet Archive, where their previews don't work or are broken, etc.

Re: DownThemAll (2019)

#124

Post by eitland »

dblohm7 wrote: post #81
eitland wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might have knowledge and connections: Do you see any hope for a fork of modern Firefox that start with just the tiniest stuff, maybe adding back a simple tab strip api to let Tree Style Tabs work properly again, that kind of stuff, then go on to put Mozilla out of business as soon as the economy allows it? I'm only halfway joking here, and only about putting Mozilla out of business.

> Do you see any hope for a fork of modern Firefox that start with just the tiniest stuff, maybe adding back a simple tab strip api Why bother with the overhead of a fork? Perhaps a team of volunteers could put together a good enough proposal to be accepted by the WebExtensions team.

Well, that would actually be a good solution.

My feeling as someone who has tried to look into it is that certain people are not only reluctant to doing it but also directly opposed.

I might be wrong though and it would be fantastic of someone else could fix it and persuade them to accept it.

Re: DownThemAll (2019)

#125

Post by dblohm7 »

eitland wrote: post #124
dblohm7 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you see any hope for a fork of modern Firefox that start with just the tiniest stuff, maybe adding back a simple tab strip api Why bother with the overhead of a fork? Perhaps a team of volunteers could put together a good enough proposal to be accepted by the WebExtensions team.

Well, that would actually be a good solution. My feeling as someone who has tried to look into it is that certain people are not only reluctant to doing it but also directly opposed. I might be wrong though and it would be fantastic of someone else could fix it and persuade them to accept it.

I used to work at Mozilla and periodically checked the status of the "add API to hide the tab bar" bug.

I don't think anybody was directly opposed, but there were a lot of hidden edge cases that needed to be dealt with.

Even though full-time devs might not have time allocated to doing this themselves, they are open to accepting solutions as long as the contributions are thorough and follow up on their concerns.

Unfortunately IMHO most submissions these days are more like "this looks simple to me, just do it!" instead of a genuine engagement. To some people, that looks like opposition.

Re: DownThemAll (2019)

#126

Post by forgotmypw17 »

eitland wrote: post #110
I_AM_A_SMURF wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to put into perspective, maintaining a full browser (with its own engine etc) costs at minimum $300M/year (judging by the size of Chrome/Firefox/Safari's teams). That means that 300k users would need to pay more than $80 a MONTH to make that sustainable. That's insane.

Two things: - that would go from my tool budget paid by work as soon as it is better since my browser is my second most important tool. - as mentioned above I propose starting with a soft fork, as set of patches to be applied to the latest Firefox

You may find LibreWolf interesting:

https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/

Re: DownThemAll (2019)

#127

Post by forgotmypw17 »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #104
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're at a point where there are enough sites out there that we can avoid a good portion of them (i.e. ones written without progressive enhancement in mind) and still be happy. For example, I am quite happy with visiting only sites which do not require JavaScript, do not use cookie banners, paywalls, and registration prompts. For my purposes of browsing Teddit, HN, and my own websites, there are more than 20…

I understand. But I think as the years go by, you may have fewer and fewer sites that meet your criteria. I hope I’m wrong.

It feels to me like "my" Web has already passed the bottom of the valley, and is only improving with time.

Only a couple years ago there was no Teddit or Nitter, and now they are here.

I'm finding more and more usable sites almost every day, and I'm missing anything less and less frequently.

A couple years ago, I was mostly down-voted for pleading for noJS support here on HN, and now it's the opposite.

I'm feeling optimistic. The biggest thorn in my side right now is SSL/HSTS, which is a very fast treadmill. I'm praying for an easy-to-use and transparent SSL-stripping proxy I can use in the near future, which will make things even better on machines I control.

Re: DownThemAll (2019)

#128

Post by Anthony-G »

slightwinder wrote: post #41
amelius wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, Youtube-DL is continuously being updated, because they have to work around obstacles raised by Google to prevent automatic downloading.

Actually, youtube-dl is dead at the moment for reasons of private life of the maintainer. So people now use a fork called yt-dlp. Which is ironic, because most people moved when google started to use a new harsh speed-limitation.

Thanks for that. I don’t watch many YouTube videos but when I do, I usually use youtube-dl as provided by the Debian Testing package. I wasn’t aware of the yt-dlp project¹ and I’d been wondering why the video downloads were so slow over the past few weeks.

¹ https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

Re: DownThemAll (2019)

#129

Post by U8dcN7vx »

aeonflux wrote: post #20

What is the point of this link? Also - why does it links to the german version of addons page?

I dislike this, trend it seems, of putting the language in the URL -- the Accept-Language HTTP header should be used which can express weighted preferences. Mozilla does use the header but redirects to the language (and product) specific URL which is usually okay for me but bad for sharing (IMO, obviously). But, https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/downthemall/ "works".

Re: DownThemAll (2019)

#130

Post by alienthrowaway »

steffoz wrote: post #40

Wow. Didn't expect this :) I was the author of this tiny extension back in the days (extension #201, I still remember it) together with a friend who recently passed away, Federico Parodi. We hacked the first version when we still didn't know much about JS, but it immediately exploded (500k daily users). Donations were super helpful at that time, being 22 years old with a newborn. After a couple of years (iirc) Nils M…

Thank you for authoring DTA! I was a student with no personal computer, and our 3rd world computer labs' download speeds maxed out at about 3kbps and would drop all the time. I had Portable Firefox on a USB disk(thanks John T. Haller) with DTA, which meant I could dare to download live Linux ISOs over some days, which would have been otherwise impossible; live Linux was the hot new thing then. My heartfelt thanks to you, Federico and Nils.
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