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The likely end of DownThemAll?


manju

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Mozilla just announced their intent to deprecate so called XUL-based add-ons in favor of what they call the WebExtensions API within the next year or two. The WebExtensions API is supposed to be mostly compatible to Chrome/Safari extension APIs.

What does this mean for DownThemAll!? Well, for starters, DownThemAll! will be dead if XUL-based add-ons with XPCOM access are gone. Simple as that. The new APIs would only allow for a severely limited in functionality, severely stripped down DownThemAll! at best.

rest of the news here:

http://www.downthemall.net/the-likely-end-of-downthemall/

NOTE: i wanted to post this on the topic regarding the news of the release of DTA 3.0 Beta 6 but search didn't provieded results to my please :(

found it when searching for new updates on the development of te beta of DTA 3.0

whats yours thoughts about this? should this mean that FF user should consider migrating to Palemoon\WaterFox\ other FF-Based browser forks?

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Only Palemoon, supports some old add ons and it don't work very well for a lot of updated ones so you're stuck using old versions for most . Before its over with , I guess Ill just use and outdated browser if think i need to use no longer functional add-ons . I use Flashgot in Linux with JDownloader to pickup files from some hard to reach links Its still along ways off tell they change the way add-ons work though . Its going be pretty bad when and old version of Firefox will have more market share than a new Chormefox version. :P

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I've been a long time user of DownThemAll!, and to be honest, I'm just not that impressed with it... The mirrors feature doesn't seem to work so well (doesn't seem to simultaneously download from more than one), renaming downloads is a pain at best, impossible at worst... Not to mention that it seems like development moves at a snails pace. If their addon changelog is any indication, then they haven't added a new feature in over four years?

With regards to Mozilla changing their addon framework though, yeah, it's tough. Change it hard. It will be for the better, though. It's unfortunate that the DTA developer(s) are taking it so hard, but maybe that's because it seems like nothing ever gets done anyways :P (To illustrate my point, this link should take you to their source code repo with activity for the last 120 days. What I'm seeing is a few commits several weeks ago for a bug fix or two, then nothing.)

I know I'm being hard on these guys. To at least be a little positive, I've liked using Free Download Manager in the past. It seems sort of... sketchy, but so feature-rich.

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i do notice a few iusses between the stable and the beta (not every downlaod is pickup by DTA 3.0 beta)....

times change things but will this be the best for FF major achivement regarding the competition (changing add-on "framework")?

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Chrome lobotomizes the browser world entire:

Resistance is futile, you WILL be assimilated !!

(Except for old folks like me, that is.)

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You know Firefox is barreling slowly towards demise....

Whatever the hell keeps happening there .. I am not liking it... The list of addons which will die and no longer be are innumerable...

The rest of them are useless as search toolbars and adware.. to go to format which only supports this type of extension.. leaving a bunch of furry little extension which are not tools is ridiculous.. but I think I am finding myself say this all to often to continue to waste my time with Firefox anymore.. when these vents occur.. and they are yet to actually move forward with something beneficial.. I will drop it like a hot rock... and I have been around since version 2...

It seems to me that somewhere in a developer room.. these people are not turning anything out or getting the job done.. It would almost seem this crap is thrown up into the air.. to attract or even to make people think the project is still going somewhere with gains and changes but it is only change... no gain.. They need to figure out how to streamline it.. They cannot streamline the extensions the devs have to do that.. and they need to move forward with other parts of development..

I hate Google Chrome and I do not need another Chrome Browser.. ( I have a clean branch for that ) Sometimes I think I am better off with IE.. really...

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May as well use Chrome.

If Firefox goes full-Chrome clone, it will be an older, bloated, broken, unstable form, that still has legacy baggage.

Remove the customizability and put ads and tracking in it, and why wouldn't you just use Chrome?

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despite that stament (by Niels on is blog), i've found that the DTA team as nightly builds...

not sure if there are much changes under the hood but i've only notice (regarding 3.0 b6) taht only x64 type downloads aren't picked by DTA, so Firefox download manager takes is place on the task...

link for today's build: https://code.downthemall.net/nightly/downthemall-nightly-trunk.xpi

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