Video DownloadHelper news

[mig]

Version 8.1.0.0 is on its way to be released soon. As usual, we will initiate the release with a Firefox-only 8.1.0.0a1 version that will be made available next week.

It brings very important changes to Video DownloadHelper, mostly thanks to a redesigned companion application 2.0.0. Note that 8.1.0.0 still works with the 1.6.3 coapp, but it will lack the best new features.

What’s new with VDH 8.1.0.0 + Coapp 2.0.0 ?

A more efficient and reliable way to download HLS 

3 new add-on actions offer alternative ways to download HLS streams.

Side Download

Quick Side Download

Side Download & Convert

They are intended to eventually replace the legacy Download, Quick Download and Download & Convert actions when a HLS video is to be downloaded. However, while introducing this feature, we don’t make side downloads the default. To get its benefits, click “...” next to the detected video you want to download. 

A list of possible actions shows up.

Pick Quick side download to start the download immediately, Side download to be prompted for a file name before, Side download & Convert to automatically convert the video to any format once the download is performed.

If you check the “Use this action by default” before selecting the action, like Quick Side Download, next time you open the add-on popup and click on the video name, this action will be executed, no need to go through the “...” button.

We expect this download method to solve most problems with audio and video synchronization users reported with former VDH versions, regarding HLS streams, both live and pre-recorded.

Note that if you pick one of the side download actions while running a former coapp version like 1.6.3, you will be prompted to upgrade your companion app to 2.0.0.

Way faster YouTube downloads

The previous version of VDH could download videos with a maximum speed of twice the bitrate of the video. YouTube age-restricted videos were even more terribly slow to get.

With 8.1.0.0, if you have a good internet connection, you can expect download speed 10 to 100 times faster, age-restricted or not.

However, this only works if you upgraded the coapp to 2.0.0. If you still run coapp 1.6.3, the download rate will silently remain the same.

Note that YouTube downloads are limited to Firefox and Edge versions of VDH. On Chrome, Google does not allow add-ons downloading videos from YouTube.

Better companion app system compatibility

Mac:

• Fixed app certification issues

• Apple silicon support (M1-M2 processors)

Linux:

• Wider GLIBC compatibility (1 version for all)

• Support for Flatpack and Snap

• Linux ARM

Unfortunately, for Linux, we add to follow node.js decision to drop support for 32 bits architectures. If you are running Linux on a 32 bits machine, we have no solution for you to use the companion app 2.0.0, sorry. But it's still useful to install VDH 8.1.0.0 along with coapp 1.6.3.

Windows: no architecture change: single installation binary for 32 and 64 bits.

People

We are excited to announce that Paul Rouget joined the Video DownloadHelper team. As a former Mozilla employee and Firefox developer, Paul started working with us a couple of months ago and he brings his extensive browser development experience to our project. Even if new to the team, Paul has already played the key role in the release of this new VDH release, both on the add-on and coapp sides.

[Wild Willy]

Sois le bienvenu, Paul!

Side download. That's rather odd terminology. How did you come to this wording? Are we
to surmise that eventually, this will be the only download option? Meaning, you will
drop the "side" part & we will go back to having only Download, & this new "side" way
will be the only way VDH does things. Does this cure the "separate audio & video" bug?
Does this make the HLS as M2TS setting obsolete? Are you truly ignoring all timed_ID3
data? Does this cure the problems with Vimeo content, both on Vimeo itself as well as
"foreign" videos that turn out to be on Vimeo under the covers? Does this add DASH
support for sites other than YouTube? Speaking of YouTube, does this address the issue
of people being logged in with PAID accounts, not just the free ones most of us have, not
just age-restricted content? Do we get back the keyboard shortcut on Windows for opening
the VDH menu?

The YouTube speed thing will be most welcome.

Are other things mentioned over here:

https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/c/4ZFrheykUFE

Are they dealt with? Are they at least on the agenda?

[mig]

For now, we are talking about side download because more of the download work is done alongside the add-on, i.e. in the coapp. Side downloads are intended to become the default in next versions, but we want this method to face field testing first.

We hope it corrects most of the synchronization issues of the previous versions.

For now, the improvements are on the HLS streaming management. Nothing has changed for DASH support but we expect the next versions of VDH to bring the same level of compatibility as with HLS.

I don't believe paid of free YouTube downloads make a difference.

The issue with the popup-opening shortcut still remains, were chasing bigger mice.

[mig]

Willy, good news: the keyboard shortcut to open the popup will work as you expect in 8.1.0.0.

[Wild Willy]

Yes, that is most welcome. But not half as welcome as the actual release. Is that still
any day now? Or have unforeseen issues pushed it back a bit?

[mig]

It's a matter of days before we release the new beta.

[Paul Rouget]

On Friday, September 22, 2023 at 11:40:49 PM UTC+8 mig wrote:

We are excited to announce that Paul Rouget joined the Video DownloadHelper team. As a former Mozilla employee and Firefox developer, Paul started working with us a couple of months ago and he brings his extensive browser development experience to our project. Even if new to the team, Paul has already played the key role in the release of this new VDH release, both on the add-on and coapp sides.

Pretty excited to be part of the team :)

I've been digging into the core of Video DownloadHelper in the past few month, doing some "invisible" architectural changes. For the most technicals of you: migrating to the new extension format (MV3), making the internals more asynchronous, built a more resilient Coapp, and most importantly, assisted Mig in developing a new download system for HLS (and hopefully Dash in the future).

Jerome and Mig are keeping track of the bugs and features requested here. We are planning to implement new exciting features and solidify the app (tackle the most annoying bugs).

Very exciting time for Video DownloadHelper :)

 

[Wild Willy]

MV3? Has Mozilla foisted yet another change of rules for add-ons on the world? What's
the deal this time?

And if you're in France, like Jérôme & Michel, you sure are up early . . .

[Wild Willy]

Also, I see there's a CoApp version 2.0.1 up & it does NOT say to not use it. Should we
get that? Does it work with 8.0.0.6a1? Or should we wait for the new VDH add-on & get
them together?

[Paul Rouget]

On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 11:48:57 AM UTC+8 Wild Willy wrote:

MV3? Has Mozilla foisted yet another change of rules for add-ons on the world? What's
the deal this time?

Manifest V3 for Chrome. Still Manifest V2 for Mozilla (they still missing a few features).

 

And if you're in France, like Jérôme & Michel, you sure are up early . . .

Oh no, far from France, Taiwan 🇹🇼 :)

[Paul Rouget]

We're still doing some tests internally, but the packages you see there should be the one we will announce this week. You can give it a try, won't hurt. If we need to respawn some builds, we will bump up the version (so don't be surprise if the public announcement links to a v2.0.2 release). Coapp v2 should be retrocompatible with Addon v8.0*, but you won't see any improvements. The incoming Addon v8.1* will leverage the new coapp v2 features.

 

[Wild Willy]

Taiwan . . . My how the Internet has shrunk the world. But then your appearance at this
hour is far less impressive, although it does give coverage for more of the clock.

I think I'll wait. If it doesn't do anything unless you've got both the new parts,
there's no point, especially if it might change again.

[mig]

On Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at 5:48:57 AM UTC+2 Wild Willy wrote:

MV3? Has Mozilla foisted yet another change of rules for add-ons on the world? What's
the deal this time?

MV3 stands for "Manifest v3" (previous standard was MV2). It's a Google initiative to prevent people from developing ad blockers by changing the API between the browser and the add-on. We are not directly impacted by this ad-blocking stuff but many other involved changes have made our lives miserable for the past few months.

Mozilla has no choice but to follow those standards, but still accept MV2 add-ons. VDH8.1/Firefox is still MV2 while VDH8.1/Chrome|Edge are MV3.

 

[Wild Willy]

I saw the word "manifest" in what you were saying & thought it had something to do
with .m3u8 & .mpd files. A little reading now informs me that you are talking about
something entirely unrelated to that. It is another attempt by Google to abuse their
monopoly status.

I installed Chrome once about 10 years ago, maybe even longer. At that time, I had a
rather slow DSL connection. I discovered that Chrome was continuously using about 1/3 of
my available bandwidth, a limited resource, at all times, severely degrading the
performance of Firefox, which was & remains the browser I use. When I say at all times,
I mean that included when I did not have Chrome open & surfing to web pages. I have no
idea what a program that is not running could possibly be doing to use up all that
bandwidth. But that's the problem. I did not know what it was doing behind my back. I
immediately identified this as behavior you would expect from a virus. I uninstalled
Chrome the day I installed it. Seems like that was one of the smarter moves I have ever
made. People who use Chrome are being victimized in order to supply Google with a
captive audience for their advertising.

I would support you fully if you simply discontinued the VDH for Chrome product. Or at
least, let it sit in its present state & told people you would not be providing any
further development, no bug corrections, no enhancements. If the day came when VDH
simply quit working on Chrome, I would agree with you if you just shrugged your shoulders
& walked away from it. There is nothing in this world that says you have to write a
software product that works on any particular browser. You can choose what to do & what
not to do. You are not obligated to make VDH work on Chrome. And just as an aside, that
would stop this forum from being flooded with posts about licensing issues with Chrome.
I'm so sick of seeing those. For people who complain that they hold lifetime licenses,
tell them that they got the use of those licenses for however long they got to use them.
They have gotten their money's worth out of them many times over. They should either
switch to Firefox, or stick with Chrome but use something other than VDH. You aren't a
huge corporate conglomerate. You don't need to attempt to do everything. Do what you
can & leave the rest to others. If this MV3 thing proves to be too much of a headache,
abandon it.

[dave madsen]

Willy, what's going on with you?  What happened? 

I was hit by the Chrome license problem.  This is a problem with VDH and needs to be fixed.  I even suggested a temporary work-around to "spread the pain out" for it, but I never got a response nor saw it implemented.  Perhaps my suggestion wouldn't work, I don't know.

I loved Mozilla.  I stopped using them years ago when they made changes that invalidated extensions and told everyone to talk to the extension authors to rewrite their extensions.

So, many of the extensions I had were unusable because the authors didn't rewrite them, they were a "labor of love".

I continued using what I could and found some new ones that partially replaced the functionality I needed.

Then Mozilla did it again.  You'll note that this is the philosophy that you are espousing -- develop what you want and don't care about causing user issues.

I was so upset that I moved to Chrome.  

And you're right, there's a lot of bad behavior there, too. And it's not getting better. Their abuse of monopoly power is getting worse.  

But then -- do you use Windows?  Maybe you should switch to Linux if you don't like something Microsoft does?

Telling a developer that they should develop only for your preferred platform and ignore everyone else sounds very selfish.  Please reconsider your recommendation. 

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[mig]

Willy, i'm not sure the 3M+ daily users of VDH on Chrome will share your point of view :)

[Wild Willy]

It's a good thing I'm not in charge, then.

[mig]

VDH 8.1.0.0a4 for Firefox is now online !

If you were already using a beta version of VDH, it should update automatically within 24 hours. Otherwise or if you can't wait, you can update directly from https://www.downloadhelper.net/firefox/betas

Remember, to get the benefits of all new features, you have to run the VDH coapp 2.0.1: https://www.downloadhelper.net/install-coapp-v2

[Wild Willy]

Wellllllll . . . .

This could sound familiar. I installed the new beta & indeed Alt+UpArrow once again
opens the VDH menu. Yay! Except it doesn't work on the home page of the group
(https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a). But I have found a number of
anomalous behaviors on that page so I think it's something Google is doing in, what else,
a non-standard way. Thread pages don't present a problem.

BUT . . .

It said I was NOT licensed & when I enter my license key, it never completes the process.

AND . . .

I installed the CoApp version 2.0.1. I even closed all Firefox windows to do it. But
the installation is not being recognized.

See the attached image. It's been sitting like that for at least 10 minutes now. I
don't think it's going to change no matter how long I wait.

This sure sounds like some of the Chrome problems have migrated to Firefox. Either that
or the VDH web site is having some issues.

[Wild Willy]

I used Revo to uninstall both CoApp 1.6.3 & 2.0.1. They are both installed as regular
old apps in Windows. Then I reinstalled 2.0.1. No change. I can't have this. I'm
dropping back to the previous beta & CoApp 1.6.3. Let me know when I can try again.

[Wild Willy]

I'm back to what you can see in the attached image. Note 3 things:

Release of VDH
Release of CoApp
Status of license

I managed to lock my license during all of this & had to clear the revalidation state.
But I am now back to what I had. I actually uninstalled VDH to get back to this state,
which meant that when I reinstalled the backlevel beta, I had to go through all my VDH
settings & change them by hand. Fortunately, I don't have many non-default settings so
it didn't take me too long. And I am so proud of myself that I remembered to click Save.
I also remembered to do the video qualities thing in the reset settings. I figured since
I had removed VDH, I had to do that one-time operation over again.

[Paul Rouget]

Your bug (the coapp check panel freezing and nothing shows up) looks like a bug I'm aware of. But a full Firefox restart should have solved it.

Just to make sure it's a different issue, can you confirm this:

1. you're using the beta version of the addon

2. install the new coapp
3. Close Firefox (fully, as in, double check that the Firefox process is not running anymore)

4. Check coapp, and let me know if it's stuck or if it says it found the v2 coapp

Thank you!

[Paul Rouget]

Also, can you please share which version of the coapp you're using (I'm assuming the windows x86_64 build?).

[Paul Rouget]

And finally, can you run this command from the command line (cmd) and tell me if any text shows up?

"c:\Program Files\DownloadHelper CoApp\vdhcoapp.exe" (keep the quotes)

It will probably tell your to use the `install` option. Don't. It's not supported on Windows.

[Wild Willy]

OK. So here's what I did.

1. Right before closing my last Firefox window, I used the Firefox add-on manager to
remove VDH.
2. Closed the last Firefox window.
3. Used Revo to uninstall CoApp 1.6.3. It was the only one I had installed at the time.
4. Executed the vdhcoapp-2.0.1-windows-x86_64-installer.exe, which ran fine. I let it
install in the default directory.
5. Executed the CoApp with no parameters from command prompt. I got this, which is not
encouraging because I am running Windows 7.

Node.js is only supported on Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, or higher.
Setting the NODE_SKIP_PLATFORM_CHECK environment variable to 1 skips this
check, but Node.js might not execute correctly. Any issues encountered on
unsupported platforms will not be fixed.

6. Relaunched Firefox.
7. Installed VDH 8.1.0.0a4 beta.
8. It's still telling me what you can see in the attached image.

I think the problem is that I am still on Windows 7, which would be a great
disappointment that you've cut off everybody who is still running W7, a population that I
believe (I don't know for a fact) is still quite large. It's also rather annoying that
you've forgotten my license. The first time I installed 8.1.0.0a4, I did not first
remove 8.0.0.6a1. My license was suddenly no longer registered. It's bad enough that
you have made all the old Chrome users who bought their lifetime licenses from the Chrome
store suddenly have to contact you for license numbers. But I have always had a license
number. Don't make me re-enter it. Recognize it. I'm hoping that's how it will work
once we figure out what's going wrong here.

Unless you do set that environment variable to 1. Then I assume I would be golden. In
that case, I think there is a mismatch somewhere. The CoApp is in a certain directory
but VDH is looking for it somewhere else. On my system, that directory is C:\Program
Files\DownloadHelper CoApp. I did not choose that directory. The CoApp installer did.
It appears to have created it. Just for grins & giggles, here's a dir of that directory.

Directory of C:\Program Files\DownloadHelper CoApp

10/03/2023 22:44 <DIR> .
10/03/2023 22:44 <DIR> ..
09/26/2023 05:42 47,476,736 ffmpeg.exe
09/26/2023 05:42 47,344,128 ffprobe.exe
09/26/2023 05:42 228 google.json
09/26/2023 05:42 228 microsoft.json
09/26/2023 05:42 259 mozilla.json
10/03/2023 22:44 68,717 uninstall.exe
09/26/2023 05:42 39,716,018 vdhcoapp.exe
7 File(s) 134,606,314 bytes
2 Dir(s) 412,662,616,064 bytes free

All new files. No apparent leftovers from a previous CoApp.

Of course, now I'm going to uninstall this & go back to 1.6.3, plus swap the extension
back to 8.0.0.6a1. I was able to backlevel the extension & install the old CoApp without
even closing Firefox. The CoApp is now here:

Directory of C:\Program Files\net.downloadhelper.coapp

10/03/2023 23:13 <DIR> .
10/03/2023 23:13 <DIR> ..
10/03/2023 23:13 <DIR> bin
05/25/2021 10:41 334 chrome.net.downloadhelper.coapp.json
10/03/2023 23:13 <DIR> converter
05/25/2021 10:41 270 edge.net.downloadhelper.coapp.json
05/25/2021 10:41 305 firefox.net.downloadhelper.coapp.json
10/25/2017 12:30 18,092 LICENSE.txt
10/25/2017 13:24 571 README.txt
10/03/2023 23:13 12,849 unins000.dat
10/03/2023 23:13 2,558,817 unins000.exe
7 File(s) 2,591,238 bytes
4 Dir(s) 412,696,432,640 bytes free

The CoApp itself is the only resident of the bin subdirectory. The converter
subdirectory has several empty subdirectories (empty meaning no files, only a
subdirectory) in a tree until you get to the leaf, where you find ffmpeg (Michel's
trimmed down version), ffprobe, ffplay, & a bunch of dll files that look like they might
be codec support, like avcodec-58, libvorbis-0, & so on. I assume these things are used
when you run a Convert operation in VDH. Whatever the case, this looks a lot different
between the 2 releases of the CoApp. Which is fine. But the extension needs to be
looking in the right place for the CoApp.

I have suggested this before a number of times & I think it's appropriate to suggest it
again. Add debugging instrumentation to VDH & the CoApp so that there is some sort of
log of what's going on. That would help us diagnose what's wrong here, instead of
stabbing in the dark & guessing. I might even have been able to fix this myself if I had
a debug log to work with. Maybe. But without a debug log, there's no chance I can
diagnose this myself. With a log, at least there's a chance, however slim.

[Paul Rouget]

On Wednesday, October 4, 2023 at 11:59:33 AM UTC+8 Wild Willy wrote:

5. Executed the CoApp with no parameters from command prompt. I got this, which is not
encouraging because I am running Windows 7.

Node.js is only supported on Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, or higher.
Setting the NODE_SKIP_PLATFORM_CHECK environment variable to 1 skips this
check, but Node.js might not execute correctly. Any issues encountered on
unsupported platforms will not be fixed.

That's probably the issue.

 

I think the problem is that I am still on Windows 7, which would be a great
disappointment that you've cut off everybody who is still running W7, a population that I
believe (I don't know for a fact) is still quite large.

Agreed. I'm looking into it.

 

It's also rather annoying that you've forgotten my license.

That's why we do these betas :) To see if we break things. I'll look at this as well.

 

this looks a lot different between the 2 releases of the CoApp.

Indeed, there's a lot of differences between the 2 coapps.

 

 But the extension needs to be looking in the right place for the CoApp.

It's supposed to.

 

Add debugging instrumentation to VDH & the CoApp so that there is some sort of
log of what's going on.

Right. That's something we will be looking at in the future for sure.

 

[Paul Rouget]

@WildWilly do you mind giving it another try, but with that build: https://github.com/aclap-dev/vdhcoapp/releases/download/v2.0.1/vdhcoapp-2.0.1-win7-x86_64-installer.exe

That would help a ton :) Thanks.

[Wild Willy]

It's still telling me the same thing, even after cycling Firefox.

[Paul Rouget]

Thank you.

Can you check if the warning still shows up when you run the command?

"c:\Program Files\DownloadHelper CoApp\vdhcoapp.exe"

Gonna try to install Windows 7 see if i can reproduce.

[Wild Willy]

Now I have this. Curiously, I had to explicitly uninstall (with Revo) CoApp 2.0.1.
There doesn't seem to be a way to have 2 CoApps installed at the same time. It looks
like VDH always takes the one with the highest release number. But 8.0.0.6a1 was working
with CoApp 1.6.3, which I didn't uninstall this time. I thought it would simply pick
that back up. Well, it doesn't. Maybe there's a feature request in there. When
multiple CoApps are installed, offer the user a choice dialog. Anyway, it seems to not
be necessary to actually remove the extension each time. Just go to the beta page &
click your version, newer or older, doesn't matter. Works fine. Although I did cycle
Firefox a couple of times during this. Maybe that wouldn't have been necessary if I had
thought to uninstall CoApp 2.0.1. I'll try that next time. I'm sure you'll have a next
time for me.

[Wild Willy]

And yes, it still gives me the error message about needing to be on at least Windows 8.1.

[Paul Rouget]

Thank you. I will have a new coapp build for you later.

And just to circle back on the fact you lost your license: did you uninstall the addon before installing the beta (which could erase the internal addon storage)? Or did you install the beta "on top" of the existing version (which should have kept the license)?

Thanks.

[Wild Willy]

I've tried a couple of patterns now & it goes like this:

If I remove the extension, then of course, the next time I install the extension, I have
to enter my license number. I expected this. It wouldn't matter which version of the
extension I'm installing, I would expect to have to re-enter my license number.

The problem comes when I have not uninstalled the extension before I install another
version. If I start at 8.0.0.6a1, where it recognizes I have registered my license,
leave it installed, then install 8.1.0.0a4, then it claims I need to supply a license
number. Curiously, when I revert back from 8.1.0.0a4 to 8.0.0.6a1, as long as I don't
actually remove the extension, then my license number is recognized & I don't have to
re-enter it.

The main factor is whether I uninstall VDH. If I do not uninstall VDH, my license is
kept, although 8.1.0.0a4 doesn't seem to know where it is. It's there, but it can't find
it. I know it's there because when I drop back, poof, it is recognized without my having
to re-enter it. I've gone up & down a couple of times now & I have not re-entered it.
I've stopped trying to enter it with the latest version of the extension because I know
I'm going to drop back to the older version & the license will once again be recognized
without my having to re-enter it. This cycle will end when I finally get a new extension
that recognizes the license I already have in place.