What YouTube Downloader is Right for You?

therube wrote on October 30, 2017 at 6:03 pm:

in what version of FF are these intended to work?
i have the latest release, 56.0.2.

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easy youtube downloader express
& youtube video & audio
state they are corrupt? so won’t even attempt to install

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yt download & adblock states it wants to “access your for all websites”, “download files and read and modify the browser’s download history”, “access browser tabs”.

just what is all that? sure sounds scary to me. or is this just “standard disclosure” these days?

& then it didn’t seem to download anything at all?

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YT video download & convert

i get a bunch of “blocks”, seemingly that should do something meaningful?
but every video i tried came down as 0-bytes.
every Preview i tried, did nothing.

(it does seem it can pull down some thumbnails, for whatever that might be worth.)

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easy YT mp3

does not seem to be a “downloader”, but seems to do nothing but sends you to a third-party site, that theoretically would convert the audio from a YT clip to mp3 audio?

& even at that, it failed.
i don’t even see why this was included in your list of “downloaders”?

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i have to ask, did you even test these to see if they even function, function in any way as one might expect them to, as in like to actually install in your browser, & then for kicks, to actually download something (& 0-byte files do not count)?

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maybe it is just me, maybe i’m missing something, this leaves me wondering …

1. Scott DeVaney wrote on October 31, 2017 at 9:06 am:

   This is very odd and I’m not sure why you got such consistently wonky behavior. I ran all of these downloaders just fine on Nightly; tested each one. However if you’re running FF 56.0.2 that should definitely be recent enough.

   Regarding the permission details you saw for YouTube Download & Adblock Smarttube… those are fairly standard permissions, but admittedly they can sound scary. That’s why they require user approval before installing. Based on the permissions an extension utilizes, AMO will automatically surface the appropriate messages.

   So I’m not sure why these downloaders worked so poorly for you, but I’m sorry your experience was poor!

   1. therube wrote on October 31, 2017 at 7:40 pm:

      OK, so I’ve got to ask, just what was your “agenda” in regards to your (blog) post?
      Was there one?

      And in the same regard, I guess you might ask what my agenda was with my reply to your blog post.

      And that’s quite simple, actually.
      On reading your post, I was wondering just why you were “promoting” these extensions.

      And with that, I’d figure I’d read about them, briefly, on AMO, to see what I could glean from there, then install them & see just what they might be able to do for me.

      Anyhow, like I say, I have the most recent FF release, 56.0.2. I fired up a new Profile, opened this thread, went to each extension, read a bit, then tried them out.

      The first two would not even install, stating that that:
      “The add-on downloaded from this site could not be installed because it appears to be corrupt.”.

      Now are they “corrupt” or might they require this “nightly” (what might that be FF 59 or something)?

      The extensions, all of them, state “Compatible with Firefox 57+”.
      Now FF 57+ is not a release version either, 56 is.
      Does that mean that none of them should work in the release version of FF, 56.0.2?
      Or does that mean that they might or might not work in FF 56?
      Or should they all (theoretically) work in FF 56?

      (While I might be coming across, harsh, I don’t mean to be, particularly, just a user, just trying to understand something that at this point is just confusing me.)

      1. therube wrote on November 2, 2017 at 5:05 pm:

         > The first two would not even install, stating that that:
         > “The add-on downloaded from this site could not be installed because it appears to be corrupt.”.

         That is my error.
         (At least something I did in the past was the cause of the issue.)

         Some time back, I added a (what was it now ? an extension signing requirement bypass “hack”, if I’m recalling correctly) to my FF /installation directory/ (not Profile).

         I added a mozilla.cfg & /defaults/pref/autoconfig.js files to my instalDir.

         It was this that was blocking (causing the “corrupt” notification”), keeping the extension from installing.

         No clue as to why only those two particular extensions were reported as corrupt, install blocked, while the others worked fine, but that is what happened.

         Once I remove those two files, I’m able to successfully install those two “corrupt” extensions.

         1. Scott DeVaney wrote on November 2, 2017 at 5:08 pm:

            Glad to hear it worked out, and thank you for sharing the knowledge of your fix.

         2. therube wrote on November 13, 2017 at 4:34 pm:

            > No clue as to why only those two particular extensions were reported as corrupt,
            > install blocked, while the others worked fine, but that is what happened.

            Possible explanation, addon id (or not); http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=14773969#p14773969

   2. therube wrote on November 13, 2017 at 4:32 pm:

      > Regarding the permission details you saw for YouTube Download & Adblock Smarttube… those are fairly
      > standard permissions, but admittedly they can sound scary. That’s why they require user approval before
      > installing. Based on the permissions an extension utilizes, AMO will automatically surface the appropriate
      > messages.

      https://palant.de/2017/08/05/revisiting-permission-prompt-for-firefox-extensions

      Standard they may be, but I see great confusion ahead.

      (Ironic isn’t it, to me at least, that FF now has all this “excess” telemetry, that AFAIK, is /on/ by default [i.e. opt out rather then opt in], yet when one wants, & goes to install an extension they’re presented with this doomsday rhetoric [of which they’ll have no idea what it means].)