I noticed something odd with Downthemall, then saw a comment over at AMO that the downthemall extension for Firefox is being discontinued? Is this true? If so, can someone recommend a replacement? I like the simplicity of the browser plugin, not really wanting to go to a download manager unless I absolutely have to. Mods, sorry if this is in the wrong thread, I don't know where it belongs.
[ Moved to appropriate forum - mod GC]
Visit the Community page
Join our forums
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Subscribe with RSS
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on LinkedIn
Follow us on Twitter
Follow us on Mastodon
Follow us on BlueSky
I am a fan of Downthemall as well.
Sadly, from what I understand, the extension is being discontinued due to the change in the way Firefox extensions are being handled going forward. I haven't yet come across a replacement I'm happy with.
Unfortunately Mozilla is shooting themselves in the foot by discontinuing Firefox's support for what they now term "legacy" extensions. These "legacy" extensions have been the proper method for creating Firefox extensions for years, and are still the only way to make an extension as complex as "DownThemAll!" or "Classic Theme Restorer".
Unfortunately the outcry of Firefox users & Firefox extension developers have fallen on deaf ears at Mozilla, and they've recently moved forward with their plans by disabling "legacy" extension support in Firefox's "nightly" builds, and will surely continue to do so on all other builds of Firefox in the near future.
Fortunately however, there is a ray of hope in that Waterfox (started as a 64-bit build of Firefox, before Mozilla offered a "Firefox" branded 64-bit Windows build, which they still don't offer as the default download for 64-bit Windows users), which up to this point has kept up-to-date with most of Mozilla's changes, is not going to follow suit.
Notably, Waterfox has also stayed away from several of Mozilla's other poor choices, such as shipping a third-party extension (Pocket) in the browser as if it was part of it (Note: for those who want to use Pocket, it can be used in Waterfox if you install the old extension that used to be offered through AMO prior to Firefox bundling it in), and including "Sponsored Tiles" on the new-tab page, which may not sound too bad, but effectively means that third parties can pay Mozilla to let them see what sites you use with the excuse that they're doing it so they can show you sites you might like.
Also Waterfox is planning some big infrastructure changes soon in order to separate itself from Firefox's issues and be able to stand on it's own as a true alternative to the likes of Firefox and Chrome.
Another notable option is Pale Moon, (which also started out as a 64-bit build of Firefox before Mozilla offered a "Firefox" branded 64-bit Windows build) which will also not be discontinuing support for "legacy" addons, and (unlike Waterfox) didn't follow Mozilla's decision to switch to the "Australis" user interface Mozilla switched Firefox to in Firefox 29.
~3D1T0R
Already received the upgrade to FFportable @ 55.0.1, so will I hurt any thing if I try to roll back to the 52ESR version?
Saw this way too late:
https://github.com/Aris-t2/ClassicThemeRestorer/issues/299
However, already started to work with the resurrected K-Meleon that runs in 32-bit, Waterfox from the home page only runs in 64 bit, but K-Meleon doesn't need CTR either, though it may be trickier to use some of the ones I use daily like the Free Download Manager plug-in extension v.2.2.3, which I couldn't find today when I was trimming Tor with CTR to my taste. Tor and FF [portables] won't run together at the same time, going to have to post over at Torproject what they plan to do, have to stay with 6.5.2/6.2.5 whatever [can't remember] because upgrading that to 7.x.x caused it to lock or crash, again gotta post over there. When FF is up, Tor claims another Tor is running, and vice versa when Tor is up, FF claims another one of it is running, so those two are either too close or I don't know, or Tor is going to have to do something to differentiate itself from FF Stable. KM though has its own adblocker and NoScript option as standard, the former in the privacy dropdown, unless I find the toolbar button for it. Still getting used to it, If I can't roll back from 55 to 52ESR, migrating will be the only choice and getting passwords from one manager to another will be the P.I.T.A., already warned against copying bookmarks when both are running. Pale Moon only has .exe files for both desk and portable no .paf.exe. Haven't looked at that one in years, wonder if it will behave within the P.A. platform, need advice from those that use it. So far KM and FF are OK with running side-by-side. Typing this in middle of the night, hope I don't read as being too befuddled, will check back Sunday. Edit: John doesn't do Firefox ESRs does he?If he did I could try later ESR versions, like the 59ESR that is supposed to come out next year as well.
If you've already updated to Firefox Portable 55.x, your profile has been altered in a way that it may have issues if you bring it with you when switching to Firefox Portable 52 ESR, Waterfox Portable 54.x or PaleMoon Portable 27.x, however, I think Waterfox 55 should be able to handle it... once they upload the Windows build, which is ready, but waiting Alex to receive a new code-signing certificate.
Yes, Waterfox is 64 bit only at the moment, but I think Alex might consider releasing a 32-bit build, now that it's likely to take on a bunch of Firefox's 'legacy extension' refugees. As for K-Meleon 'not needing CTR', I suppose that's true, and K-Meleon is quite cool, but unfortunately Dorian's most recent post says he had an ssd crash and lost his backup, so a lot of work was lost, and that was December of last year. K-Meleon may be going dormant again. Also, (I think I mentioned this before, but) Pale Moon "doesn't need CTR" either, as it never switched to Australis like FF & WF.
Sorry I can't really say much about the "Free Download Manager plug-in extension v.2.2.3", but if you have a copy of the xpi in another profile, you can use that to install it.
As for TorBrowser Portable and Firefox Portable not running at the same time, I think that's because TorBrowser is still named 'firefox.exe'
Doesn't K-Meleon have an icon for the built-in ad blocker in the status bar?
Sorry, Pale Moon doesn't have a PAF release, it's portable release uses winPenPack's "X-launcher", and the installer is just a 7-zip self-extracting-archive. It shoule "behave within the P.A. platform", but it seems like it'll be odd to update.
And finally, switching to Firefox 59 ESR when it comes out wouldn't be of any use for DTA/CTR/etc., as it'll be based on Firefox 59, and by then "legacy" extension support will be long gone from the Firefox code-base.
~3D1T0R
The biggest hurtle for me is migrating passwords from one manager to another. K-Meleon still uses "signons.sqlite" whereas latter FF and TorBrowser use logins.json but all use key3.db, or at least its there in the profile, speaking of which, going to back up all profiles to a CF or SD card, to protect them from accidental overwrites. Found out Tor is using the ESR channel for updates, so for John its probably packaging as usual. Couldn't get KM to work on youtube, probably a lot of fiddling involved in that, used to do it a lot, so will give PM another look. What I liked about FF and KM is they both used my colours from my custom desktop theme, unlike Chrome and Opera that make their own colour scheme which I detest because it looks so Fisher-Price. Perhaps keep FF portable 'off' , install the desktop version of the ESR {like on my home-built PVRs} , create a new profile for that, then re-install my favourite extensions, copy & paste key3.db and logins.json from the portable's "Saved Passwords" extension, into the desktop's empty one, is that a viable work-around? Man, what a P.I.T.A.! At least until support for ESR is halted. I wonder what they were smoking over at Mozilla, hope they don't screw around with Thunderbird because I have so many accounts it would take months to migrate over to another utility. Yes, KM should have an icon/button for adblock but it is available from the menu, just haven't sussed it out yet. Sorry for Dorian's HDD woes........looks like PM or desktop FFESR, Tor doesn't preserve previous session, nor was it meant to, I just haven't figured out the secret of forcing it to do that. Would prefer Tor portable as my daily driver, unless it bungs up on-line purchasing. Wait, I do have an old copy of FF portable on another USB stick, but as I said before, John doesn't port over the desktop ESRs to .paf.exe or does he? I wonder if I can upgrade that old one from the ESR desktop, I used to be able to do it, just can't remember how. I'll get back later after I take a look at that old stick.
Are you looking for this? Beware, it's a temporary thing, as FFesr with get updated to the FF 59 codebase next year, meaning it will lose XUL based addon support too.
For Password exporting, after a quick search, I'd give the "Password Exporter" addon a try, though I can't say for sure how it'll go, as I haven't used it myself.
~3D1T0R
I looked at the main PVR, a nLited XP box as I did not want to fiddle with compatibility mode and that legacy hw/sw runs better in 2000/XP and that copy of XPPro doesn't need a key or activation.
Was going to use it as a guide but the profile folder isn't in the familiar old spot, while it is in a good spot for TV viewing, bad spot for trying to do any work and figuring out the ESR @ 52.3.x . Will search later when there's more light [black keyboard]. The spare USB was a bust, fried, don't know why I kept it in the desk, rather than throw it out or chuck it at the recycling centre. Will follow your URLs in the morning, got ten months to work on it. TY.
Mozilla really, really screwed the pooch on this one and a big middle finger to all the users that stuck with them through the years.
Myself, since abandoning my Atari TT and going to Win'98.
If something like this is a once in a while use for you, I'd suggest installing Firefox Portable ESR with DownThemAll alongside regular Firefox Portable. Set Firefox Portable ESR to run alongside Firefox Portable via its the FirefoxPortable.ini file of allowing multiple instances. Don't set Firefox Portable itself to allow multiple instances. Then, while using Firefox Portable as your daily driver, when you encounter an instance when you'd like to download everything from a page, fire up Firefox Portable ESR with DownThemAll, download all your stuff, then close Firefox Portable ESR. It will start and stop without impacting Firefox Portable and Firefox Portable itself won't be set to allow multiple instances, so it will still be fully portable and clean up after itself when you close.
Firefox Portable ESR will support old-style extensions through next year. I'd wager by the time it's schedule to move on Mozilla's Web Extensions implementation will have continued to expand to support the functionality needed for DownThemAll-style extensions. Remember, Mozilla's WebExtension API is already more advanced than Chrome's and they're continuing to expand it to allow new-style extensions that support more of the older style extension's abilities without all the security and stability downsides.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
McAfee Web-Advisor, AdBlock Plus, DownThemAll and FireFTP are all marked out-of-date. Fortunately I also have a version 53 (non portable) running. Now that I know this, I will never update this one...
As long as you haven't updated to Firefox 55 or higher, I recommend that you switch it to the Firefox 52 ESR release, so that you'll continue to get important security updates while retaining "legacy" extension support till some time next year. Hopefully by then either Mozilla will have something figured out for more complex extensions, or one of the forks of Firefox that are continuing to support "legacy" extensions (Waterfox, Pale Moon, etc.) will have an easy migration path so you won't be stuck using an insecure browser.
~3D1T0R
My main concerns are Classic Theme Restorer and "Saved Passwords" extensions, the latter, which Mozilla in their wisdom decided not to include in their later editions, I'm still going to make a backup of the current stick, to experiment moving the key3.db and logins.jsons files to see if that works first, if it does, the new copy of the suite will be my daily from then on. Please jog my memory, where in the FirefoxESR Portable's .ini file kept? A simple copy operation is all I need to make a duplicate, eh?
Man I hate getting old, wet-ware seems to be the second thing to go, after this bag of mostly water I'm forced to live in.
Thank You John in advance, if I don't do it later, you too 3D1T0R.
Firefox Portable installs (by default) to X:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable, Firefox Portable ESR installs (by default) to X:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortableESR. If you want to 'migrate' from FirefoxPortable to FirefoxPortableESR, the easiest way is to rename (or copy) your FirefoxPortable folder to FirefoxPortableESR (so that the Platform's will see it as ESR instead of 'standard' FirefoxPortable), and install FirefoxPortableESR over top of it.
The issue with switching to the ESR 52 release of Firefox after getting the update to Firefox 55 is that they've made changes to the way the profile works (in particular, where favicons get saved), so it might break things.
My recommendation for now would be to make a backup of your Data folder, then switch to the ESR release of FirefoxPortable.
If you don't already have FirefoxPortable 55, then that should be it for now, unless you want to experiment with Pale Moon's 'portable' release and/or Waterfox Portable, and you can take your time waiting for Mozilla to stop supporting FF 52 ESR to make the hard decision of what your main browser will be after that happens.
If you DO already have FirefoxPortable 55, then vigorously test your new FirefoxPortableESR install to see if anything is broken, and report back here with your findings.
~3D1T0R
I DO NOT want to overwrite, I want two separate programs, just as FFP "Prime" and TorBrowser are installed, trying to find the damn folder/place where I can write the -no remote or 0 or whatever it takes to allow ESR to run at the same time as the prime[default] firefox, then change the ESR to the default browser. After then, once I re-install the extensions, then attempt to migrate the passwords,
that thing you showed me before is not for the job. Looks like the best way is to install the Saved Password ext into ESR, then copy the two files it uses from the original to the empty.
We''ll resume this tomorrow or the day after, since the spare stick i have is fried, I'll need to go to Staples or Canada Computers and get another removable to experiment on, maybe a CF or SD card.
My recommendation included a brief mention of that: If you don't want to replace it, then just copy instead of renaming, then install over.
~3D1T0R
Went to do John's suggestion on Tor...
TorBrowserPortable.ini in App\AppInfo
[Launch]
ProgramExecutable=TorBrowser\firefox.exe
DirectoryMoveOK=yes
DisableSplashScreen=true
SplashTime=0
SupportsUNC=yes
TorBrowserPortable\Data
[TorBrowserPortableSettings]
LastDrive=P:
LastDirectory=\PortableApps\TorBrowserPortable
[PortableApps.comLauncherLastRunEnvironment]
PAL:LastPortableAppsBaseDir=P:
Here's FF example file;
[FirefoxPortable]
FirefoxDirectory=App\firefox
ProfileDirectory=Data\profile
SettingsDirectory=Data\settings
PluginsDirectory=Data\plugins
FirefoxExecutable=firefox.exe
AdditionalParameters=
LocalHomepage=
DisableSplashScreen=false
AllowMultipleInstances=false
DisableIntelligentStart=false
SkipCompregFix=false
RunLocally=false
# The above options are explained in the included readme.txt
# This INI file is an example only and is not used unless it is placed as described in the included readme.txt
Here is FF actual;
[FirefoxPortableSettings]
LastProfileDirectory=P:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable\Data\profile
SubmitCrashReport=1
InvalidPackageWarningShown=0
From DefaultData folder;
[FirefoxPortableSettings]
LastProfileDirectory=NONE
SubmitCrashReport=0
So what do I do? which one gets the edit or additional line? John?
Sorry, I'm not very familiar with Tor Browser.
Seeing as I don't personally use it, it's not an official PA.c release, and the people who release "Tor Browser" packages have (at least in the past) done some odd things with it, I'm not too sure how to direct you with it. In fact, I'm not even sure which "Tor Browser" you're using, so I don't know where to point you for help, or where to go to get more familiar with it.
Which "Tor Browser" are you using, and where did you download it from?
~3D1T0R
From the project site, using their link to Sourceforge, don't worry, once I find where that parameter is to alter in ESR as John says,
ESR will be the default browser and Tor, the supplemental browser, then I can use what I learned on K-Meleon. Which does their own thing and runs concurrently with FF.
"From the project site, using their link to Sourceforge" does not tell me which project you're referring to.
For all I know (without downloading both to see what the files inside look like) you could be using "Tor Browser", which is supposed to be portable, is (or at least was, I haven't checked lately) heavily based on FirefoxPortable, and is published by the people behind TOR, or are you using "Tor Browser Portable", published by Gareth Flowers, which has no connection with TOR, Mozilla, or PortableApps.com, also appears to be heavily based on FirefoxPortable. These are completely separate projects, both of which have their own "project site", and both of which can be downloaded via SourceForge, and there could be others too (I know others have existed, but they didn't come up on a quick search), so please be more specific.
~3D1T0R
OK, everything is done, except migrating passwords, I know which three files I have to be copied from profile in FF55-regular and overwrite into profile ESR what are basically empty files, ESR is now the default browser. As John said to do to the firefoxportable.ini : [within ESR] NOW...
Where the hell do I stick AllowMultipleInstances=false after I change it to =true
????
Then I'll have these ten months to suss out if I'm going to migrate to another browser, maybe Pale Moon, but I have a certain affection for K-Meleon's (Portable) traditional appearance. OR if comparable utilities (as we called such stuff in my Atari days) will
start showing up {like the third party one for my favourite, Free Download Manager, which I've been told, only works on the v57 nightly, so far} even got that regular FDM 2.2.3 extension migrated to the ESR but its no good without having the passwords migrated as well. First priority though is making ESR able to be open when regular FF is running.
Does this help clear things up a bit?
X:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable | FirefoxPortable.exe | FirefoxPortable.ini (This is the one that will be used.) | +---App +---Data \---Other \---Source FirefoxPortable.ini (This is the template you can copy to get started.)If you're curious, the above was created by running
TREE /F /A X:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable, then trimming out the unnecessary parts to show only what I wanted to demonstrate.~3D1T0R
After fiddling with Tor this afternoon, I have it opened along side FF55 now but placing passwords inside that one is futile without knowing the coding. On Options>Security> the choice for "Remember logins for sites" is greyed out, probably by the Tor group, so that is as far as I can go with that, ditto with the "save current/previous sessions" options. Tor will stay a backup, if Pale Moon follows this structure, should be easier to port over. Still hoping to stay with FF but with some killer new web Ext. A NoScript and Ad Blocker is somewhat mandatory, don't you think? Not looking forward to losing customisation.
Saturday will work on ESR, starting to remember what I did now when building desktop computers and starting up installs before I moved to Sandisk's U3 format and John Haller's PortableApps Suite, with those it wasn't necessary to worry about re-installing software over and over again, just make backups prior to any experimenting, then once a final is reached, make a copy of that to put on the shelf, so gotta run to the tech store again. With the exemption of the password migration, someone in Admin can slap a "Solved" on this one. ! Remember, it can be confusing because there is both an example file, under Source, and the one you need to manipulate under profile, the firefoxportable.ini .
The launcher will not read the one in the Other\Source directory, you need to copy that out to be next to FirefoxPortable.exe (as I showed in my previous post) then edit that one
~3D1T0R
The last sentence was a typo, I was tired, which is why I'll take a break and do the ESR on Saturday.
Are you sure the main one is in the root directory, because all I found were the example ini under Source and the 'working'
copy was inside 'Data' and dammit yesterday Tor and FFPtb regular were happy running side by side, now after waking up [both myself and machine] that has stopped. Back to being frustrated. Tor is only going to be a backup anyhow but I was elated I could get two versions going at the same time, now that elation is gone. Its not that hard, but something is keeping me from being happy.
ANYHOW, the passwords have been done..success in that at least, simply had to remember what I did 15 years ago, some things like text format is different from the regular FF but that comes form weeks of personalisation, now to set up my most used tabs and bookmarks are already loaded but lost those-whatchamacallits....favicons? for all near identical in the listing. Scratch my head about the other thing later, would like to use Tor as companion to FFesr, still can use K-Meleon for the one site there where here I have security set up too high to go from viewing order to going to checkout. One damn thing at a time.
Yes, I'm sure.
AllowMultipleInstanceshas to go in a file named FirefoxPortable.ini "next to FirefoxPortable.exe" to be used.Also, I think, if you're going to run one that allows multiple instances, and one that doesn't, at the same time, you have to start the one that doesn't allow multiple instances first, or it will complain about the other instance, then start the one that does allow multiple instances, as it won't complain about the fact that the other instance is running.
As far as favicons, I don't think I can help you (yet?), but there was some talk recently on a GitHub issue recently where someone was considering writing something to switch the Firefox profile schema back to what was used before FF 55 moved its favicons from places.sqlite into their own file. So that issue might be fixable at some point.
~3D1T0R
....has a copy of the one inside source copied to root with the exe. Its working now. Before there were no copies sitting next to the exe.
Hope it stays put, having a few fumbles getting the rest of history beyond yesterday ported but passwords were more important and they're done.
Will do Tor later, still not loading, need to trim some of the utilities out of it, Password editor is useless in there. So is Flagfox and maybe a couple of others.
EDIT: The changes do not seem permanent, was working fine yesterday, both ESR and FxRegular were running smoothly side by side despite using up almost all memory, that is the three gigs for windows but I have a utility that tells me the hardware is using the 'top' one gig of ram{4GiB-32-bit}, even this morning as I was migrating some data. Closed regularFx for about an hour or so to play some videos, opened ESR first, as instructed by John and you, however launching Fx reg, got hit with that dialogue box, hit ok to let it close. Took a look into the root of FF Regular and that modified ini had disappeared, so I copied from source again, made the allow parameter into true again and everything was all right after, even C & P the line into the FirefoxPortableSettings.ini [in folder-settings] because it also disappeared from before. Don't know why these changes aren't staying permanent, but its only a study model, to see the changes that occur as the regular version gets the full updates to 57. ESR is now the default, everything is transferred except some old history, until I decide to migrate or see what Mozilla does in the future with respect to these web extensions. Meanwhile, I'll be with the other bellyachers, over at Mozillazine, my fault for not looking in on that board in two and a half years. Got busy with other concerns.
I have some legacy hardware that doesn't have 64-bit drivers, haven't gotten around to building 64s, but soon this box will be relegated to just playing .mkv videos, when the new one will be for stuff that runs/demands 64 and its all about the budget, plus waiting to see what hardware will be available for ATSC 3.0 .
On this page: https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/downthemall_extension
this link isn't working: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/201
The mozilla link doesn't work because it has been removed by addons mozilla .com, from what I've read. Seamonkey and thunderbird devs are attempting to keep it, at least available for the moment. The actual downthemall extension has been deemed "legacy" by the last pre Quantum firefox. Meaning, it still works atm. But after Firefox 56 or ESR provided then, it won't work. Quantum has rendered most extensions unusable.
For add ons https://github.com/JustOff/ca-archive/blob/master/README.md#classic-add-...
The changes in Firefox 57 https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/09/28/webextensions-in-firefox-57/
Note these are vague links, but you can get a little bit of info and search further from there.
Maybe someone can provide a little better explanation or information.
I've removed DownThemAll from the app directory. It was a legacy listing from before we had download managers as apps available.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!