June, 2009

The latest SkipScreen release (with megaupload anti-captcha support) is still in the sandbox because the addons.mozilla.org people are concerned that our adding megaporn support might violate the Terms of Service.

We added support for megaporn because users asked for it, and because it was trivial. It seems like a bit of a stretch to consider facilitating downloads from a site offensive in itself. Particularly when there’s a huge amount of content on Megaporn that isn’t porn. For example, Firefox (and no, that’s not a link to footage of your favorite browser mascot in compromising positions).

This is a little annoying, especially since the main feature in this release (the javascript OCR megaupload code) is such a huge deal. But the AMO folks have been great to us so far, so we’re just waiting to see how this plays out. We’ve offered to submit a version without megaporn support while their decision is pending.

Mozilla just rolled out an awesome interface for sharing and promoting your favorite Firefox Addons: Addon Collections.

So I just made two collections of favorite music and download extensions for Firefox: Music Lovers and Power Downloaders. Check it out, and if you like it, subscribe! Feel free to let me know if there are any extensions we should add to those lists.

I think the launch of the newly redesigned addons.mozilla.org is the reason behind the delay in getting our latest release out of the sandbox. Sorry for the delay!

The release should be leaving the sandbox soon, and it’s awesome! Megaupload downloads are now so, so slick.

Update: we’re still stuck in the sandbox, what gives? maybe our addon overloards are busy with the new redesign

Here’s the new flow on Megaupload:

1. You follow a megaupload link
2. Skipscreen automatically enters the 4 letter code (85% accuracy, with auto-retry when it fails so you barely even notice)
3. Skipscreen skips the wait countdown
4. Download starts

All of this happens in much less time than it takes to yawn. And it’s all possible thanks to code from Shaun Friedle’s jaw-droppingly awesome Greasemonkey script. Thanks Shaun!

Fun fact: the captcha-beating code uses a neural network. (I’ve been mentally drafting an email to my friends entitled “Our software has a neural network!”) In practical terms, the added neural network code meant that the filesize of the plugin grew considerably.   

We also fixed a pretty annoying bug that affected some files on Mediafire. And we added support for Megaporn (it’s the same as Megaupload–just pinker–so we figured we might as well).

Last but not least Skipscreen downloads just passed the half-million mark last week. Thanks to everyone who’s blogged us, tweeted us, or been like “OMG you have to get this” when you’re on a friend’s computer. Keep at it!

Can you add support for [hosting.com]?

Yes! (Though maybe not right away). When you contact us or post a request to getsatisfaction we add these sites to our list and prioritize (mostly) based on the number of requests from users. So if you have a site you want support for, make your voice heard.

Right now, our priorities for new sites are: hotfile, easy-share, 4shared, and uploading.com, roughly in that order.

Hey, Rapidshare still makes me wait, what gives?

Unfortunately, we can’t skip the wait on Rapidshare with Javascript Jedi Mind Tricks because their servers don’t make the file available until after the countdown. However… once you click on a rapidshare download link, SkipScreen will do all the work until the file starts downloading.

You can “click-and-forget”… for me that’s the important thing. And… you can click multiple links at once, and SkipScreen will auto-reload periodically until Rapidshare lets each one start downloading.

Help!? I think I found a bug!

See this post: How to report a SkipScreen bug. The most important thing is to contact us and include as much information as possible so we can track down the problem.

SkipScreen’s behavior on [hosting.com] is annoying me! Can I shut it off, just for that site?

Yes! Just follow these steps:

1. Make sure you’re running the latest version (some older versions don’t have preferences).
2. Click on “Tools” in the Firefox top menu bar — click on “SkipScreen” — Click on “Options”
3. Uncheck the box next to the site (or feature) you want to turn off.
4. That’s it! Close all the windows and keep on skipping!

Are the links I download made public anywhere?

Definitely not! We realize that people often use these services to share private files (e.g. an unfinished song, or an internal document) and we would never make them public without your explicit permission. For more info on how we respect your privacy, see our privacy policy.

I love SkipScreen! How can I help?

There are four ways you can help:

1. Tell your friends. Like, all your friends. Most people who try Skipscreen love it instantly… we’ve just got to spread the word.

Become a beta tester. We always need help testing the new releases… this mostly entails, um, downloading lots of stuff

Does it work as a manager as well? Like, can we put a series of links to be downloaded in row?

Since some sites have download limits and prohibit simultaneous delays, SkipScreen will automatically reload those pages–so multiple tabs will download one after another.

Rapidshare forces me to wait 15 minutes after my first download when I’m using SkipScreen. What gives?

That’s not SkipScreen, that’s Rapidshare. As far as we know, Rapidshare does not behave any differently for SkipScreen users, but they do impose a 15 minute wait after you reach their limit (a hundred megs or so).

Hey, where’s the XPI?

If our site offers you the exe installer, you can always get to the XPI installer by clicking the “other platforms” link below the download button on our home page.

How do I remove this toolbar thing?

We offer an optional toolbar to some users. If you install it by mistake, you can remove it by going to Tools > Addons > Extensions > Search Toolar > Uninstall and you can change back to the default search by following these instructions.

In IE you can go here: Tools > Toolbars > Bingtoolbar and disable it. If you want to completely remove the toolbar, go to Add/Remove programs and look for ‘Bing Toolbar’ or ‘Search Toolbar’ and click remove. You can also download the uninstaller.

So awesome. Hope to get this release out ASAP. Auto-reload on “limit exceeded” isn’t done yet (for “queuing” simultaneous downloads) but that should be in there too.