14 ms·

Chrome 55-57 showed “download” button for all HTML5 media

118 points by sriku 10y ago

andreyf 10y ago
Proper solution is to use something like this: http://wwwhtml5rockscom.readthedocs.io/en/latest/content/tutorials/streaming/multimedia/en/ http://wwwhtml5rockscom.readthedocs.io/en/latest/content/tut...
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  So has somebody already written the code to save multimedia that does this, or does it still need to be made?
  - andreyf 10y ago
    Only examples I have seen are closed source / available as services (e.g. http://en.savefrom.net/ http://en.savefrom.net/)
ec109685 10y ago
Addressed here: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/03/chrome-58-media-updates#controlslist https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/03/chrome-58-...
Mahn 10y ago
Reminds me of the time when they removed the "arrow" buttons on the scroll bar on Windows, or when they randomly decided to apply a lot more whitespace to bookmark menus. In both cases they had to backpedal, because Chrome is just so essential to so many people that even the tiniest change breaks somebody's workflow. At this point Google should probably just fork Chrome and make another browser where to test all the changes, big and small.
- Franciscouzo 10y ago
  Chromium?
  - floatboth 10y ago
    Chromium is not a fork of Chrome, it's the other way around. Chrome is a build of Chromium with branding and some blobs added.
redm 10y ago
tl;dr The download button removes a small barrier that users currently have to save HTML 5 content. The size of the barrier depends on the media but the justification on the part of the content owners/creators is the same: protect the value of the content or the website it was published on. While the concerns are valid, if history is any teacher, technology will march onward and we'll soon have download buttons on all HTML5 content, one way or another.
- Silhouette 10y ago
  The download button removes a small barrier that users currently have to save HTML 5 content. It didn't just remove a small barrier, it actively invited people to download and save the content. That's a very different thing.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - Endy 10y ago
    Yes, it's the only positive thing about Chrome and HTML5, really.
    - Buge 10y ago
      And the ability to play video without being exploited by Flash vulnerabilities is not a positive thing?
      - shakna 10y ago
        It's not a hell of a lot of change when the DRM blob that gets sent down the wire is just as opaque.
        icebraining 10y ago
        At least in Firefox (don't know about Chrome), it's also much more restricted in what it can do.
Silhouette 10y ago
And finally a solution in Chrome 58: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/03/chrome-58-media-updates https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/03/chrome-58-... Too little, too late for many of us, I expect. We switched to using MSE some time ago, which provided a way to avoid both the download button and other normal file-saving functionality showing up in the first place. Ironically, the biggest problem with this wasn't the ability to download itself, because of course that was always available to those who chose to look for it in any major browser. The real problem in our experience was the customer perception that because an obvious download button had appeared, it was now OK to download and save content from video-based sites. Users, understandably enough, made no distinction between a site-provided facility and a browser-provided one when the change appeared, and just assumed the terms now allowed it. I'm honestly surprised that no-one seems to have tried to sue Google over this one yet. It has upset a lot of people over the past few months, and in some cases it must surely have cost site operators a significant amount of real money.
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  > a way to avoid both the download button and other normal file-saving functionality showing up in the first place Ugh. > the customer perception that because an obvious download button had appeared, it was now OK to download and save content from video-based sites Do you have an argument about how this differs from the Betamax case?
  - Silhouette 10y ago
    Which Betamax case involved making permanent copies of material you had explicitly agreed to access on some temporary basis in return for payment? Because that's the situation that a lot of site operators and web developers have been upset about here. Not all video served from web sites is freely available. Some of it you have to pay for, and it's provided on a certain basis in return.
    - pdkl95 10y ago
      > Which Betamax case Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. Time shifting a video is a protected fair use. > temporary basis ...which can be time shifted without violating copyright. > explicitly agreed As for any contract that may exist, that's separate from copyright. It isn't Google's job to enforce terms to a contract between two other unrelated parties.
mrkgnao 10y ago
> We disable right-click on our work Ugh.
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  Really wish browsers didn't allow overriding mouse events, or it was a permission that you'd have to grant for a site ("this site is attempting to modify the behavior of the mouse, allow?").
  - chungy 10y ago
    Ditto for keyboard control.
  - the8472 10y ago
    In firefox you can shift+rightclick to override site behavior. There also is a preference to disable the events completely.
  - hashhar 10y ago
    Firefox warns on keyboard controls and allows overriding site mouse behaviour by using Shift+right click.
niftich 10y ago
I remember this appearing, and I recall other contemporaneous threads asking how to make it go away, but I can't find the reference in the Chrome 55 release notes that this would show up: not in this friendly blog post [1], not in this release blog post [2], and the source control log [3] is still loading.... [1] https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2016/11/nic55 https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2016/11/nic55 [2] https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2016/12/stable-channel-update-for-desktop.html https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2016/12/stable-channel... [3] https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+log/54.0.2840.98..55.0.2883.75?pretty=fuller&n=10000 https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+log/54.0.284...
jaredandrews 10y ago
Reading this bug report makes me feel uneasy.
sriku 10y ago
The download button would be totally justified ;) if Google added it to all youtube content too.
- hollander 10y ago
  Now DRM is working for Youtube, they can safely add that button.
  - slhck 10y ago
    Do you have a reference for this? By “DRM”, are you referring to EME?
mtanski 10y ago
Is there an extension that brings this button back? I know publishers hate this, but publishers don't exactly have a good track record of treating their user well. Non-copyable text, hijacking right click. Regardless of how they feel it's all workaroundable (inspect) but still a hostile user experience.
- aviraldg 10y ago
  My favourite way to do this is using the requests tab in the devtools panel.
  - kogepathic 10y ago
    Yes, but then you have to catch the request and it's far more effort than just pressing a download button. I find the request window especially hard to use on sites with a lot of assets (e.g. SoundCloud loading a million avatars for a song) as the performance slows to a crawl.
- kccqzy 10y ago
  Chrome 58 onwards uses a controlsList DOM attribute to control this: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/03/chrome-58-media-updates#controlslist https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/03/chrome-58-... I suppose you can simply inspect the element and remove this attribute.
  - tyingq 10y ago
    In that link they even give a full example: var video = document.querySelector('video'); video.controlsList.remove('noremote'); Just change 'noremote' to 'nodownload'
- Melk 10y ago
  >publishers don't exactly have a good track record of treating their user well That's an overly broad and vague statement to excuse entitlement. I'm fine with downloading content that's publicly available, but not because "they had it coming."
problems 10y ago
Did they actually remove this? Probably the only pro-user thing I've heard of chrome doing in its entire lifetime.
- elithrar 10y ago
  You're exaggerating, right? Chrome isn't perfect, but pushing automatic updates, ongoing security improvements and UX (mixed content restrictions, marking plain HTTP "not secure", etc) are just two of the very user-friendly things the Chrome team have delivered over the years.
  - throwaway198411 10y ago
    >Chrome isnt perfect Only gripe i have with chrome is the lack of a emacs keybinds plugin Speaking of, anyone know if one exists?
  - problems 10y ago
    Not really the kind of thing I'm talking about - I mean users-vs-publishers. Chrome and Google tend to favor publishers - being an ad agency and all.
shmerl 10y ago
Sorry to burst the bubble, but this is nonsense. If you don't want something to be downloaded, don't put it on-line.
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  ooo, but using the Fetch API requires users to open devtools and right-click something in the network tab, which is surely beyond the grasp of anyone with 5 minutes and Google /s :<
  - ominous 10y ago
    All true. But one extra step and the most important one: users need to know that is possible. Otherwise they'll never get to point where they know what to google. Most people see websites as they see movies: they type facebook.com and hey, an image. Enter login and password and enter and hey, another image. The fact that things are built on top of other things (websites -> html and assets) is deep magic.
    - the8472 10y ago
      It only takes 1 user to download it, upload it elsewhere for N users to spread it from there. It's like exploits, it takes an expert to write one, but any scriptkiddy can attack thousands of systems once it has been written.
      - Silhouette 10y ago
        Fortunately, if your paid content is also watermarked, you'll know exactly who to sue for copyright infringement in that case.
  - AlfeG 10y ago
    Its impossible in mobile chrome
- dchest 10y ago
  5th comment in the bug report explains why this is an issue even when the website is not trying to prevent downloads: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=675596#c5 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=675596...
imode 10y ago
repeat after me: "I will not share something I do not want others to mirror." if you don't want us to gain a copy of it, don't host it. simple rule. if you don't like it, choose another content platform.
- Silhouette 10y ago
  I suspect that would have killed every advance in making audio and video content easier and cheaper to access for millions of people from the past decade.
HenryBemis 10y ago
No offense folks but InternetDownloadManager FTW!! (or GetRight)(or any of the many FIREFOX addons) (not affiliated, just a happy user for many years)
- SyrupThinker 10y ago
  Or any of the many other ways of downloading media like youtube-dl (or in your terms, of the CHROMIUM extensions), without bashing Firefox into others faces.
- joshschreuder 10y ago
  I'm surprised IDM has been updated for so long... I paid for it many years ago and have been getting free updates for this whole time, all on the same license.

118 points by sriku 10y ago

Proper solution is to use something like this: http://wwwhtml5rockscom.readthedocs.io/en/latest/content/tutorials/streaming/multimedia/en/ http://wwwhtml5rockscom.readthedocs.io/en/latest/content/tut...

Dylan16807 10y ago
So has somebody already written the code to save multimedia that does this, or does it still need to be made?
- andreyf 10y ago
  Only examples I have seen are closed source / available as services (e.g. http://en.savefrom.net/ http://en.savefrom.net/)

ec109685 10y ago

Addressed here: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/03/chrome-58-media-updates#controlslist https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/03/chrome-58-...

Mahn 10y ago

Reminds me of the time when they removed the "arrow" buttons on the scroll bar on Windows, or when they randomly decided to apply a lot more whitespace to bookmark menus. In both cases they had to backpedal, because Chrome is just so essential to so many people that even the tiniest change breaks somebody's workflow. At this point Google should probably just fork Chrome and make another browser where to test all the changes, big and small.

Franciscouzo 10y ago
Chromium?
- floatboth 10y ago
  Chromium is not a fork of Chrome, it's the other way around. Chrome is a build of Chromium with branding and some blobs added.

redm 10y ago

tl;dr The download button removes a small barrier that users currently have to save HTML 5 content. The size of the barrier depends on the media but the justification on the part of the content owners/creators is the same: protect the value of the content or the website it was published on. While the concerns are valid, if history is any teacher, technology will march onward and we'll soon have download buttons on all HTML5 content, one way or another.

Silhouette 10y ago
The download button removes a small barrier that users currently have to save HTML 5 content. It didn't just remove a small barrier, it actively invited people to download and save the content. That's a very different thing.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Endy 10y ago
  Yes, it's the only positive thing about Chrome and HTML5, really.
  - Buge 10y ago
    And the ability to play video without being exploited by Flash vulnerabilities is not a positive thing?
    - shakna 10y ago
      It's not a hell of a lot of change when the DRM blob that gets sent down the wire is just as opaque.
      - icebraining 10y ago
        At least in Firefox (don't know about Chrome), it's also much more restricted in what it can do.

Silhouette 10y ago

And finally a solution in Chrome 58: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/03/chrome-58-media-updates https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/03/chrome-58-... Too little, too late for many of us, I expect. We switched to using MSE some time ago, which provided a way to avoid both the download button and other normal file-saving functionality showing up in the first place. Ironically, the biggest problem with this wasn't the ability to download itself, because of course that was always available to those who chose to look for it in any major browser. The real problem in our experience was the customer perception that because an obvious download button had appeared, it was now OK to download and save content from video-based sites. Users, understandably enough, made no distinction between a site-provided facility and a browser-provided one when the change appeared, and just assumed the terms now allowed it. I'm honestly surprised that no-one seems to have tried to sue Google over this one yet. It has upset a lot of people over the past few months, and in some cases it must surely have cost site operators a significant amount of real money.

Dylan16807 10y ago
> a way to avoid both the download button and other normal file-saving functionality showing up in the first place Ugh. > the customer perception that because an obvious download button had appeared, it was now OK to download and save content from video-based sites Do you have an argument about how this differs from the Betamax case?
- Silhouette 10y ago
  Which Betamax case involved making permanent copies of material you had explicitly agreed to access on some temporary basis in return for payment? Because that's the situation that a lot of site operators and web developers have been upset about here. Not all video served from web sites is freely available. Some of it you have to pay for, and it's provided on a certain basis in return.
  - pdkl95 10y ago
    > Which Betamax case Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. Time shifting a video is a protected fair use. > temporary basis ...which can be time shifted without violating copyright. > explicitly agreed As for any contract that may exist, that's separate from copyright. It isn't Google's job to enforce terms to a contract between two other unrelated parties.

mrkgnao 10y ago

> We disable right-click on our work Ugh.

seanp2k2 10y ago
Really wish browsers didn't allow overriding mouse events, or it was a permission that you'd have to grant for a site ("this site is attempting to modify the behavior of the mouse, allow?").
- chungy 10y ago
  Ditto for keyboard control.
- the8472 10y ago
  In firefox you can shift+rightclick to override site behavior. There also is a preference to disable the events completely.
- hashhar 10y ago
  Firefox warns on keyboard controls and allows overriding site mouse behaviour by using Shift+right click.

niftich 10y ago

I remember this appearing, and I recall other contemporaneous threads asking how to make it go away, but I can't find the reference in the Chrome 55 release notes that this would show up: not in this friendly blog post [1], not in this release blog post [2], and the source control log [3] is still loading.... [1] https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2016/11/nic55 https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2016/11/nic55 [2] https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2016/12/stable-channel-update-for-desktop.html https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2016/12/stable-channel... [3] https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+log/54.0.2840.98..55.0.2883.75?pretty=fuller&n=10000 https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+log/54.0.284...

jaredandrews 10y ago

Reading this bug report makes me feel uneasy.

sriku 10y ago

The download button would be totally justified ;) if Google added it to all youtube content too.

hollander 10y ago
Now DRM is working for Youtube, they can safely add that button.
- slhck 10y ago
  Do you have a reference for this? By “DRM”, are you referring to EME?

mtanski 10y ago

Is there an extension that brings this button back? I know publishers hate this, but publishers don't exactly have a good track record of treating their user well. Non-copyable text, hijacking right click. Regardless of how they feel it's all workaroundable (inspect) but still a hostile user experience.

aviraldg 10y ago
My favourite way to do this is using the requests tab in the devtools panel.
- kogepathic 10y ago
  Yes, but then you have to catch the request and it's far more effort than just pressing a download button. I find the request window especially hard to use on sites with a lot of assets (e.g. SoundCloud loading a million avatars for a song) as the performance slows to a crawl.
kccqzy 10y ago
Chrome 58 onwards uses a controlsList DOM attribute to control this: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/03/chrome-58-media-updates#controlslist https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/03/chrome-58-... I suppose you can simply inspect the element and remove this attribute.
- tyingq 10y ago
  In that link they even give a full example: var video = document.querySelector('video'); video.controlsList.remove('noremote'); Just change 'noremote' to 'nodownload'
Melk 10y ago
>publishers don't exactly have a good track record of treating their user well That's an overly broad and vague statement to excuse entitlement. I'm fine with downloading content that's publicly available, but not because "they had it coming."

problems 10y ago

Did they actually remove this? Probably the only pro-user thing I've heard of chrome doing in its entire lifetime.

elithrar 10y ago
You're exaggerating, right? Chrome isn't perfect, but pushing automatic updates, ongoing security improvements and UX (mixed content restrictions, marking plain HTTP "not secure", etc) are just two of the very user-friendly things the Chrome team have delivered over the years.
- throwaway198411 10y ago
  >Chrome isnt perfect Only gripe i have with chrome is the lack of a emacs keybinds plugin Speaking of, anyone know if one exists?
- problems 10y ago
  Not really the kind of thing I'm talking about - I mean users-vs-publishers. Chrome and Google tend to favor publishers - being an ad agency and all.

shmerl 10y ago

Sorry to burst the bubble, but this is nonsense. If you don't want something to be downloaded, don't put it on-line.

seanp2k2 10y ago
ooo, but using the Fetch API requires users to open devtools and right-click something in the network tab, which is surely beyond the grasp of anyone with 5 minutes and Google /s :<
- ominous 10y ago
  All true. But one extra step and the most important one: users need to know that is possible. Otherwise they'll never get to point where they know what to google. Most people see websites as they see movies: they type facebook.com and hey, an image. Enter login and password and enter and hey, another image. The fact that things are built on top of other things (websites -> html and assets) is deep magic.
  - the8472 10y ago
    It only takes 1 user to download it, upload it elsewhere for N users to spread it from there. It's like exploits, it takes an expert to write one, but any scriptkiddy can attack thousands of systems once it has been written.
    - Silhouette 10y ago
      Fortunately, if your paid content is also watermarked, you'll know exactly who to sue for copyright infringement in that case.
- AlfeG 10y ago
  Its impossible in mobile chrome
dchest 10y ago
5th comment in the bug report explains why this is an issue even when the website is not trying to prevent downloads: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=675596#c5 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=675596...

imode 10y ago

repeat after me: "I will not share something I do not want others to mirror." if you don't want us to gain a copy of it, don't host it. simple rule. if you don't like it, choose another content platform.

Silhouette 10y ago
I suspect that would have killed every advance in making audio and video content easier and cheaper to access for millions of people from the past decade.

HenryBemis 10y ago

No offense folks but InternetDownloadManager FTW!! (or GetRight)(or any of the many FIREFOX addons) (not affiliated, just a happy user for many years)

SyrupThinker 10y ago
Or any of the many other ways of downloading media like youtube-dl (or in your terms, of the CHROMIUM extensions), without bashing Firefox into others faces.
joshschreuder 10y ago
I'm surprised IDM has been updated for so long... I paid for it many years ago and have been getting free updates for this whole time, all on the same license.