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submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by HottieAutie@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

There is an extension/add-on for Firefox called Video Download Helper that lets users download embedded videos from all sorts of websites. While it works as a simple Firefox add-on sometimes, for a remarkable portion of sites (e.g. on Vimeo) it says that it cannot do so as installed and states that the user has to install the companion app to their computer. Does anyone know if this is safe or is installing it placing myself in any risk? If you suggest against installing the companion app, do you have any other recommendations on how to download videos embedded videos from websites?

Edit: I'm on a Debian-derivative distro.

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[-] slazer2au@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

I have been using it on Windows for several years and haven't spotted anything malicious with it.

[-] konalt@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

I've used it for years on Windows and had no problems.

[-] Cobrachicken@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

With that many users, don't you think that app has never ever been uploaded to a site like virustotal?

[-] HottieAutie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

No, I don't think that, mostly because I don't know what that is.

[-] tnarg42@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I've used it off and on in KUbuntu for a couple of years without issue, installing the helper app from the .deb file directed to me by the plugin. I have scanned it for viruses and watched for strange behavior, and I haven't observed anything suspicious. It runs as the current user, no elevated privileges required.

[-] 24_at_the_withers@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

Can't speak for the security or that extension - I tried it once several years ago and immediately ran into the same problems. Since then, I've used JDownloader2, which is a standalone app, on both windows and Linux Mint. Works great for me.

[-] ProxyZeus@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

I mean it has worked fine for me on Linux for years

[-] Thavron@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 months ago

I always use stacher.io

license key

Ew

Custom License

I'll interpret that as: proprietary software

Website hosted behind clownflare

Without investigating any further, I can say that I certainly wouldn't trust it.

I've been using youtube-dl and later yt-dlp for years now without issues.

this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
25 points (100.0% liked)

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