Down them all is a Firefox add-on and it is a download manager/accelerator. The website claims up to 400% faster downloads. It’s a bit like download accelerator pro in that it uses up maximum bandwidth when downloading large files.

I used Down Them All to download a few 700mb files, including the Ubuntu operating system from an Optus mirror. The results were excellent: using a 1.5mbps connection, I was averaging about 150kb/sec throughout the download.

I have since used it to download 5gig of data today, and it has saved me plenty of time.

What’s more, it integrates itself, so when you right click and save as, DTA will automatically appear as one of the options. Selecting it will open the download manager.

DTA allows for easy management of your downloads, including: pausing, resuming, limiting, and prioritising your downloads.

DTA can be found via: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/201

Guest post by Raja Devanathan of MrFeedback.net

Pop-ups not shown, but Advertisers billed?

It seems like Chrome’s new Pop-Up hider still loads the Pop-Up ads, but doesn’t present them to the viewer.

This is somewhat different to how traditional Pop-Up blockers work, in that they actually prevent the ad from loading. Our understanding of that approach is that this means the Advertiser wouldn’t be charged, as their ad is not loading.

The situation with Chrome may well be different, as the ad is being loaded but not shown, which could lead to advertisers still being charged for Pop-Ups that no one will ever see.

For Pop-Up haters that’s fine, but if true and if Chrome grabs a significant portion of the Browser market,  then this could well lead to changes in advertising methods.
 

Google promotes Firefox, oops!

In a very public spirited gesture, it seems that Google (via YouTube at least) is still advertising Firefox, even after the launch of Chrome.

Whether this is an oversight on Google’s part, or a requirement of their agreement with Mozilla we don’t know. Is Google still the default search engine bundled with Firefox installs, as per their agreement (which was re-negotiated earlier this year)? If so, how much longer will this arrangment last?
 

Thanks to Raja of MrFeedback.net for the heads up about the Firefox ad in Youtube.

We have seen privacy introduced in Internet Explorer 8 (beta 2 version) & Google Chrome, and Firefox has recently announced that private browsing will be incorporated into their browser in version 3.1 – currently you can get private browsing mode by downloading the Stealther 1.06 plugin available through Download.com, and there are similar solutions available from Mozilla’s add on website.

The concept behind Privacy mode is simple – any record of your browsing history is discarded once you close the browser session in IE or Google Chrome. Firefox plan to take this feature a few steps further and will have:

• no autofill for passwords
• all cookies will be discarded after browsing
• all downloads in Download Manager will be discarded after browsing
• Unlike IE, you won’t even be able to tell if you’re surfing in Private Mode. IE has a neon indicator to announce the activation of private mode. Firefox will keep the fact that you’re surfing in private mode, well..private. Nice feature.

Private surfing is useful, despite the obvious concern that it will assist people to do things on the internet which are questionable. As internet shopping becomes the norm, it will enable people to keep gift purchases, for example, and other activities private. It’s good that browsers are installing this feature, despite it inevitably being misused by a percentage of people.

I’d love to hear any comments or feedback on Privacy mode and Browser security in general.

Raja Devanathan
Founder of MrFeedback.net

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You can download Firefox 3 from here.

Release Notes can be found here.

By downloading Firefox 3 within the next 24 hours, you will also be helping the Mozilla team set a new world record for the most downloaded piece of software in one day/24 hour period.

Live at Mozilla HQ:

Following two release candidates on the PC and three on the Mac, the latest iteration of the open source browser has been declared ready for general consumption.

“After more than 34 months of active development, and with the contributions of thousands, we are proud to announce that we are ready,” wrote Mike Beltzner on the Mozilla community blog.

Mozilla is pitching the launch as Download Day 2008 in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the largest number of downloads in 24 hours.

So far over a million users around the world have pledged to download the new browser on 17 June.

Preview releases are published to collect feedback from Web developers and the testing community before advancing to the next stage in the release process. The final version of Firefox 3 will be released when Mozilla qualify the product as fully ready.

More information about the new features and improvements in Firefox 3 can be found here.

You can download Firefox 3 RC2 by clicking here.

There is currently no official Guinness World Record for the total number of downloads of an application in a day. During the first 24 hours of Firefox 3′s release, Mozilla is aiming for over 1.6 million downloads and hoping for five million, according to a Mozilla spokesperson.

The final release date for Firefox 3 has not yet been fixed. However, depending on how well Firefox 3 Release Candidate 2 (RC2) is received, the final version of Firefox 3 should be out in mid-June, according to the spokesperson. Firefox 3 RC2 is expected in the first week of June, the spokesperson added.

Mozilla is encouraging its community of over 175 million users to sign up on the Spread Firefox marketing site to receive Firefox 3 on the day of its release, to host download parties, and to put Firefox badges on websites and blogs.

Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) had “fixes and improvements to platform features, to improve security, Web compatibility and stability”, according to Mozilla.

A new add-in for Firefox removes the advertising found on a page and replaces it with curated art.

Addart will work with the Adblockplus. While Adblockplus replaces each advert with a less annoying blank space, Addart will connect to an online database of artworks and dump them in the space.

The picture database will be updated every two weeks and include the work of contemporary artists.

You can download it in 45 languages from here. See What’s New in Firefox 3 for more details.

Although Mozilla’s Vietnamese language pack for Firefox has been compromised by the malware, labelled HTML.Xorer, since February, the problem was only discovered earlier this week, according to Mozilla.

The malware left those downloading the language pack open to unwanted ads.

Mozilla does not know how many computers have been affected by the corrupted file, however, since November 2007 there have been 16,677 downloads of the language pack, according to Window Snyder a Mozilla security blogger .

Mozilla usually completes a virus scan of software it makes publicly available, however its scanners failed to detect the virus, according to Snyder.

Mozilla recommends disabling the Vietnamese language pack using the add-ons dialog on the Tools menu.