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Show HN: A Chrome extension that prevents duplicate downloads

by yefim323 on 3/31/13, 4:16 PM with 16 comments

  • by alexsb92 on 3/31/13, 4:54 PM

    Can't wait to try this out. Some of the course files on my university's website are in .docx format instead of .pdf and I always forget I've downloaded them before, so by the end of the semester I end up with 7 copies of the same file.

    As an aside, one of the problems I've had with certain Chrome Extensions is that the Chrome Webstore is telling me that "This application is not supported on this computer. Installation has been disabled." I started noticing this when I upgraded to Win 8 from my Win 7, and when I looked it up it was something about NPAPI plugins being disabled for Chrome on Windows 8. However this [1] and [2] make it seem that this is only for Chrome in metro mode, but I've been getting this message in Desktop mode as well. Now I don't know anything about Chrome extensions and file system access, but it would be great if it can be coded using some other kind of plugin. There is a workaround for Chrome/Win8 [3] but it does require a bit of work and it will put people off from installing it if they have to jump through those hoops.

    [1] (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/tincr-for-chrome-dev...)

    [2] (http://blog.chromium.org/2012/07/npapi-plug-ins-in-windows-8...)

    [3] ()http://blog.chromium.org/2012/07/npapi-plug-ins-in-windows-8...

  • by yefim323 on 3/31/13, 4:17 PM

  • by quasque on 3/31/13, 5:14 PM

    It's a good idea, but downloading something from the same URL (or filename fragment from an URL) does not necessarily imply that it's a duplicate. Would be interesting to see something similar to this extension that uses attributes sent at the start of an HTTP response - e.g. entity tag or content length - for duplicate checking.

  • by jes5199 on 3/31/13, 5:38 PM

    I don't want a choice! I want it to do the right thing.

  • by pulak on 3/31/13, 7:46 PM

    What happens if I've deleted the file from my downloads folder? Is that considered to be "downloaded before"?

  • by gailees on 3/31/13, 4:44 PM

    What's the point? I don't mind downloading it right there again at all...

  • by drivebyacct2 on 3/31/13, 6:52 PM

    How about one that just keeps it from closing when there is a download in progress? So frustrating when that happens.