Closed Bug 1896400 Opened 2 years ago Closed 2 years ago

Add a flag to avoid spamming download folder with multiple downloads

Categories

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
File Handling
Version:
Firefox 128
Type:
defect

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 485776

People

(Reporter: Laurent.Lyaudet, Unassigned)

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:125.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/125.0

Steps to reproduce:

Hello :),
Thanks for your hard work :)
I noticed that when I download many times the same file, it gets created as a distinct file each time.
I think I already did a similar bug report.
Please add a boolean option in about:config :
browser.download.deduplicate_files
And also maybe a path option :
browser.download.deduplicate_files_executable
(it should be diff command line by default on Unix/Linux machines)

Actual results:

I had a spammed Downloads folder with same files repeated a number of times.
Pros :

  • Some people think that noise is enough.
  • Important files should (maybe) have more copies than useless ones (tous les œufs dans le même panier ?).
    Cons :
  • touch is enough to modify timestamps...
  • sed/patch can be applied to many files...
  • Important files should (maybe) have more altered copies than useless ones...
  • It occupies space on the hard drive, clutter explorator windows and shell ls commands, redundancy and error correction is best dealed with true algorithms for that...

Expected results:

I should have an option to have Firefox deduplicate each time.
Pros :

  • less time wasted (even less if it is the default).
  • less gaslighting possibilities (true story).
    Cons :
  • maybe some people are reassured by having a download history where they can use the order by creation time of files to remember what they did (I added this in Pros?...), statistically they are right...

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Firefox::File Handling' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Component: Untriaged → File Handling
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 2 years ago
Duplicate of bug: 485776
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE

Hello :),
I think you should read carefully.
Thanks for pointing to this bug 485776, it is related but not exactly the same and the devil lies in the details.
Imagine, you want to check if something changed on a website, or just passively you browse the internet and click on some files from time to time.
With my feature, you will see distinct versions of the same file with distinct timestamps in your download history.
Mind which bug report denotes Software engineer skills...
Best regards,
Laurent Lyaudet

PS: I do think I already did this bug report before, but probably not before 2009 as 485776, so if 485776 is not fake it may be older.

I've re-read comment 0 twice and I do not see how it is fundamentally different from bug 485776. You both want a choice when downloading the same file from the same location more than once. Bug 485776 was originally specific to two downloads happening simultaneously but there is no real reason to limit it to that.

It's a pretty messy problem in that we cannot be 100% sure two files are the same until after the download (with diff or a hash algorithm as you allude to), but it's probably more useful to users if we ask sooner, based on a heuristic like whether the download filename and the network location from which it is downloaded are the same.

(In reply to Laurent Lyaudet from comment #3)

Mind which bug report denotes Software engineer skills...

The general rule for duplicates is that older bugs take precedence, not some inference about the job qualifications of the person filing it.

Please feel free to elaborate on your ideas in the duplicate bug.

Ok, I think you see exactly what I mean :

Please add a boolean option in about:config :
browser.download.deduplicate_files
And also maybe a path option :
browser.download.deduplicate_files_executable
(it should be diff command line by default on Unix/Linux machines)
The rest of my comment 0 is also interesting but almost nobody lurks on the bug reports to learn some things.
I'll update Bug 485776 as suggested.

(In reply to Laurent Lyaudet from comment #5)

Ok, I think you see exactly what I mean :

Please add a boolean option in about:config :
browser.download.deduplicate_files
And also maybe a path option :
browser.download.deduplicate_files_executable
(it should be diff command line by default on Unix/Linux machines)

Shit happened, this should have been unquoted in my previous comment:
The rest of my comment 0 is also interesting but almost nobody lurks on the bug reports to learn some things.
I'll update Bug 485776 as suggested.

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