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Is the Video Download Helper companion app safe on Firefox?

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.

tnarg42 ,

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.

konalt ,
@konalt@lemmy.world avatar

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

slazer2au ,

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

Cobrachicken ,

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

24_at_the_withers ,

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.

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