3 posts tagged with "browser"

We're excited to release WhaleDown 2025.11.0. This release brings some new user interface (UI) designs.

What's new​

1. Browser launch button​

We've added an

button to the top left corner of multiple views. Click on it to enter the new browser launch view.

After entering the new browser launch view, you can also switch browsers by clicking the browser icon in the upper right corner of the view.

This new button brings more convenience, but it still has a bug now. In the future, we'll add features such as history to this new view.

2. Downloader's details view​

Just like the detector, we introduced details view for the downloader in version 2025.10.2. However, we have not released an update for this version.

You can now experience this new feature in version 2025.11.0.

This view focuses on showing video-related information and operation portals. We'll add more information in the future.

Known issues​

We've discovered a UI bug on macOS. Once the WhaleDown window has been resized, it's hard to click the buttons at the top of the window. Our developers confirmed this is a bug of Flutter.

This is because the hidden title bar in the window is treated as a draggable area. A temporary solution is to click the bottom half of the button, which is below the hidden title bar.

WhaleDown Browser is WhaleDown's built-in browser. It has existed for over a decade and has gone through two complete rewrites.

Unfortunately our development team decided to deprecate it due to some technical reasons. Meanwhile, WhaleDown also provides a better alternative.

Why?​

We found that it has the following limitations compared to browsers such as Google Chrome,

1. Can't sign in to Google Account (The video cannot be played)
2. Can't bypass CloudFlare Challenge (The video cannot be played)
3. Unable to intercept network responses (Makes it impossible to sniff videos from sites like Gofile)
4. Unable to execute Javascript in an iFrame (Makes it impossible to sniff videos hosted on the Vimeo platform)

Additionally, every update to the WhaleDown Browser kernel takes up a lot of our developers' time. Also, WhaleDown Browser takes up half the size of the installation package.

These are the reasons our development team decided to gradually deprecate WhaleDown Browser.

Roadmap​

1. Q4 2024, We'll update website, documentation, and mark WhaleDown Browser as deprecated.
2. Q1 2025, We will add a notification that WhaleDown Browser will be deprecated in the main WhaleDown program and changelog.
3. Q2 2025, We'll remove WhaleDown Browser from the installation package.

What's Next?​

Currently, WhaleDown has great support for third-party browsers. We recommend that all users migrate to the browsers supported by WhaleDown below,

1. Google Chrome
2. Microsoft Edge
3. Brave browser

When WhaleDown Browser is removed, our developers will have more time to improve other WhaleDown modules. You'll enjoy a better experience using the software.

About WhaleDown for Android​

For technical reasons, WhaleDown for Android will keep the built-in browser, and it won't provide a standalone browser app.

We are happy to announce the release of WhaleDown Desktop version 2024.06.0.

First, we've designed a brand new blank page for all browsers. It helps you better recognize the browsers launched by WhaleDown.

Some users have reported that the name WhaleBrowser might be confused with Naver Whale Browser. In fact, these are two completely different softwares.

To reduce this trouble, we've renamed the built-in browser back to WhaleDown Browser.