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Filed under: Utilities, Mozilla, P2P, Browsers

MediaFire pees on Skipscreen's boots, seeks to ban Firefox add-on

When I wrote about Skipscreen back in April, I figured it was probably the kind of add-on that someone, somewhere wouldn't like. Possibly the free hosting providers whose roadblocks Skipscreen is designed to circumvent.

Fast forward to today, and that's exactly the case. MediaFire has decided that Mozilla needs to remove the add-on from its directory immediately, citing violations of the MediaFire TOS. Skipscreen hijacks bandwidth, they say. It acts like a robot/spider/retrieval app -- which we forbid, they say. It reformats our web pages without our consent, they say.

The last claim I find particularly weak. Why? By their logic, if you've designed a MediaFire CSS remix and posted it to Userstyles.org, that makes you a nasty little thug.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has already penned a response on Skipscreen's behalf, spelling out in great detail how the add-on functions within MediaFire's rules. Technically, anyway. Whether or not the letter wins Mozilla's favor remains to be seen.

Both the takedown request and EFF response have been posted on Skipscreen's blog - have a look, and share your thoughts in the comments!

On a deliciously ironic note, Skipscreen supporters have decided to strike back by uploading copies of the Firefox addon to MediaFire servers. I see what you did there.

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Mozilla, Browsers

Bypass download delays with Skipscreen for Firefox


You've got to love SkipScreen's motto: "iskp that isht." That's exactly what the handy Firefox plugin is designed to do. Once installed, Skipscreen will bypass those annoying intermediate pages you encounter when trying to download files from a site like Mediafire, RapidShare, zShare, or Megaupload. Other sites currently supported include DespoitFiles, Divshare, and LinkBucks, and more are on the way.

As stated on the SkipScreen site, the plugin has "extra dreamy" features for Mediafire (and three others). Click a link to a file hosted on one of those sites, and SkipScreen will take care of things on its own - all you have to click on is the save file dialog box once it appears.

[via gHacks]

As noted by Fred in the comments, you may want to have a look at the privacy policy before installing this:
The current version of SkipScreen does not collect user information. Future versions may include a post-download page that shows advertising or search results related to the filename, description or originating blog; that information may be available to the advertising site, and subject to their privacy policy. The providers of search results and advertisements will be clearly visible to the user, and/or noted in this privacy policy
.

Whether or not you're willing to trade some future adverts for the convenience of skipping some intermediate screens is your call. Curiously, the developers also push AdBlock on their site.

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