Sownloader

Category: Allgemein

  • Update on donations and future roadmap

    Hello everyone,

    First of all, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.

    In this blog post I want to give you an update about all donations we have received from you. In my opinion, it is your right to know how much money we have collected and what we have used it for.

    In total we received 150,74$ from 12 different people. Thanks to all of you who donated throughout the last 2 months. This means a lot for me. Without you I would not be able to continue this project. I know that there are alternatives for Sownloader. However, in my opinion, these are not up to Sownloader’s standards. Many of them have so much advertising that the download button is completely hidden. Others are too difficult to use. Last but not least, MP3 downloads are not yet available at any other service.

    I have deposited enough money to pay the server for the next 3 years. Furthermore I have extended services which are required for this project as well, such as the domain name.

    What’s next in 2020?

    Now I want to talk a little bit about what is coming in 2020. As many of you know, we launched MP3 downloads in Sownloader Web back in August 2019. Since the lauch we registered over 50,000 MP3 downloads on our website.

    I know that the MP3 downloads are not perfect yet. For example, there is no indication of the current progress of the conversion yet. So this is the first construction site for 2020. Next I would like to further simplify the layout of the start page. Also a revision of the blog is still pending. I would like to get away from WordPress and implement a small solution myself to keep you up to date. This would reduce the administrative effort again, because the blog has to be maintained regularly.

    Unfortunately I don’t have as much time this year as before due to final exams. Therefore I think that I will not be able to cope with these things myself this year.

    What about Sownloader for Windows?

    As some of you might know, there is native application for Windows 7 or later. The last update for this one was publish back in March 2019. Perhaps you are wondering what has happend to this version. The answer is simple. I don’t know what else I could add to improve the version. It works as it should. If you have any feedback about missing features or bugs then do not hesitate to contact me via email (support@sownloader.com).

    I will say a good night to you and wish you all the best for 2020.

    🥂

    Best,

    Marvin Klein

  • Current status

    Hello everyone,

    as some of you might have noticed, our website is currently unavailable. In this blog post, I want to give you an update about the current situation and explain why we are offline.

    On friday, various website owners have contacted our provider to inform them about an ongoing brute-force attack. Hackers use brute-force as a method to login into other accounts by trying out every possible password combination. As a result, our provider has temporarily disabled requests to external websites for accounts with many external requests. Unfortunately, we’re also affected by this. This block remains in place until the situation has been examined by our provider.

    Without external requests, Sownloader is unable to detect the download URL for your Smule performances. As a workaround, you can still use our standalone software for Windows. You can download it for free here.

    I would like to take this opportunity to point out that Sownloader did not participate in any such attacks, let alone carried out an attack. We are only affected as a precautionary measure, as we perform thousands of external requests every day.

    It might take a few days until our web service will be available again. I expect a solution for this issue on monday or tuesday. Thank you very much for your patience and support.

    -Marvin

  • Introducing converting to Sownloader Web (BETA)

    I am pleased to announce that Sownloader Web is now able to download your songs as MP3 file as well. This feature was requested by many people and I finally found a solution to add it.

    Please keep in mind, downloading a song as MP3 takes much longer than usual. Depending on the filesize it can take up to a few minutes until the converting process has finished. Perhaps downloading as MP3 might not work for every performance. If you are facing any difficulties then feel free to send me an email with the performance link to support@sownloader.com

    Marvin Klein

  • Small website update

    Hey everyone,

    Today we have made several minor improvements to the website.

    What has been changed?

    • Data is now displayed in the correct country format.
    • The last 5 downloads are now displayed instead of the last 3 downloads.
    • The missing favicon icon was added
    • Missing graphics in the area MarvinKleinMusic Favourites have been added.
    • A possible XSS vulnerability has been closed.
    • The donation box was redesigned

    Best,

    Marvin Klein

  • Announcement about Sownloader development

    Hey everyone,

    since the introduction of Sownloader back in 2014, people have continuesly asked about Sownloader for macOS and iOS. Over the time, I have added the Sownloader Web service to reach out people on macOS, iOS, and Android.

    With Sownloader Web you were able to download all your songs from Smule with every device that has access to the internet. Although Sownloader Web has been a complete success since it’s launch, it’s functionality was limited, e.g. you are not able to convert your files with Sownloader Web yet.

    Today, I am pleased to announce that the original Sownloader experience is coming to macOS and iOS soon. Because of all of your amazing support within the past four years, I was able to get a cheap Mac to develop for iOS and macOS. Moreover, the Sownloader Web service will get an update this weekend with the new URL-Detection engine from Sownloader 8.

    The development for iOS starts at the end of this week. The macOS version will follow once the iOS version has been published. Both versions of Sownloader will be written in Swift.

    Stay tuned for more information!

    Best,

    Marvin Klein

  • Important information about Sownloader

    Hey everyone,

    today I want to share some important information about the Sownloader service with all of you. According to a bug on the official Smule website, Sownloader is no longer able to find any performance URLs. Right now their page is not compatible with any version of the Internet Explorer. All versions of Sownloader – except for the very first one – use the Internet Explorer as browser engine because it was built in Visual Studio (the development environment).

    The main problem on Smule’s website is some incompatible JavaScript, which works fine in other browsers, but Internet Explorer cannot handle it.

    I spent the last week on working for a patch to fix this issue. In the future Sownloader will no longer use the default Internet Explorer. Instead Sownloader will work with a built in Firefox engine (GeckoFX). This big update will be available within the next week. There are only three major things that are not finished yet.

    Furthermore the update takes the Sownloader desktop environment to a whole new level. It will feature a brand new design, tons of bugfixes, and many more improvements. Most important is the switch of the coding language from VB.NET to C#. You will not believe how fast this version is!

    Meanwhile you can download all your media with the Sownloader Web service. If you need your performances as mp3, you can convert them afterwards with the built in converter in Sownloader. You can find the converter in Sownloader right here: Menu->Extras->Converter.

    Bye,

    Marvin

  • Sownloader design sneak peak

    In this post I’d like to give you a small sneak peak of the upcoming Sownloader 8 release.

    The original Sownloader was released on 13th October 14 and it has changed many times in functionality in the past but not really in design – except for some small graphic and icon updates. Since the first release I have been using just the default components of Microsoft’s Visual Studio to create the entire software. Luckily I started my apprenticeship just one month ago. Since then I have learnt many new things about the usage and customization of these controls in Visual Studio. I decided to deepen what I’ve learnt so far, so I started working on a code revision of Sownloader and a personal customized theme for it.

    All versions of Sownloader, except the Web version, are coded in VB.NET. I am working on a revision of the code in Visual C# because it grants the user more speed in performance , and because the syntax of C# is much easier to understand. Take a look at the first screenshot of this development with the new dark theme for Sownloader.

     

    Moreover I’m working on a new update for the official Sownloader website and this blog. More information about this is coming soon! I can’t wait to show you more!

    -Marvin Klein