Thanks to all the upgrades in 2023, 2024 looks brighter!
C++20 offers more simplification and abstraction, Qt6 offers better widgets, OpenSSL 3.0 offers better security, and LibTorrent offers better functions. ArrowDL will be improved a lot, for sure :)
Happy New Year 2024! :)
After a year of development work, we have finally released ArrowDL with OpenSSL v3!
OpenSSL v3 is available in ArrowDL v3.1.0 (from December 31, 2023). The application has previously used OpenSSL v1.1 until this recent release.
OpenSSL v3 is mandatory for Qt6.6.0, that’s the main reason of this move.
By design, ArrowDL ships the OpenSSL version provided by Qt (OpenSSL v3.0.2 at the time of writing these lines).
OpenSSL 3.0 has been released in September 2021.
OpenSSL 1.1.1 was released in September 2018, and so it was considered End Of Life in September 2023.
https://www.openssl.org/blog/blog/2023/03/28/1.1.1-EOL/
OpenSSL is a software library for applications that provide secure communications over computer networks against eavesdropping, and identify the party at the other end. It is widely used by Internet servers, including the majority of HTTPS websites. – wikipedia
If the app is installed on top of an an older version (for example, through the automatic upgrader), the old OpenSSL 1.1 libraries won’t be removed, because the OpenSSL 3.0 libraries have another names.
For Windows:
libssl-3-x64.dlllibcrypto-3-x64.dllTo have a clean installation, uninstall the 3.0.6 with the uninstaller, and install the 3.1.0.
This way, the OpenSSL 1.1 libraries should be definitly removed.
This major OpenSSl API change has permitted to refactor ArrowDL deeply. The next updates should be easier and ultimately more frequent.
Enjoy! :)
As part of the continued development of the project, we are excited to announce the project will change its name to ArrowDL.
ArrowDL stands for Arrow Downloader.
We have changed the name to reflect our ambition for expansion. This is an exciting time for our team and our users. The name change represents an opportunity to do more for our users, offering a simple and user-friendly download tool, and of course gain a better visibility. The new name takes effect on January 1 of the coming new year.
This is a step forward for our project. We understand you might have questions, but you can expect our top-quality service to continue. The name change does mean that our capabilities have expanded, including a comprehensive re-branding of the user experience, with a brand new GUI, a more modern look-n-feel.
A deep refactoring of the ArrowDL website is coming soon.
The project will be hosted on:
We will be following up with you to answer any questions you might have. If you’d like to reach out before then, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us on the issues page of the discussion forum.
See you soon :)
During 2022, a lot of refactoring has been done.
The final phase of this refactoring was the move of the deployment process to the Github Actions. This was done yesterday!
Thus, the ArrowDL of 2023 will be better than 2022. It deserves a “version 3.x” to introduces this new era.
ArrowDL now uses Qt6 instead of Qt5. This change required many refactoring, to use the new Qt API and remove obsolete parts.
It permits to use the last C++ standard: C++20, instead of C++11.
Many other advantages of this major upgrade: simpler and more robust API, some changes with network and sockets like QWebEngine, etc. We might dream that the Gumbo Parser and other workarounds could be eventually replaced soon by native Qt6 functions.
In 2022, LibTorrent-Rasterbar has been also upgraded from v1.2.5 to v2.0.7.
This change was only possible because the Qt6’s compiler enables C++20.
Note: Some deprecated functions still remain temporarily, but should be removed in future releases.
Appveyor-CI (historical build runner for Windows targets) and Travis-CI (historical build runner for Linux targets) have been replaced both by Github Actions.
This new build runner will allow a lot of simplification and maintenance reduction.
Historically, we had to maintain both CMakelists.txt and .pro/.pri, to make build possible from the QtCreator’s GUI and from the CMake command line.
Today, QtCreator is able to compile from CMakeList.txt directly, so the .pro/.pri are no longer necessary and have been removed.
Thanks to these upgrades in 2022, 2023 looks brighter!
C++20 offers more simplification and abstraction, Qt6 offers better widgets, and LibTorrent-Rasterbar offers better functions. ArrowDL will be improved a lot, for sure :)
Happy New Year 2023! :)
ArrowDL now uses the library yt-dlp, which is a fork of youtube-dl.
Youtube-DL is a free and open-source command-line program to download and convert videos from YouTube.com and other video sites, but is inactive now.