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 2024.09.0. This release fixes several long-standing bugs.

First, we fixed an annoying UI bug. When users want to operate one item in the detector, WhaleDown sometimes operate the other item.

Our developers also fixed an incorrect duration and length display bug when downloading a live stream. This bugfix was also ported to WhaleDown for Android.

Additionally, we've fixed an HTTP redirection bug and a bug that incorrectly uses the key cache (m3u8).

Known Issues​

We've also discovered two bugs that have been partially solved.

1. Currently, browsers such as Google Chrome launched through WhaleDown cannot exit along with the main program. Once the main program exits, the browser becomes an orphan and doesn't send any detected videos to the newly opened WhaleDown.

2. Additionally, users have reported that WhaleDown on MacBook Pro has a high CPU load. This bug only occurs on laptops.

We confirm that these bugs were introduced by the upstream SDK. After waiting for the new version of the upstream SDK to be released in October, WhaleDown will merge updates and release new bugfix versions as soon as possible.

Acknowledgements​

We would like to especially thank an anonymous user who has provided lots of bug feedback and test links over the past few months. With his help, our developers fixed more than a dozen bugs and released version 2024.09.0.

We are happy to announce the release of WhaleDown Desktop version 2024.08.1. This is an important bug fix release.

First, we fixed a bug related to downloading live video streams. You can now save a longer live stream without being interrupted unexpectedly.

Second, we discovered a major change in the Vimeo platform, which changed the technology for video transmission. Some users extract playlist.json from network packets but are unable to download it.

Our development team solved this problem by smartly controlling the browser. You can download all videos hosted on Vimeo via Google Chrome.

We're very excited to announce the release of WhaleDown for Android - 2024.08.0. This is a brand new release that brings great desktop-level functionality and user experience.

Introduction​

This is a brand new version that includes almost all the features of the desktop version. Due to Android platform limitations, WhaleDown can't support browsers such as Google Chrome on Android.

WhaleDown for Android shares core technology with the desktop version. Our developers ported the most important download module to the Android platform. This is an important step for WhaleDown to support multiple platforms.

Thanks to Google's Flutter technology, it only took us half a year to complete WhaleDown for Android development. Now our team can develop new features and fix bugs faster.

If you're using an Android tablet or foldable phone, you'll notice that WhaleDown presents a different user interface layout. Users familiar with our product will find that the tablet version has almost the same user interface layout as the desktop version before 2023.

About the Future​

We take WhaleDown for Android very seriously. In the future, new features or bug fixes will be introduced to WhaleDown for Android as a priority.

Additionally, we plan to port WhaleDown for Android to desktop platforms (Windows and macOS) in 2025 to replace the current desktop version. At that time, we will be using uniform technology across all platforms.

In 2026, we plan to bring a new account and membership system. This will simplify the payment process and license management.

FAQs​

Currently, users of the trial version can download videos entirety. Only paid users can export videos. We may change this strategy in the future.

The WhaleDown license can be used on all platforms. This means that if you've already purchased a desktop license, you don't need to buy another Android license.

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.

We are happy to announce the release of WhaleDown Desktop version 2024.04.0.

In this version, we've added features to the Detector that users have been waiting for a long time.

• Display duration and live info for m3u8 streams.
• Display length info of chunked HTTP files.

This information helps users better filter ads and find exactly the videos they want to download.

Additionally, we've redesigned the browser launcher view. One more thing, we've also added support for Brave Browser.

We are happy to announce the release of WhaleDown Desktop version 2024.03.0.

WhaleBrowser​

In this release we've introduced a new program - WhaleBrowser. And for the first time, we used AI to design its logo. This is an important step for us to strip away the built-in browser. It will make the main program more stable.

Currently, WhaleBrowser is packaged and released with WhaleDown. Our future goal is to release WhaleBrowser separately. It can be independently downloaded and installed.

Additionally, we have fixed several bugs introduced since version 2024.2.0,

• [detector] Fix the bug where you can't click to download
• [detector] Fix a bug where videos cannot be detected based on web content (Windows)
• [downloader] Fix a critical m3u8 video download bug

Known Issues​

We've received some feedback that the new browser can't find previous bookmarks. We'll fix this in the next release.

We are happy to announce the release of WhaleDown Desktop version 2024.02.0.

First, we introduced a download function for m3u8 subtitle files. Just turn on Auto Save Subtitles in the downloader's settings options to enable this feature. When a subtitle file exists in m3u8, WhaleDown will try to download it.

Additionally, we have introduced an experimental switch Realtime Merging (m3u8). If you're having trouble that the audio and video don't match during the download process, turn of it and try downloading again.

Options such as Auto Open and Auto Close were removed from the Detector settings view. It was replaced by a new Popup Window.

We've also introduced a range of improvements for the Windows platform. This release mainly addresses the problem of missing progress in DASH stream downloads. You may also have noticed improvements to the title bar in dark mode, as well as fixes to issues such as where the Google Chrome window appears.

This is a very important release. There are also a number of bug fixes not mentioned here. We recommend you try the latest version now.

Recently, we received feedback from some macOS Intel users that they were unable to install the latest updates.

Our developers are sorry for the inconvenience. The solution to the problem is simple, just download the latest version manually,

• https://www.whaledown.com/download/

Problem analysis​

macOS Intel was the first platform supported by WhaleDown. We've been signing with the earliest Apple Developer Certificate for years. It expired until the end of 2023.

Our developers copied the Apple Developer Certificate from the Apple Silicon platform and signed the macOS Intel version. Everything looks great except for the automatic updates.

The update was rejected because the automatic update module discovered that the application package used a different signature, believing that it was from another developer.

Conclusion​

Once again, we apologize for the inconvenience. In the future, we will handle the software release process more carefully to bring you a smooth software usage experience.

We're excited to release the new version 2023.12. This is likely to be the last release in 2023.

In this release, we've introduced support for the MediaDelivery CDN. Therefore, all video sharing websites using the MediaDelivery CDN are supported by WhaleDown.

Additionally, we've improved the optimal resolution selection algorithm, which provides a better experience for downloading videos from sites like YouTube.

At the same time, we've further improved support for Google Chrome and fixed a bug in DASH video stream detection. After a year of development, WhaleDown's support for Google Chrome is very mature. We highly recommend you give this feature a try.

For more details on this update, please refer to Changelog.