I appreciate that insight. As you can see, I’m aware of the problem. Thank you for letting me know Plex is aware of the problem. I’m staying here demanding they address the problem.
Responses from the Plex employee who told me to just warn people are asinine. I shouldn’t have to police a problem Plex knows about and does nothing to fix. That’s blatantly irresponsible of Plex. Granted, it wouldn’t be the only thing I could label that with, but when exploits are discovered they must be patched. Not hidden.
Google does not want you to download YouTube videos because they lose ad revenue if you do. Yet there are multiple browser extensions that allow you to download the original uploaded file.
My business wanted to put some videos on our website and was concerned about this issue. A programmer told us it’s impossible to prevent unless you make the content unavailable via browser and require access through an proprietary application. Because at the end of the day, “streaming video” is really just a video file you’re playing as you’re downloading it.
To your point, Plex might be able to write code that prevents more than one file being at a time being accessed per authenticated login, but that might mess with the managed user system, since those people accessing from Fire Sticks are all technically logged in as the original PMS Plex Pass holder.
I think there’s probably a way to get the activity logged better, though, to allow you to track it down much easier.
Keep in mind that users have to install that plugin for this to work, so they are knowingly doing this. If they are arguing ignorance, that wouldn’t fly with me.
As others have mentioned above, the way Plex streams your videos is very similar to just downloading the file directly, so it would be hard to block this without potentially crippling other things.
This is something Plex can do and something we are working on. Seeing the activity in the drop down was the first step.
I really appreciate that perspective. What it tells me then is the ability to disable downloading is a false safeguard. Not only that, the actual functionality afforded to us is just to disable conversions, which it does do when you disable downloading. This means the wording is wrong since you cannot disable downloading, but you can prevent conversions. The problem I want corrected cannot be corrected without massive changes due to its inherent nature.
The three things I would ask, in the Restrictions area please rename Allow Downloads to Allow Conversions so there’s no deception. Second in the drop down menu when someone is downloading, please identify which user it is. And finally, YouTube constantly patches exploits to prevent downloading. The app or extension creator then has to provide an update. I suppose it’s a meaningless waste of time to create a merry-go-round effect, but if it prevents people from downloading once, they may remove the extension thinking it doesn’t work.
If an extension exists, it doesn’t mean someone is acting nefariously by using it. When I made the friend aware of what was happening, he was mortified. But had been using it for a while. Obviously the drop down menu displaying the downloading files brought my attention to it. Prior to it being visible, it may explain various freezes and crashes because I wasn’t aware it was happening.
Right now, conversions are being stopped. So it’s just a clarification. Downloading and conversions are technically two different things. Downloading is less taxing on my computer than conversions.
Good to know more info will be provided.
And good to know we’re talking apples and oranges considering YouTube was referenced as an example. I can discard that then.,
I believe that it was previously labeled “Allow Sync & Download” which was more clear - I’m 100% in agreement with you here. It disables the Sync & Download system in Plex apps, which is still a useful control. All of the server-side queue management, background processing & disk usage on the server, etc.
But that checkbox doesn’t enable or disable the server’s streaming or real-time transcoding functions at all. If transcoding is enabled on the server it’s still possible to request and immediately download (or stream) an original or transcoded version. Plex’s controls for concurrent transcoding are better however, if transcoding load is the issue.
But it doesn’t mean it’s a nefarious act. I have several plugins that I use to grab things and my opinion is that if the option exists and no one is stopping me from using it, then I don’t believe I have a problem. If the extension keeps failing then it makes me aware the extension is doing something nefarious. Then I stop using it. Since we’re not dealing with an illegal site here, one can’t assume a nefarious act.
I asked a couple of friends about streaming vs. downloading. “If you have access to a Plex server to watch things, do you believe it’s also possible to download and keep them? If it was possible, would it be OK, or be wrong somehow?”
I got really interesting answers.
Many people, even technical ones, thought it wouldn’t be possible at all - there’s definitely an assumption that “streaming” and “downloading” function differently.
“Would it be OK to do so?” was strongly divided between technical and non-technical friends.
Less-technical folks thought it would be wrong somehow - icky, although they couldn’t explain it.
More-technical folks asked me what I meant. A similar comment as yours - if it’s not blocked, it’s acceptable. “Why is what wrong?” one asked.
Nobody said “You could ask first, to make sure you aren’t using too much bandwidth.”
Good insight. Which was precisely the case with this one friend. He didn’t ask, but assumed it was fine since the extension always worked. The only change was that I was suddenly aware of it. But now I’m convinced this is what caused weird inexplicable issues before.
Because downloading worked behind the scenes differently than conversions I think that’s part of the issue. Downloading you can grab as many files as possible at once. Conversions are one at a time. But if you can’t see what’s going on, and users can’t, they assume downloading works the same as conversions and act accordingly. Oner wouldn’t assume a bandwidth issue. This is why I asked for the semantics change.
The unknown always tricks people. Our technologically minded friends know what’s illegal and what’s not, so their responses are expected. It’s the technically challenged who will always be cautious of the unknown and fear it first.
You can convert more than 1 at a time. That’s how you’re able to stream to multiple users/devices at the same time.
That is a strange way to view the world. So if I gained access to your computer and deleted all your files because you didn’t block me, that would be ok?
So you have this friend that wanted to download content from you, but never asked you if it was ok.
Instead, he/she when online and search How to download content from someone else's plex server with out them knowing about it and found this browser extension that did this.
…and you don’t think that’s nefarious?
Then why did you even bother to create this thread??!???
First, a specific shared user can only convert one file at a time. Multiple streams can be converting from multiple users, but only one stream
Second, no offense, but that analogy is asinine. Not once have I said anything about people deleting my files. You inferred something that was never inferred. If I have an extension that allows me to download from a legal site, then I don’t see the nefarious nature of it. If I do it with the intent to steal it, literally taking it from somewhere else on the internet solely for myself and then deleting it, then, of course, but that’s irrelevant to everything in this thread and makes no sense.
Sigh, this assumes things you clearly don’t know. If you think that’s what someone googled, more power to ya. But you can stay out of this thread going forward. Snark like this is unnecessary and utterly useless.
I’ve been surprised that you’ve called others’ ideas “asinine”, but everybody has different communication styles.
I’m confused by some of your statements. Maybe you could restate the problem. Is it any of these? Do you personally care that downloading is possible, or is it because of the side-effects/symptoms?
Users who can watch+stream can download → [not “solvable”]
Excessive bandwidth usage → further improvements to bandwidth controls
Simultaneous direct streams/downloads are possible → controls
Lack of visibility → more server/user activity reporting
Unexpected behavior of “Download” restriction → clarified text & documentation
It might be worth searching and voting on any relevant feature suggestions, or creating some!
