Lately I haven’t been able to download files from fileplanet.com via my Mac. It’s inane, because downloads apparently requires an ActiveX control. I’m appalled at the utter stupidity of excluding all non-Windows platform users from your download service, just to set up a download queue. Can’t you put up a Flash control instead? Just as shiny and unusable, but actually compatible with other operating systems.
It gets better. The good news – the designer had some foresight to set up a fallback mechanism, to use plain old HTML queue. The bad news – it simply presents you with a 403 Forbidden when clicked.
As it turns out, I found a post that contained a possible solution. Actually, that post is a bit unnecessarily complicated. Apparently, they’re blocking all browsers without a Windows user agent. On the fallback solution that was supposed to work for all platforms. Argh.
Until Fileplanet addresses this issue (which could be tomorrow. or never), the simplest solution (that worked for me) was to switch my user agent in Firefox (via the aforementioned and highly recommended User Agent Switcher) to a Windows browser (try the default Opera XP user agent). Then, click on the fallback queuing link, and it should kick you into the download page.
Note that the User Agent option in Safari (at least, v2.0.x) Debug menu will not work straight up. Believe me, as a primarily Safari user, I’ve tried hard to make this work. Because Fileplanet pops up a new window when download is selected, and the Debug menu setting only sets it for the active window. As the download window is a pop-up, you do not get a chance to intervene and change the User Agent code before FilePlanet denies you access to it. So for now, Firefox + User Agent Switcher is the solution. If you have a browser (or Safari, in the future) which allows the fake user agent setting to persist across windows spawned from the initial window, that browser would work too.
UPDATE 3/27/2009:
Feedback in the comments section reports that this is still a problem for many users. Appalling. It’s been 2 years.
Thanks very much for this information.
It worked great. : )
I don’t think the problem’s fixed. I’m using Opera 9.64 in Windows XP with both Flash and Javascript enabled and I get:
“Unable to install the FilePlanet Download Control!
Possible Reasons…
The control requires Internet Explorer 5 or higher running on Windows 9x/NT4/2000/XP
If you are running NT, XP or 2000 you must have Administrator privileges
Your Internet security settings do not allow ActiveX plugins to be downloaded
You declined to install the control on the previous screen
Click here to to continue to the public queue!”
After clicking continue to queue I get a HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden page. I must use IE7 to download – haven’t yet tried with Firefox.
on mac u idiot. if ur on windows use IE. Also You must switch the user agent in opera too.
Amazingly, this problem still exists! It’s not so bad though, as there are so many better download sites around, it’s rare to find a file that is only on FilePlanet. I can’t be bothered working around it, it’s easier to just get it from another site (then you get faster downloads, less queueing and less obnoxious ads too!)
Even with the new redesign of the site this still happens to me when I try using Safari on my Intel Mac
Make it three years…
un….be…..leivable…… This is the reason I canceled my subscription to IGN’s network. Guess they don’t miss my $5/month…….
Safari 5 includes an option to switch the user agent. Option is on the “develop” user menu.
If you read my post carefully, as of Safari 4, that user agent setting doesn’t stick. As I said, the download control will open a new window or tab. The User Agent you set for one window doesn’t not persist to the newly spawned window or tab. Therefore, when the FilePlanet download control opens, your custom user agent is reset, and you get the 403 from FilePlanet anyway.
For the user agent trick to work, it must persist across windows and tabs that are spawned from the initial window.
I couldn’t even find the opera setting for the current user agent switcher, but I used the .xml import file (found here:http://www1.qainsight.net:8080/content/binary/AgentStrings20080223.xml) for it and got many other user agents that ended up working. The MSIE 8 (WIN XP) setting is what got it working for me. Thank you for the post! wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.
I’m amazed that this is *still* a problem now in 2011, given that I wrote this post in 2007. What is the FilePlanet web team up to?