The Portable Freeware Collection Forums

Specular wrote:Lacks live file change updates, requires manual builds of the database. This is somewhat mitigated by options to update every n minutes.

Actually the dev thinks this is a feature and I tend to agree. For example I've checked my computer several times for files that WERE on it sometimes to check if it's something I accidentally deleted or sometimes to check the details of something I've just compressed. It's rare but it happens. It's just a button to press to find out what's current.

I also love the default manual drive scan rather than automatic scan on startup.

webfork wrote:Actually the dev thinks this is a feature and I tend to agree. For example I've checked my computer several times for files that WERE on it sometimes to check if it's something I accidentally deleted or sometimes to check the details of something I've just compressed. It's rare but it happens. It's just a button to press to find out what's current.

Interesting, have never experienced this on any build even on my vastly older XP machine. Everything updates live before my eyes (such as moving files to the recycle bin).

Autor's blog pointed by joby_toss in comments of Hddb entry have link to app's homepage (http://hddb.s3-website-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/) which redirects again to dead site (http://hddb.xp-zed.com/index.html).
So Softpedia is only place where you can get it now(?) What about FileHasher and HdView?
It's really pity if this app become abandoned

I have a copy of FileHasher-64bit and HdView. I can upload it somewhere if you need it...

billon wrote:It's really pity if this app become abandoned

The program is well-loved and I've interacted with the dev before so I'll drop him another note. I'd like to assume there's some domain issue and then if nothing happens I'll look into hosting some of the components and/or switching the site over to archive.org.

Edit: no word as of May 30th. Will wait another week or two. Really don't want this project to go dark.

webfork wrote:Will wait another week or two. Really don't want this project to go dark.

No word yet so I've switched to archive.org. Sigh.

Userfriendly wrote:I have a copy of FileHasher-64bit and HdView. I can upload it somewhere if you need it...

Yeah Archive.org didn't grab those. Please post something if you can.

Here's filehasher and hdview.
http://www34.zippyshare.com/v/GEidAxES/file.html

FileHasher.exe
CRC - 5221263C
MD5 - 34fe09e2d002eb4a8364ec984cb1588c
SHA1 - f26360be031cc2e3ef790958dba06054b3685d4e

HdView.exe
CRC - FCD990F1
MD5 - 18cd52263e4277c5d81f3c0e8c948c1c
SHA1 - 2dcb0c5b8170bbdfdbeed2c1ff159ef25eb0ef50

Even though Hddb seems feature complete, it might still have bugs. People probably should go use Everything instead if they want to have some developer support.

Userfriendly wrote:Here's filehasher and hdview.

Cool, thanks for that.

We have evidently become the download page for the HdView.exe so I'll go ahead and add some additional detail on the files Userfriendly is hosting:

File details

• 
  Filename: FileHasher.exe
  SHA256: F038791EA5A917A7B9E8D6DE3B7427D1B26901F5A42B2B50510769E85CFB4783
  Virus Total Detection: 0/56
  Virus Total URL: https://www.virustotal.com/file/f038791 ... /analysis/
  
  
  Filename: HdView.exe
  SHA256: DD106BBE352940D6B9441A6B8338585FD905FAB46A98F818A626C2824ED80470
  Virus Total Detection: 0/55
  Virus Total URL: https://www.virustotal.com/file/dd106bb ... /analysis/
  

I still use HDDB all the time and have emailed the author but recieved no response. I hope he's okay.

I have all versions of Hddb since version 1.0.2 (installer, portable x32, portable x64) and if someone needs them I can put them into an archive and upload it.

Some time ago I also contacted the developer but got no answer- I suppose that Hddb has been abandoned for good because while it was still in development the Chinese guy was very responsive to bug reports and suggestions.

smaragdus wrote:Some time ago I also contacted the developer but got no answer- I suppose that Hddb has been abandoned for good because while it was still in development the Chinese guy was very responsive to bug reports and suggestions.

Agreed. Very sad turn of events. I wish he'd open sourced it as I'd definitely throw in on some kind of revival effort if someone tried to take it over.

smaragdus wrote:I have all versions of Hddb since version 1.0.2 (installer, portable x32, portable x64) and if someone needs them I can put them into an archive and upload it.

Yeah please post whatever you have and I'll help with the mirroring. I love this program.

@webfork

I was impressed by Hddb so I kept all Hddb versions from 1.0.2 to 4.4.0 (from 1.0.2 to 1.0.4 only installers, from 1.0.5 on- installer, portable x32 and portable x64). I put all these versions into a 7-Zip archive plus a text file containing various links to Hddb and a short description of the program. The size of the file- Hddb.7z- is about 97 MB and the archive contains 202 files- 201 Zip archives plus a Text file- all installers are also compressed for security reasons. I uploaded the archive to Ge.tt and to Mega, below you will find the direct download links:

Ge.tt - http://ge.tt/4xP51mT2/v/0?c
Mega - https://mega.nz/#!5YMVFYQA!2_kKCJF6k-L7 ... DILqLsf2Ss

These download links should work but if you encounter problems downloading the archive I will mirror the archive to other file lockers.

One of my all-time favourite programs is minipad2 and it also seems to have been abandoned. The developer was very friendly and we exchanged several e-mails in the past so after I found the web-site was gone I inquired about the future of minipad2 but I got no response. I have experienced this on many occasions so it seems that many developers simply do not care for the devoted users of their products.

I uploaded the archive to Ge.tt and to Mega

Great stuff, thanks. I'll look through this and try to put together something.

smaragdus wrote:I have experienced this on many occasions so it seems that many developers simply do not care for the devoted users of their products.

I think it's more owing to what motivates people, something I haven't been able to determine from my time here. You can try to make developers feel welcome and appreciated for their work via donations, feature requests, bug reports, free marketing, etc. but ultimately what drives someone to work on freeware is probably different for everyone and can diminish. I think some of it owes to the fact that developers are -- by and large -- detail-oriented problem solvers. Once a problem has been solved, the tendency is to move on to new problems.

They're human, too. Sometimes they loose stuff, like code or access to websites. Worse, they pass away (I know of at least one case).