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Hurray! ColdFusion 2016 no longer uses Akamai Download Manager

Note: This blog post is from 2016. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Here's some news that Adobe may not herald, but many users certainly would want to know and celebrate: as of today, when you download ColdFusion 2016 (whether the trial edition, developer edition, or on buying Standard or Enterprise, or the Express edition introduced in CF11), you are no longer forced to go through the Akamai Download Manager! :-)

For many, that's all they need to know. For others, there are some more points worth discussing. Read on, if that may interest you.

This is a continuation of a multi-part series of posts on the introduction of CF2016.

Pros, but mostly cons, of the DL Mgr

Now, we should acknowledge that there was some value to that tool: it helped managed the download, recover from paused or failed ones, and so on. (And given that the CF download is now over a gig, because of the inclusion of the API manager, that's not an insignificant value.)

Still, it had many warts. Many found that the link for the download didn't work at all, or was challenging to use. And it wasn't supported at all on Linux. Such folks were forced to find/go to a Windows machine just to get the file, then bring it to their "real" machine, all making it challenging just to download CF!

Even when it DID work, it was also hard to know where the downloaded file ended up. You weren't asked where to put it, because it offered to proceed to install it. If you did want it, it was hard to find, buried in a folder that one would rarely expect to look in.

And that's just a couple of the negatives. While it did also give Adobe useful analytics (about downloads, pauses, download times, and more), the pain for many was just too much.

It also wasn't new to CF 2016. In my consulting work (which often involves helping people install, update, or migrate to different CF versions) I often watched as they struggled using it to get CF11 also, and so on.

The CF team listened, and reversed course

Anyway, let's celebrate the positive: the CF team heard the complaints this week, as many tried to get CF 2016, and somehow they were able to get the "wider" Adobe IT team and gatekeepers to lift the requirement to use the download manager.

So go get it, and check it out. And see my recent other blog posts on CF 2016, and more to come. (And there are certainly others out there blogging about it.)

What about downloading CF11?

Let me get this out here now, as surely someone would ask: "how do I get CF11 downloads?"

As far as I know, Adobe has pulled the downloads from any public location on the site. I don't understand it, but they did the same with CF10 when CF11 came out--even though at that time both CF10 and even CF9 were still supported. And now, even though both C10 and 11 are still supported, you can no longer find downloads for either on the Adobe site in any public location that I know of. If anyone knows one, please let us know here. I'd make a new post devoted just to that topic, and may anyway to share this info I have here, as some may not think to find it in this post.

But here's good news: one CAN definitely get CF11, or 10, or indeed most any release via the CF Repo that Gavin Pickin created, and several of us contribute to, available at http://tinyurl.com/cfdownloads. I've talked about it before.

Hope all that's helpful.

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Comments
CF is now over 1GB? Wow, that's certainly in the realm of bloatware. A while back there was talk in the community that a scaled down version was the way to go, a stripped down core where you can add the components you needed. It's gone the wrong way.
# Posted By Gary F | 2/20/16 9:03 AM
Gary, like I said, it's bigger because of the inclusion of the API Manager, which is technically a separate product (and even launches as a separate installer after the main CF install), so it's not really that CF (itself) that has become bloated, just its installer. But I realize that's a semantic difference.

As for the CF Team's compulsion (or being compelled) to put the two products together (as one installer that then installs two products), I can offer no justification myself. I suspect it will be derided more than praised, and perhaps someday the two will be split out.

FWIW, there IS indeed a "scaled downs version" of CF, which is free for development. Many missed it: the Express edition. More at https://helpx.adobe...., though sadly that page (frmo the CF11 timeframe) points to a link which STILL downloads the full trial edition, which is a mistake. Until that's fixed, you can find links to the Express edition that Adobe has shared by Adam Cameron at his post from yesterday on the removal of the Akamai downloader: http://blog.adamcame... . Hoping that the Adobe team will make it more clear where/how to get that free Express edition. (I will note that it's what's included in ColdFuison Builder3 and above as its embeddable CF server.)
Personally I can't see the API manager of any use, it's totally separate to CF and so shouldn't be in the same package.

I didn't know Adobe have re-introduced an Express version. (They don't even convey things to their user base, heaven knows how the outside world get to hear about any new, positive CF stuff.) I wonder what the licencing restrictions are.

The Mac version of CF (full) is half the size of the Windows version. Either Adobe are more efficient at coding on the Mac or it's missing some of the Windows features?
# Posted By Gary F | 2/20/16 12:26 PM
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