I was prompted to download an updated version of the messaging app Franz earlier, and while doing so realised that there’s no easy way to see download progress in Ubuntu’s Unity desktop.
We’ve previously shown you how to get native ‘download completed’ notifications for Firefox on Unity.
But it used to be possible to see a live, updated download progress bar and download count on the Unity launcher.
I wanted this sweet Unity integration back. So I went a-Googling.
Sadly it turns out that the ‘UnityFox’ extension we all used to use to enable this feature broke back in 2013.
Which sucks — but all is not lost…
UnityFox Revived Add-On
UnityFox Revived is a new version of the old UnityFox add-on that is made by Chris Coulson and Lockal.
The add-on works with Firefox 39+ and Unity running on Ubuntu 15.10 and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (although, as the add-on developer notes, it will work with any desktop environment which implements the Unity launcher DBus API).
Even better: it’s a ‘no reinstall’ add-on, so you can enable it while you’re mid-download and get an instant Launcher-based status update.
UnityFox Revived also supports KDE Plasma 5.6 (and upwards) where progress and download count is shown inside the window list item for Firefox on the Plasma Panel, and the slick desktop dock app ‘Plank’.
Head over to the Mozilla Firefox Add-Ons repo to get the UnityFox Revived extension and experience the Unity integration for yourself.