Introduction
The Internet Archive is one of the most valuable public libraries on the web — but using it efficiently can be surprisingly hard.
Slow browsing, unclear “best” files, broken downloads, and poor UX for multi-file items (series, playlists) were common pain points for me. So I built DownloadStuffs, a modern, open-source interface focused on speed, clarity, and reliable downloads.
Live demo: https://downloadstuffss.vercel.app/
The Problem
Archive.org exposes powerful APIs, but the default UI struggles with:
- Performance on large result sets
- Discovering the right file among many formats
- Previewing long-form or episodic content
- Downloading reliably in modern browsers (CORS, timeouts)
For developers and users, this friction adds up quickly.
The Solution: DownloadStuffs
DownloadStuffs is designed around three principles:
1. Speed
Server-side pagination and optimized queries against the Advanced Search API.
2. Clarity
Opinionated defaults, clean detail pages, and a focused file browser.
3. Completion
A download proxy and on-the-fly ZIP generation for playlists and collections.
Key Features
- Fast search with media-type filters and sorting
- In-page video/audio previews
- Playlist queue with keyboard controls
- Reliable download proxy (no CORS issues)
- Batch ZIP downloads for multi-file items
Architecture Overview
- Search: IA Advanced Search API
- Metadata: IA Metadata API
- Streaming: Direct IA download endpoints
- Backend: Bun + TypeScript
- Frontend: Vite + modern SPA routing
- Deployment: Vercel
Technical Challenges
Streaming ZIP generation
Creating large ZIP files without storing them on disk required streaming compression and careful memory management.
Proxying large files
Handling upstream timeouts and partial downloads was necessary to make downloads reliable in the browser.
What I Learned
- UX matters even for “just a UI on an API”
- Performance is a feature
- Open data platforms benefit massively from better tooling
Open Source & Feedback
DownloadStuffs is fully open source:
Repo: https://github.com/Dawaman43/downloadstuffs
App: https://downloadstuffss.vercel.app/
I’d love feedback, ideas, and contributions 🚀
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