Confusing donation popup when using bad network

[timothyqiu]

When the network is not good, downloading won't start for quite a long time.

And the donation popup makes people think you have to donate money in order to download it.

Translated from a Chinese forum https://tieba.baidu.com/p/10252556295:

Is Godot now charging?

I tried using another computer and was going to download it again. It said it was downloading, but there was nothing in the browser's downloads folder.

[coppolaemilio]

Thank you for relying the report 🙏
We should probably fix this by providing a different mirror on the localized Chinese version of the site.

[timothyqiu]

In addition to that, I think the text in this popup is also a source of confusion.

It's technically true that the download is started when the popup appears. But it's not true from the perspective of the user.

Browsers usually wait until they receive the HTTP headers before asking the user for the location to save the download, or adding an entry to their download list UI. Therefore, if the network is poor, there will be a significant time lag between sending the request and the browser responding on its UI.

This is also why many dedicated download websites prompts something like

The download will start shortly. If it doesn't begin for a long time, please click here to download.

[coppolaemilio]

In our system the download link is actually a link, and the popup happens afterwards, so if the first download didn't start, it doesn't matter if we add a second "click here to download" because it won't start either.

I think editing the copy should be something that could improve the expectation, but the real fix should come from the proper mirror allowing people to download the release.

[coppolaemilio]

@Repiteo should upload the builds to our hosting solution which should be able to work in China better than our current set up. Assigning this to him to keep track of it.