Download YouTube Videos

I enjoy the internet very much, I sometimes forget that I generally have more time to figure out how to do some more fun and sometimes obscure things on the internet. No, not that, get your mind out of the gutter! LOL! This time, I'm talking about YouTube videos, ever watch something on YouTube and wish you had it on your computer? There isn't a way, through YouTube to download a video, but there is a way, a couple of ways in fact, to download YouTube videos to have and save on your very own computer.

I like doing this for the instructional videos I watch, right now I'm hooked on loom knitting, there are a lot of talented people out there doing DIY YouTube videos, sure you can bookmark them, but on occasion, videos disappear from YouTube for whatever reason, it's nice to have a backup, I have folders for all of my DIY stuff, I place the videos that I download in these folders so I will always have them, I don't have to wait for them to buffer, I don't have to be on line to watch them, and I don't have to worry about the videos going poof for any reason. Everything I listed below (as downloads) are free, that's one of the things I love about Firefox, thousands of add-ons, and they are free. I'll post another message sometime with all of the add-ons I currently use, you just might find something helpful in there. But for now, back to downloading embedded videos and audios, here is how to do it:

First of all, you need to be using Firefox for your browser, I highly recommend it, I use it myself.

Download Firefox here.

Next you need an add-on called Download Helper, it's free, you get it here:

Download Download Helper here.

You can also install a toolbar called Freecorder, this allows you to record anything that comes through your speakers on your computer, it also has an add-on for downloading YouTube videos.

Download Freecorder here.

With the Download helper, you will see a set of balls (or balloons as I prefer to think of them), red, blue and yellow somewhere on your toolbar (on Firefox), most of the time the colors will be grayed out, but when you are on a YouTube page, or other site with an embedded video, the balloons will have color and will be animated, you can't miss it. You click on the balloons and you will see some options as to how you want to download the video.

With Freecorder, you will see the YouTube icon in the toolbar, when you are on a YouTube page or other page with a embedded video, you click on the YouTube icon, it will open a mini window and give you options as to how and where you wish to download the video.

Either way works fine, I prefer having the option to use either method. The video format will be a .FLV, you may not have seen this format before, it's a good format, it has good compression, this means the video will not take up as much space on your computer. You should be able to play this with Windows Media Player, or you can download this program, VLC Media Player will play just about any video (and audio) format that is out there.

Download the player here.

Well, that's about it, now you can snag just about any embedded video out there, oh and Download Helper can also snag embedded audio files too, if you are listening to a podcast or embedded audio on a webpage, you should be able to snag it, sometimes the little balloons do not activate, I just reload the page and then it works right. Enjoy!


All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission.


Wretha,
properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader),


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