YouTube Downloader: Download YouTube Video For My Mom!
Steve Chen and Chad Hurley created the most wanted video clip hosting site for sharing video collection easier on the Net, that’s YouTube!
YouTuber, the users of YouTube (I call it), like it very much. The reasons are simple: it’s free; it’s really easy to share and really fun to interact with community about the posted video clip collections!
So, active commenter (I am) prefer watching YouTube video clips online than having the videos playback at local hard disk.
However, there is another camp of people (me too), who occasionally would like to download YouTube videos and save them to mobile hard disk or the latest 8GB USB thumb drive.
The reasons? Well, as for me, those are for my mom and dad who are too old and reluctant to learn something about computer! You might want to download them for safekeeping, backup, playback on media server at home, saving the metered broadband usage at home, etc.
OK. For whatever reasons, how could you direct download YouTube video clips (or from any other video hosting sites)?
1) Native way – retrieve video clips from a Web browser cache folder
This native method works for most video hosting sites, as long as you know where is the web browser cache folder that used to temporarily keeping web page contents (including picture, MIDI, MP3, FLV, SWF, etc).
Firefox cache folder:
Type the following Firefox URI in the Address bar, press ENTER, and look for the Cache Directory: path of Disk Cache Device:
Vista-IE7 cache folder:
By default installation, you could find the IE7 super-hidden cache folder in Windows Vista at this folder path:
Note: You might need to enable “view hidden files/folders” option in Windows to locate all sub-folders or the browser cache folder itself.
For example, you could find YouTube video clips that finish playback in web browser leaving the cached video files with file name similar to
Save all these cached file to another folder and rename them with a flash video file extension (i.e. FLV, e.g. get_video to be renamed as video1.flv) and you’re ready to play the YouTube video offline or convert them to other video format as you like.
For more detail, you may refer to Where Is IE7 Cache Folder, Retrieve Flash Movie In IE7 Cache Folder Of Windows Vista, How to save flash video from Firefox cache folder.
2) Techie way – retrieve the hidden YouTube video direct download link
This method is only applicable to YouTube video and it’s working at this time of writing.
It’s not really user-friendly but it’s good enough for those who wonder how YouTube Downloader extracts the YouTube video direct download link.
For the detail of this method, please refer to YouTube Video Direct Download Link
3) Easier way – retrieve the YouTube video download link with YouTube Downloader
There are many YouTube downloader freeware that you could easily find one or two from Google search.
If you’re not serious about downloading YouTube video (to be frank, watching YouTube video online is more fun because of the interactive features), I’ve my friend developed this simple one-click YouTube downloader.
Enter YouTube video URL here and click Submit button
And click your YouTube Video direct download link at here:
Strictly speaking, it’s not a perfect downloader. For example, sometime it’s not working without hard forcing web browser to refresh (i.e. pressing CTRL+F5 hotkey). And, it doesn’t download the video. Indeed, it merely presents the YouTube video direct download link that described in previous method.
So, active commenter (I am) prefer watching YouTube video clips online than having the videos playback at local hard disk.
However, there is another camp of people (me too), who occasionally would like to download YouTube videos and save them to mobile hard disk or the latest 8GB USB thumb drive.
The reasons? Well, as for me, those are for my mom and dad who are too old and reluctant to learn something about computer! You might want to download them for safekeeping, backup, playback on media server at home, saving the metered broadband usage at home, etc.
OK. For whatever reasons, how could you direct download YouTube video clips (or from any other video hosting sites)?
1) Native way – retrieve video clips from a Web browser cache folder
This native method works for most video hosting sites, as long as you know where is the web browser cache folder that used to temporarily keeping web page contents (including picture, MIDI, MP3, FLV, SWF, etc).
Firefox cache folder:
Type the following Firefox URI in the Address bar, press ENTER, and look for the Cache Directory: path of Disk Cache Device:
about:cache
Vista-IE7 cache folder:
By default installation, you could find the IE7 super-hidden cache folder in Windows Vista at this folder path:
%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Low\Content.ie5
Note: You might need to enable “view hidden files/folders” option in Windows to locate all sub-folders or the browser cache folder itself.
For example, you could find YouTube video clips that finish playback in web browser leaving the cached video files with file name similar to
get_video, get_video[1], get_video[2], etc.Save all these cached file to another folder and rename them with a flash video file extension (i.e. FLV, e.g. get_video to be renamed as video1.flv) and you’re ready to play the YouTube video offline or convert them to other video format as you like.
For more detail, you may refer to Where Is IE7 Cache Folder, Retrieve Flash Movie In IE7 Cache Folder Of Windows Vista, How to save flash video from Firefox cache folder.
2) Techie way – retrieve the hidden YouTube video direct download link
This method is only applicable to YouTube video and it’s working at this time of writing.
It’s not really user-friendly but it’s good enough for those who wonder how YouTube Downloader extracts the YouTube video direct download link.
For the detail of this method, please refer to YouTube Video Direct Download Link
3) Easier way – retrieve the YouTube video download link with YouTube Downloader
There are many YouTube downloader freeware that you could easily find one or two from Google search.
If you’re not serious about downloading YouTube video (to be frank, watching YouTube video online is more fun because of the interactive features), I’ve my friend developed this simple one-click YouTube downloader.
Enter YouTube video URL here and click Submit button
And click your YouTube Video direct download link at here:
Strictly speaking, it’s not a perfect downloader. For example, sometime it’s not working without hard forcing web browser to refresh (i.e. pressing CTRL+F5 hotkey). And, it doesn’t download the video. Indeed, it merely presents the YouTube video direct download link that described in previous method.
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2010 •
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