Video downloader for firefox browser free

Have you ever wanted to save a (local(ly-stored)) copy of (capture) a video that is playing in your web browser?

A nice range of tools are at your disposal, ranging from: browser extensions&#;; StreamTransport for Windows&#;; as well as rtmpdump and other command-line tools.

Some of these approaches/methods and tools will work when no Adobe Flash player plugin () is installed, and HTML5 video is in-use.

Some web browser extensions will only work for YouTube-hosted/served videos. In contrast, other approaches/tools/methods listed/mentioned here (in this article/page('s contents)) will not work for identifying and downloading (extracting/obtaining) YoutTube videos.

in short[edit | edit source]

Cut to the chase, For the impatient&#;:

One of the following two might do the trick for you, quickly:

OR

A Summary of the rest of this article (below)

If you want to download a copy of a YouTube video,

Simply add " to the left of the YouTube URL (that displays in the Address Bar of your web browser), and press the enter key on your keyboard:

example:
B.T.W., That particular video (example) is: "The Silva Centering Exercise Meditation - Silva Method"

Another format for the YouTube URL of that same video (posting) is:

Copy the URL of the YouTube posting webpage. (Select the text of the URL that is displayed by/within the address bar of your web browser (near the top), and copy (right-click, ) and then paste () (into&#;? where? ) .

The example above is in the traditional (most-common (still?)) format for YouTube video posting URL/URIs? There are others that include a playlist or have "embed"

Also, rushbrookrathbone.co.uk is capable of downloading videos from many other websites, such as: Facebook, Vimeo, DailyMotion, MetaCafe (and others&#;; see: rushbrookrathbone.co.uk) -- as well as SoundCloud audio .mp3 files.

If you don't like the ads on the rushbrookrathbone.co.uk website,

A web browser extension (not a plugin) can be installed within the web browser.
To download videos from YouTube, you probably need Firefox (not Chrome) (for this purpose).

Install any of the following recommended web browser extensions:

• The #SaveFromHelper provides the same functionality as the SaveFrom.net website, (as explained above ; Read more: [1]).
• #InBasic -- nice Metro-style U.I. YouTube-only. Offers videos and audio files in all-possible formats offered by YouTube's servers.
• # Download Flash and Video can also download video files that InBasic and even Save From cannot. Download (This extension was mentioned above already.)

If none of those work, the video may not be transmitted over the HTTP protocol but instead may be transmitted over another protocol such as RTMP (see #RTMP or HDS #Adobe HDS / DASH technology, which requires the Adobe Flash plugin to be operating within your web browser. There are tools for (possibly) sniffing/detecting and possibly also (Successfully) downloading/capturing/extracting footage that is transmitted (broadcast/served) using such Adobe technologies.

convert audio to MP3[edit | edit source]

It is possible to convert the audio of a video that you downloaded (or any audio file, for that matter) to for listening on a portable audio device (or Windows Media Audio () or () AAC Advanced Audio Codec for iPods) using ).

How to convert media files using FFmpeg is an article / guide on this very website (wiki).

Simply:

( from: rushbrookrathbone.co.uk

( source: rushbrookrathbone.co.uk#haac-to-mp3 . See, in particular: jfreak53's posting to the thread.)

There is a command-line version of (the LAME encoder project), as well.

see also: How to reduce the size of every video in a directory and How to rip DVDs with mencoder.

MeEcoder is part of the mplayer package and software project.

A tutorial on how to extract the audio and video into separate files can be found: [2].

Background[edit | edit source]

See the "Background" (child page) for an explanation of how video is implemented by Macromedia/Adobe's (Shockwave-)Flash stack/platform of technologies. That page provides important information that will help you better understand the technical underpinnings/workings behind flash video that is embedded in a webpage (and viewed by a web browser).

web Inspector tool[edit | edit source]

The Developer Tools that are bundled with web browsers (such as Chrome's Inspector) can be helpful in detecting any video files that are transferred from the host/server to the client/web-browser. In particular, use the Network activity pane(l)/window/box: this logs transfer events that take place between the server/host and client (browser/visitor). For Mozilla-based browsers, Firefox has its own built-in tools (which are analogous to the one built into Chrome/Chromium). Also, there is the Firebug extension.

copy as curl[edit | edit source]

The Chrome and Safari (WebKit/Blink!-based) web browsers come bundled with built-in
(web) Developer tools that offer an option to "copy as cURL".

To use this feature, open the (web) Developer Console (by pressing [3]) ( "Network View", not the "Inspector" nor "Elements").

The Developer Console now occupies the bottom portion of the web browser's window (of your currently-visible webpage).

What is listed (or will appear, once it is transferred from the web server) in that new box/window are
files that have been transferred (downloaded from the web server).

Search that list to find a video file. A video file's name usually ends with "" or "" (or "" for videos served by Wistia) (filename suffix/extension).

Select the network transfer event entry (in the list) of (that matches / corresponds to) the video file that you want to download,
and Right-click on its entry to get a context menu.

Among the items presented by the context menu, choose "copy as cURL" which copies, to the clipboard, a fully-formed cURL command line that replicates the same request that the GUI browser made to the server to first obtain (download) that video file. This includes all HTTP headers.

With a command line copied to the clipboard, where should it be pasted (put to use)?

The answer is: into a command-line interpreter (console). That means

• if you are using a GNU/Linux, or another UNIX or Unix-like (*nix) system (including Mac OS X) -- open the "" window
• if you are using Windows, open, either:

To obtain for Windows, download .zip archive(from Günter Knauf) or others listed here, or rushbrookrathbone.co.uk

Note, that this command-interpreter console terminal is outside of, and independent of the web browser. From this point onwards, we will not use the GUI web browser to download the video file.

Paste that cURL command line into the command-line interpreter ("terminal" or console).

Running that command line will emulate the way that the request from the full graphical web browser was (originally/previously) made for that file&#;; that is: it replicates the browsing context/conditions (under which the GUI graphical full web browser made the request for that file) - which includes: referrer URLs, request/client-side HTTP headers, e-tags, tokens, etc.

I optionally recommend adding (including) "" (the capital 'R' switch) to the command line so that your downloaded copy of the file will bear the same last-modified time/date stamp as the source/original (copy of the file that resides on) the web server, whence the file was obtained and downloaded.

Note, however, that this process (described above/previously) will not (work) be much use for YouTube videos. Tools/software that enables the download of YouTube videos (the video files that are served by YouTube's servers) make use of a YouTube API. This is in contrast with sniffing HTTP (or RTMP, or HDS/DASH, for that matter) traffic, which is a key step in / part of the process described in this section here.

tips, organized by provider/website[edit | edit source]

Wistia[edit | edit source]

Look for a file with a suffix/extension of "" in its name, NOT / as opposed to what you'd (otherwise) expect, which is: or or even maybe.

Vimeo[edit | edit source]

Like Wistia, the video is embedded in the (parent) webpage as an iframe (inline or embedded frame (a webpage within a webpage))

however, accessing that URL of the iframed-webpage containing the vimeo posting/video requires a ?referrer-URL? -- otherwise access may be denied. Plus, the video file itself has a query string unique ID or key of some sort dynamically generated by the server in response to a request for the video. Trying to request the video file's name with the "" and what follows after the will be denied access by Vimeo's server(s).

proxies[edit | edit source]

native-apps / web Proxies provide (all?) the same functionality that the "Network" feature of a web browser's Developer/Inspector Tool provides. It allows the examination of all transfers (traffic) between client and server in an HTTP(S) connection.

There is a .NET app for Windows called Fiddler2. See wikipedia:Fiddler (software)&#;; also, the official homepage.

There are numerous open-source apps such as HTTP Ripper by Jonas Wagner. See its homepage. There are builds/packages (binaries) available for Debian-based GNU/Linux distros (OSes) as well as Windows (32bit&#;?). One feature that his otherwise-nice app/program lacks is the ability to copy the URL of the sniffed resource. Downloading a sniffed file (that was transferred from the server to the client via HTTP) is achieved by (?Double-clicking?) using the mouse on the entry for the file in the list of x-fered resources (from the web server).

Note however, that all the above tools only are capable of detecting transfers/activity that take place using the HTTP protocol. Any video that is sent over another protocol, such as RTMP, will not be detected by these tools/methods/means.

Also, those tools will not be able to identify a (or or ) file that originates from YouTube (even though those transfers do take place in the HTTP application transport layer, and not R.T.M.P.). Downloading YouTube videos requires use of the YouTube A.P.I.

Websites[edit | edit source]

There are several websites on the internet that make it easy to download the actual video files that play from YouTube (and possibly other websites/domains as well, such as Vimeo, and DailyMotion).

N.B. Warning: Please be wary of visiting these websites with a computer that runs Microsoft Windows. Who knows what adware, spyware, or other malicious and questionable software may infect you.

SaveFrom[edit | edit source]

To start, you can simply go to the homepage (domain): rushbrookrathbone.co.uk

and then, type (or paste) in the URL of the YouTube video posting webpage (that displays (is shown) in the Address bar of the web browser).

You could also use a scheme for forming a URL and visiting that more directly using your web browser (address bar) , such as:

e.g.:

rushbrookrathbone.co.uk also offers (has) alternate domain names:

Save From (both the website as well as the "helper" web browser extensions (see below)) offer the ability to easily download videos from

• YouTube
• Vimeo
• DailyMotion
• rushbrookrathbone.co.uk
• FaceBook
• LiveJournal

as well as audio .mp3 files from SoundCloud too!

rushbrookrathbone.co.uk website does not make any use of Java (in the web browser /client-side).

I discovered this website because a FF extension that I downloaded, [4], which provides a button (when it detects a yt video) that , when clicked, simply opens up an AdFly URL (like, for example: rushbrookrathbone.co.uk://rushbrookrathbone.co.uk://rushbrookrathbone.co.uk?v=vy6fnsawNjE).

browser extensions[edit | edit source]

The makers of SaveFrom offer official web-browser extensions for the various major web browsers. This is referred to as the SaveFrom.net Helper and it offers all of the capabilities (features) that are offered by the website version of their service (software) (mentioned above, previously), plus more (in some cases). Particularly, the full range / gamut of files that YouTube servers offer (including separate audio and video-only files of various bit-rates and encoding formats) can be accessed with the browser extension. In other words, the extension offers more choices of files to download than the rushbrookrathbone.co.uk website does.

I have used this extension and highly recommend it. It has a nice look and clean and clear User Experience and Interface (UX and UI).

When on a YouTube posting page, beneath the video, near where the video description and tags appear,
You will see the drop-down menu (that can be expanded to reveal all files that can downloaded using the tool) of various video and/or audio container files. These are the various encodings generated by Google's YouTube servers of the poster's originally-uploaded video file. These target different platforms, screen size resolutions, bandwidths of the end-user's internet connection and device's capabilities and preferences.

download packages[edit | edit source]

There are extensions available for all of the major modern web browsers:

see all-available packagings (packages) of this tool from Save From, including:

Another form(at) that the codebase (functionality/software) from SaveFrom is available (released) in is "User Tools PHP" (package?)

User tools webpage also offers a "built-in search engine" (not regular web search, but instead) the ability to search from the search bar of Firefox or Internet Explorer by adding "" as an item among the drop-down list of search engines (website that provide search capability). Other examples of this are WikiPedia, Bing, Google, rushbrookrathbone.co.uk, eBay. Clicking on the link adds that to your search bar (menu list). N.B. This does not add an additional toolbar to your web browser('s User Interface).

audio-only[edit | edit source]

In particular, I find the audio-only to be interesting. The choices include:

• AAC (Use container format to house this when choosing the downloaded copy's file name on your local storage. is short for MPEG-4 Audio.) For those who don't know: AAC is short for "Advanced Audio Encoding" and is a higher-performance lossy audio compression than MP3.
  • One of the encoded bit-rates of the AAC version of the audio track/stream is at . This is (usually) the maximum-available audio quality. (YouTube doesn't offer an audio track/stream in loss-less format, though the source video that was uploaded by the poster in the first place is almost undoubtedly already lossily-compressed (just as the video stream of that content was).)
• an alternate audio encoding (compression algorithm used) (and made available, as an alternative file to download to obtain the audio programme/footage/content of the YouTube posting) is: the open-source Vorbis (open-source equivalent to MP3 compression&#;; again -- lossily-compressed (lossy compression) .) This can be enclosed (housed) within an container format (filename suffix extension). (I should make a separate article explaining internet multimedia (video and audio compression algorithms / encodings, in particular. Fleetwoodta (talk))

Save Media[edit | edit source]

rushbrookrathbone.co.uk is another (alternative) website that offers the service of allowing the downloading of YouTube videos.

One way to use it is simple: Add "" to the left of the "" domain name within the URL (address bar of your web browser) when on any YouTube video posting webpage

To explain, I shall illustrate the format / formula / method&#;:

You start off with a given URL of a YouTube video posting, which customarily has the form(at) of something begining with:

I ommitted the rest of the YouTube URL which consists of (to the right of the '' equal sign character) a unique identifier for the YouTube video posting.

So, that video can be downloaded by changing the URL in the address bar of your web browser to:

(adding "Save" to the left of the domain name)

or

.

N.B. Also note that domain names are not cASe sENsitivE. I used some CamelCase for clarity (illustrative) purposes.

In order to use this feature/service, the Java Runtime Environment plugin must be activated within your web browser. This can be dangerous. There are security concerns with running Java within a web browser. If the JRE plugin is not active (and is blocked by your web browser, for safety reasons precaution), you'll get a message from the SaveMedia website: "Please make sure you selected YES when prompted for 'Always trust content from the publisher'." (so the website can run a Java Applet within your browser)

The website instructs: allow Java plugin to run in browser, instructional screen shot/capture

The website advertises: rushbrookrathbone.co.uk which is a native (win32 / or .NET?) Windows application (app program software). I would recommend against using any native apps to download YouTube videos. For one thing, there are many open alternatives that don't require any native app, which I list in this article here.

The kind (format) of YouTube URLs it can accept as input into the text-entry (input) box:

can include the "playlist" spec

such as, e.g.:

which sends you to:

B.T.W., The YouTube video (posting) that I chose for that above example is: "How to Edit a Wiki: Part 1" by C. Sean Burns.

XUL extensions[edit | edit source]

These extensions can be added to Mozilla software such as Firefox. Some may also work with SeaMonkey.

N.B.!: Often, YouTube makes changes that renders some of these browser extensions useless for downloading YouTube videos. This is undoubtedly an effort by YouTube to enforce their end-user terms-of-service that says, among other conditions, that video files hosted by YT should not be downloaded!

InBasic[edit | edit source]

InBasic offers a Mozilla Firefox browser extension called "Media Downloader"

This tool only works for YouTube videos, not other videos (e.g.: from DailyMotion, nor any non-YouTube flash video, nor flash animations).

A great, effective, powerful, wonderfully-designed browser extension. No Restart is required to install! (Firefox can remain open after installing it. No disruption in your browsing is necessary to use its functionality.)

The U.I. (user interface) is very nice-looking, clean, clear, uncluttered and aesthetically-pleasing (That's a subjective call, dependent upon individual tastes). It offers a nice Metro-style UI look (which (is associated with the look-and-feel of) Microsoft Windows 8 is known for).

download[edit | edit source]

The packaged version of this software (browser extension)

Is available through Mozilla's official repo(sitory) of Firefox web browser extensions, which can be found at:
"Youtube Video and Audio Downloader"

add latest stable edition to Firefox

which is currently, as of December 2nd: See a list of all (other) version/revision/releases.

independent streams[edit | edit source]

One feature that the description mentions is the ability to download "true" HD, including versions of the video that have no audio streams. Why would one want this? Because, the highest-resolution audio-only file can be downloaded and muxed with any video-only encoded version of your choice. This way the various formats and bit-rate -encoded versions of the video and audio streams can be combined in any permutation.

YouTube API[edit | edit source]

Like SaveFrom's web browser extension(previously-mentioned / see above), this isn't like a typical HTTP-traffic video-file sniffer (that detects whatever files are culled/pulled from a server by ActionScript / Adobe Flash technology animations.) Instead, this functions like all other YouTube video file downloaders, by making A.P.I. calls to YouTube's servers. (In other words, it is yet another tool that makes use of YouTube's API. It doesn't matter whether your web browser has the Adobe Flash plugin installed or disabled or blocked or not (you use HTMl5 video).)

for developers[edit | edit source]

See the developer's (maker's/author's) profile on Mozilla Add-ons directory. He offers several pieces of software.

The developer's own official website (homepage)&#;: rushbrookrathbone.co.uk

iaextractor[edit | edit source]

According to rushbrookrathbone.co.uk, (the web browser extension) "contains a pure JavaScript library to extract the ORIGINAL audio file out of FLV video format also in integration with FFmpeg it converts audio and video files to MP3 format. "

This is ia extractor(space added by me)

The codebase is available through his GitHub profile website, which hosts the code-bases (and revisions) of several software projects of his (all Firefox browser extensions?)&#;:

iaextractor on GitHub: "A pure JavaScript AAC extractor for FLV format."

* Also on Source Forge: rushbrookrathbone.co.uk://rushbrookrathbone.co.uk

He also offers a Media Converter and Extractor "Media Converter and Muxer is an easy to use video and audio converter and muxer. "

is an open-source project for converting media content that is contained/housed/packaged and (as well as the media streams that are) encoded in various compression algorithms / formats.

One of the java scripts ( files) included (packed) within the "extractor" web-browser extension is designed to call the ffmpeg (self-executing binary app/program / executable program). This requires that such a is installed.

Download Flash and Video[edit | edit source]

Download Flash and Video is a Firefox extension
that can (in contrast with the ones previously mentioned above) download all sorts of videos, including YouTube (even when no FlashPlugin is present and instead HTML5 video is used))
as well as any video file (.mp4 or .flv) sent through / played with a flash animation .swf player), as well as the animation (ActionScript) Shockwave Flash file itself!

Download Flash and VideoGet the latest .xpi here, which is (currently) version ( November 8th).

Also see their developer's profile on Mozilla. The developer has its own (official) website: rushbrookrathbone.co.uk, on which the official changelog ("versions") seems to lag behind what's on rushbrookrathbone.co.uk (official Firefox extensions respository). For example, it now (as of December 22) (still) states: "Latest VersionVersion (May 24, )"

In my experience, this particular extension was certain (could be relied upon) to identify and allow the downloading of the files, but not always/necessarily the video files (, , )! (under certain conditions / in certain particular cases)

Yes, this browser extension is good at/for identifying and downloading (any/all) embedded (Shockwave-flash) animation files. It can do this in addition to allowing the downloading of the actual video content (video and/or audio (multimedia) files that actually play through -- You see: when the Adobe Flash plugin is used, the media players (that provide transport/playback controls) is embedded in a webpage in the form of a ShockWave-Flash animation file ("").

The little (down-pointing arrow) icon should be visible on the right edge (end) of the ? add-ons&#;? toolbar. In other words, look for an icon in the bottom-right of your Firefox browser window. Once Firefox loads a webpage that has any detectable embedded flash animations (whether ads or actual media/movie players), that icon will become red-coloured, which indicates that it recognised files that it can offer to download. Clicking on that down-pointing arrow button will present a list of any files that it detected. However, it has not detected video files that play through flash animations. In order for the video file to be downloaded, it is necessary to first click play (in the .swf animation that serves as a player / transport control for the video playback) to start playing any flash video, and THEN, the video files should be visible , listed by this extension.

One way this extension's UI is exposed is on the Add-on/extensions toolbar. Make sure that the AddOn Toolbar is visible in your Firefox U.I (shell/"chrome" of the web browser). A keyboard shortcut for doing this is + (forward slash). In recent versions of Firefox, that toolbar is no longer available, unless on of the following extensions are installed to restore it: rushbrookrathbone.co.uk?q=add-on+toolbar.

FVD[edit | edit source]

Flash Video Downloader from FVD (username: pos1t1ve (a.k.a.: "Nimbus Web Inc") on the Mozilla repo). Download the latest .xpi which is now (which was released December 3, and consists of code changes made mostly November 17th, and 19th). I am not able to right-click (get a context menu) on a link to any video that it detects and allows to be downloaded and copy URL of target.

rushbrookrathbone.co.uk

Currently supported sites: YouTube, Google Video (rushbrookrathbone.co.uk), DailyMotion (rushbrookrathbone.co.uk), Metacafe (rushbrookrathbone.co.uk), rushbrookrathbone.co.uk (rushbrookrathbone.co.uk), rushbrookrathbone.co.uk (rushbrookrathbone.co.uk), rushbrookrathbone.co.uk (rushbrookrathbone.co.uk) and others.

Now you can download Flash Games from: rushbrookrathbone.co.uk, rushbrookrathbone.co.uk, rushbrookrathbone.co.uk, rushbrookrathbone.co.uk, rushbrookrathbone.co.uk, rushbrookrathbone.co.uk, flashgamescom

ffmpeg bundled[edit | edit source]

A nice Windows build of is bundled with the XUL Mozilla Firefox web browser extension installation package.

Examine the contents of the package ( file) with or WinZip or any archiving software. Navigate to: (, within the archive) and find:

• rushbrookrathbone.co.uk
• avcodecdll
• and 4 other files

Windows build from rushbrookrathbone.co.uk[edit | edit source]

This extension is also featured on rushbrookrathbone.co.uk: "Flash Video Downloader Youtube Downloader for Firefox"

one reviewer, brianc wrote: "full of spyware" (on apr 9).

one reviewer (CyberknightMK) on Mozilla's official extensions/add-ons website for Firefox wrote about spyware, as well: "Surf Canyon spyware " [5].

Now CNET's rushbrookrathbone.co.uk offers a direct URL to the XUL .xpi package from the maker's official website which is older than what Mozilla (Firefox)'s repository of XUL files offers (). It's dated: "" (UTC/GMT) -- Version is not listed among versions on Mozilla's (changelog / revision history of the extension).

I examined the contents of the actual file () (which is a .ZIP (PKzip WinZIP container/archive/package file), essentially)
and I see, within its folder/directory tree/structure, a folder: "" which contains Windows (win32) -only compiled binaries: s and an . However this is true only for the "FFmpeg" component of this software, it seems. The rest of the contents of the package/archive/extension should work with any Firefox browser, regardless of which OS (underlying platform) that it is running on (environment that the Firefox browser is running within).

Video Download Helper[edit | edit source]

official homepage (website)

Firefox extension page on rushbrookrathbone.co.uk

I find the User Interface (U.I.) of this browser extension to be confusing. I find it difficult and confusing
to tell which detected video files (that it lists as being available for download from a drop-down list (<-- which is the main feature of this software)) are relevant to

• the current webpage that's presently displaying within (and loaded by) your web browser
  • whether it's the currently active tab (or browser window) (that's displayed in the forefront of your screen/display/monitor, visually) ,
  • or another neighboring browser tab or window (that isn't currently at the forefront of the display / User Interface).
• or, if it's media that was playing on a page that was previously visited and is now (not displaying presently, but instead is) in previous browsing (window or tab navigational) history

as well as: which is up-to-date or old (or started playback partway into the file). The UI (UX) is not as clear as the others I mention here like (see above sections/headers (within this article here)):

FlashGot[edit | edit source]

The FlashGot extension features FlashGot Media section/feature/aspect.

rushbrookrathbone.co.uk

rushbrookrathbone.co.uk

Download:: xpidirect from his website

latest from Mozilla

on rushbrookrathbone.co.ukormAction, also makes NoScript, another popular and featured FF add-on. flashgot_mass_downloaderfx+sm+rushbrookrathbone.co.uk (XPI package/installer)

Graugon also featured XUL XPIs like Firefox Video Download Helper

SoftPedia offers a more up-to-date (in fact, perfectly up-to-date from upstream developer, latest stable release): [6]changelogflashgotxpi

UnPlug[edit | edit source]

UnPlug saves video and audio which is embedded on a webpage. This extension is provided by h2g2bob, who has a website of his own. Download the latest verson, which currently stands at &#;; previously: . Is this based upon a PHP script?

Adobe HDS[edit | edit source]

If, the browser's web inspector (web Debugger/Developer tool) (see above) lists files that bear a filename suffix/extension of "", which are between 1 and 2 MiBs in size -- that is a sign that ?DASH? Adobe HDS technology is being used for serving the video that is playing. These files are NOT playable (in VLC, Mplayer, etc.), as they are. These files need to be converted. Fortunately, there is a tool for that

PHP script for [7]

Additionally, the developer (K.S.V.