18 Free Ways To Download Any Video off the Internet
Oct. 2nd, 2007 | by Aseem Kishore |It seems like everyone these days is downloading, watching, and sharing videos from video-sharing sites like YouTube, Google Video, MetaCafe, DailyMotion, Veoh, Break, and a ton of other similar sites. Whether you want to watch the video on your iPod while working out, insert it into a PowerPoint presentation to add some spice, or simply download a video before it’s removed, it’s quite essential to know how to download, convert, and play these videos.
There are basically two ways to download videos off the Internet and that’s how I’ll split up this post: either via a web app or via a desktop application. Personally, I like the web applications better simply because you don’t have to clutter up and slow down your computer with all kinds of software!
Free Web services for downloading videos from video-sharing sites
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ClipNabber allows you to download videos from YouTube, Metacafe, etc by simply copying and pasting the URL. You’ll then get a link whereby you can download the file to your computer, iPod, iPhone, or any other media player. You’ll need to have an FLV player for the YouTube videos. Quick and very easy to use! |
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Zamzar is a free online file conversion web application that can not only convert videos off the Internet to AVI, MPEG, 3GP, MP4, MOV, etc, but also converts between audio, image, and document formats. Paste the URL into Step 1 and then convert the file to your favorite format. |
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VideoDownloader is a FireFox extension, but also allows you to paste in any URL from many sites such as Blip.TV, iFilm, and even social networking sites like MySpace. You can also download a free FLV player from their site to play the videos. |
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Vixy.net is another site that not only downloads online videos, but will also convert them AVI, MOV, MP4, 3GP, or MP3 (if you want to extract the audio from the file). Using this site, you don’t have to worry about downloading a FLV player as you can convert it to Windows format. (Same as Zamzar) |
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KeepVid also supports just about any video sharing site out there and the only difference about this site is that it also has a Top Videos section, so you can quickly download the most watched videos around the web. |
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Media Converter is similar to ZamZar and vixy.net, but requires you to create an account and log in. Also, it seems like it only supports downloading and converting videos from YouTube. You can also download their video download program, but it only supports 5 sites. |
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Hey! Watch is an online video encoding web service that encodes video into different formats including HD very quickly. The graphical interface is very nice and there are lots of features and options, such as the ability to transfer any video from the web directly to an FTP server or to online storage. |
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YoutubeX, as the name suggests, allows you to download videos from YouTube. Obviously, it only supports YouTube, but it has a couple of other features, such as the ability to play your video on the site and find popular videos quickly. |
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VideoRonk searches across multiple video-sharing sites such as Google Video, YouTube, MetaCafe and DailyMotion to find the most popular videos on each of them. You can either watch them on VideoRonk or download them to your computer in FLV format. |
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VidDownloader supports about 10 sites including the major ones and can download the videos in DivX AVI format. It’s very easy to use and can also extract only the audio from a video by choosing “Just Audio” on the download page. You don’t have to worry about having an FLV player since it converts the files to Windows format. |
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According to their web site, they support more than 98 video sites including MySpace, CollegeHumor, iFilm, etc. You’ll have to rename the files you download from YouTube with the .FLV extension at the end. |
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This site is a foreign site, but is easy to use and supports most of the major sites. You can also download a free FLV player off their site to play videos from YouTube. |
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DownThisVideo has a nice tag cloud at the top that you can click on to find videos quickly. From what I could tell, this site is mostly used by Japanese because the popular videos are mostly Anime, etc. However, you can still use it to download any YouTube video. |
Video Downloaders for your DeSktop
If you prefer to have a desktop application that can download videos for you, check out the following list:
1. Orbit Downloader - This is by far the best desktop application I have seen for downloading any type of social media off the Internet. It can download videos and music from MySpace, YouTube, Pandora, Rapidshare, and lots more. It has a great interface and carries a very small foot print.
2. VDownloader - A small little application that can download videos from many sites and converts them to AVI or MPG format.
3. VideoDownloader - A useful FireFox add-on that supports more than 60 video sharing sites. It can also download other objects on a web page, such as movies, MP3s, flash files, and Quicktime movies directly.
4. Ares Tube - Another popular video download application that is very small and very easy to use. You can download videos in batches by entering URLs into a queue and Ares Tube can convert them into different formats such as iPod, MP4, MPG, etc.
4. YouTubeGrabber - Not a very fancy program, it simply takes your URL and downloads the file. No conversion is done and you’ll need to install an FLV player to watch the videos.
5. KeepV - Downloads videos from YouTube, MySpace, and Google and converts them to either MOV, 3GP, AVI, iPod, or PSP format.
Hopefully, using one of the tools above, you can download the video you want! I’m sure the arsenal of web services and desktop apps will grow, so this list will be updated as needed.
Aseem Kishore is an IT Systems Analyst and technology blogger. Check out his blog at Online-Tech-Tips.
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Makeuseof rocks! Thanks for the awesome list. I’ll incorporate it into another post similar to the one I wrote here on newsroomnext.com (blog about how to adapt the business and practice of journalism to the Web).
Thanks for the detailed list, I usually just watch stuff online and never really download anything, but in case I will ever want to I know where to go now.;-)
[...] Original post by aseem [...]
[...] 18 Free Ways To Download Any Video off the Interne… - Free Web services for downloading videos from video-sharing sites like YouTube, Google Video, MetaCafe, DailyMotion, Veoh, Break, and a ton of other similar sites. [...]
I think VideoRonk doesn’t work. Or is it just me?
I think so too. Search function is fine but download option never works.
[...] Mashable | MakeUseOf.com Tags:Applicazioni Online, download, Filmati, Freeware, gratis, Internet, javascript user, lettore [...]
Can’t find a downloader for the video site “Xianz.com” Can you help?
[...] Here is a very good guide with lots of links. 18 Free Ways To Download Any Video off the Internet | MakeUseOf.com [...]
Great compilation, thanks for providing this resource! I am looking for a way to download YouTube videos I’ve created so they can be streamed in Second Life with hopefully minimal loss of quality. I’ve tried Vixy, Zamzar, and some others before, but am wondering if there’s something even better for my needs — I’ll be trying more of these tools.
Thanx again for posting this, Aseem! (How long did it take you? I reckon it’s time well-spent!)
I got to use http://youconvertit.com
they are amazing, they have got Document, Images, Audia and Video plus unit conversion.
I foind out that they also provide sending large files up to 300MB of size but it does not easily show, you have to upload the file then select the first option which is “Just upload to send”
Try it, it is lovely and can save lot of time
yeah, good stuff guys so far the best site that i have seen to download youtube videos is http://www.vidmetro.com it not only allows you to Download youtube videos but also videos from other sites like metacafe, dailymotion and so on
Another way to download videos is to go into your computer’s cache where most videos are stored one they are viewed for the first time.
Once you are finished watching a video it should usually be there.
You may have to copy , paste it and then apply an extension like .mov or .flv to get it to work
Try this site. It has examples of how businesses are using video on the internet
http://www.tvwebpro.com
They’re on the ’sample” page.
Play each one and see if you can find them on your cache
Thanks for sharing. I knew about cached copies but had no clue where to find them.
YouTubeRobot.com today announces YouTube Robot 2.0, a tool that enables you to download video from YouTube.com onto your PC, convert it to various formats to watch it when you are on the road on mobile devices like mobile phone, iPod, iPhone, Pocket PC, PSP, or Zune.
Product page: youtuberobot.com
Direct download link: youtuberobot.com/download/utuberobot.exe
Company web-site: youtuberobot.com
E-mail: support@youtuberobot.com
Here is a great gateway site to lots of places to download video from.
http://go-alt.com
[...] 18 Free Ways To Download Any Video off the Internet [...]
How do you down load from foriegn sites? The ones I tried so far won’t do it.
That’s a tough one. I don’t think any of those tools willl work. You need something that can capture and save streaming content. You can try OrbitDownloader, I have mentioned it here
[...] videos onto your Zune player in other ways. Recently I wrote a guest post on another blog titled 18 ways to download videos from the Internet, read that in order to rip the YouTube videos into either AVI, MOV, MP4, or WMV [...]
YOU DON’T REALLY NEED ANY OF THESE PROGRAMS AND USING THEM IS JUST A WASTE OF TIME & BANDWIDTH..
Most of the time you decide whether you want to save a particular video or not is taken only after you have seen the video and liked it. So when you decide to save it using any of these tools, you would essentially be downloading the same video twice.
A better alternate is to open the cache file of your browser and find the *.tmp file that corresponds to the size of the video.. (if you sort it by size, it would mostly show up at top)..copy this tmp file to the folder you want to save and rename the extention as *.flv.. The only thing you need to take care is not to close the tab/window of the web page before copying the tmp to a safe directory.
“A better alternate is to open the cache file of your browser and find the *.tmp file that corresponds to the size of the video.. (if you sort it by size, it would mostly show up at top)..copy this tmp file to the folder you want to save”
Check out first 2-3 tools in the following link, they allow you to grab and save streming content straight from the TEMP directory.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/free-mp3-music-downloads/
I am trying to download some music video from the site 56.com. I try most of the free site that is listed above, but it doesn’t work. Is there any other way? Any help would be grateful. Thanks.
Check othe the link in the comment above. It lists one app, know as FreeMusicZilla, it should work.
There is also a nice plugin available on YouTubeLoader.com to integrate into firefox, it allows you to add a download link under your YouTube clips. There is also a good tutorial on how to install it here. You really should try it. It makes downloading from YouTube so easy
http://www.extractvideo.com - here you can search, view and download YouTube, MetaCafe and Break.com videos.
Is there a way i can d/load a divx movie that is playing on the net.. plz help me …. Thanks
[...] That’s about it… For more alternative ways to download and convert Youtube videos see our previously posted 18 Free Ways To Download Any Video off the Internet. [...]
Orbit Downloader is very nice, but it usually would bring down my FireFox 2 when ever it started. his vas on my new Vista machine. Not sure that it would have any problems on XP.
[...] right-click and left-click each, actually). This can then be converted to mpeg file by using one of the converter tools, or viewed directly using free VLC player. When downloading videos make sure to save them as .flv [...]
Nice article, I always use vixy.net to download internet video, it’s free and works nice for me. I found a step by step guide about it, so share it here
http://www.aimersoft.com/tutorial/free-download-youtube-video.html
Is there a way to capture part of a video embedded in a website? Or, pull just the video from an embedded website and then I can edit it?
Nice article and very useful site…
another new video site is http://www.gisbornetv.com
NG
[...] 18 Free Ways To Download Any Video off the Internet | MakeUseOf.com (tags: applications apps blog capture browser conversion converter download streaming tools howto free internet video) [...]
cant find any site i can get the quicksilverscreen vidss.
Hey, guys! Check this out! This aTube Catcher got a bunch of site to DL from, nice isn’t it? http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Other-VIDEO-Tools/YouTube-Catcher.shtml