Mac owners have fewer options to pick from – but that doesn’t mean we’re out of luck. There are several YouTube downloaders available that work as well or better than anything you would find on Windows.

ClipGrab

If you’re looking for one piece of software that can handle not just YouTube downloads, but also a number of other sites, ClipGrab is a good choice.

What I like about ClipGrab is the interface. Instead of asking you to enter a YouTube video’s link, you can search YouTube through the software to find relevant videos. This search function is quick and returns relevant content, though it is limited to four results – a handicap I’d like to see removed.

ClipGrab can also download via URL. The manager could not be easier to use and allows for a number of different download formats including MPEG4, WMV and OGG (among others).

Though the search function only works with YouTube, the software is capable of downloading from some other sites if you enter a video’s URL. Supported sites include Clipfish, Collegehumor, Dailymotion, MyVideo, MySpass, Sevenload, Tudou and Vimeo.

ClipGrab works with all recent versions of OS X.

Fastest Free YouTube Downloader

As the name implies, Fastest Free YouTube Downloader is built to be speedy. It is supposedly able to download videos at over 5MB/sec – if you have an Internet connection that can support it.

In my testing I was only able to achieve a maximum of 1.9MB/sec, which is among the quicker download speeds I’ve been able to achieve with my connection. Stopwatch tests showed that this software does download a three minute long 720p clip at least twenty seconds faster than the other programs here. So it appears there is some merit to the “fastest” label.

What you may like even more, however, is the direct interface and large number of video conversion options. You only need to enter a YouTube video link and hit Start Download – but before you do that, you can choose to save the video in one of over 40 formats.

Fastest YouTube Downloader works with OS X Snow Leopard and Lion.

4k Video Downloader

Another simple YouTube Downloader, 4k Video Downloader supports not only YouTube but also a number of other sites such as Vimeo and Dailymotion. You download videos simply by copying the URL from your browser and then clicking the “Paste URL” button in the software.

Nothing special, right? But 4k does offer something a bit unusual – the ability to download entire YouTube playlists. You can do this simply by pasting the URL of any video that is a part of a playlist. The software automatically detects it and will give you the option to download all related videos.

Conversion options are limited, but include the most popular options – FLV, MP4, MKV and MP3. You can choose video quality and format each time you download, or you can enable “smart mode” which applies the same options to all videos automatically, taking an extra step out of the process.

4k Video Downloader works with all recent versions of OS X.

Tubulator

This app calls itself “the YouTube browser.” Like ClipGrab, there is a search function included – but it’s far more robust, and allows for far more results to appear. And yes, it does work like a browser. You enter the term you’d like to search for in the search bar, and results appear. Tubulator doesn’t just give you results either – it actually gives you a fair amount of information including thumbnails, duration, quality and more.

When it comes time to download, you won’t find many format options. Video is converted to MP4, while audio-only downloads can be converted to MP3 or OGG. You can also select a preferred video quality.

Obviously, this isn’t the best choice if format choice is your primary concern. It is, however, a good choice if you want to browse videos rather than download a specific video you’ve already viewed.

Tubulator works with all recent versions of OS X.

Conclusion

Of the options here, I’ve used ClipGrab the most in the past. I like the interface and the conversion options are good enough for my needs.

I’m also partial to Fastest Free YouTube Downloader, however – and 4k Video Downloader’s ability to handle playlists is great, as well. Several of my favorite YouTube channels group similar videos by playlist, making 4k the best option for grabbing a lot of content at once.

I suggest giving all of these options a shot to discover which one works best for you.

We mentioned YouTube Remote briefly in MakeUseOf Directory, but after TKCOLE’s recommendation I just had to try it out. I was so impressed with it, I decided to write up a tutorial showing exactly how to set it up and what it does. So, TKCOLE, if you’re reading this, thank you for the recommendation!

Setting It Up On The Phone

When you first start the app, it will pop up a short explanation ask you to agree to the Terms of Use. Next, it would ask to associate with a Google account:

(I blurred my account on the screenshot, but you get the point.) Once you grant it permission, it connects to that account and then shows this interesting “pairing code” screen:

Now, this is where YouTube comes into the picture. The application makes use of YouTube’s Leanback interface, so let’s go check that out.

Setting It Up On YouTube

This is YouTube Leanback, a version of YouTube aimed for use with televisions and other large monitors. It is very visual, and looks a bit like a cable guide or a channel selection interface in a TV. Next, within My YouTube, scroll all the way to the right until you see the Pair button (it’s at the very end, after the Sign Out button).

Click the huge Pair button or tap Enter, and the pairing interface will appear:

You can either type the nine-digit pairing code into your phone, or use the phone to scan the QR barcode. Let’s switch back to the phone and scan the QR code:

I also picked a name for the screen (imaginative, I know). Once that’s done, tap Add Screen. That’s it!

Now you get an interface full of videos, a search bar, subscriptions, and more. Let’s tap a Julia Nunes video:

It’s magic! I tapped the video on my phone, and it just started playing in the browser on my desktop. How awesome is that? Also, note the different control interface used by Leanback. Those buttons disappear after a moment. Back on the phone, you see this:

You can seek the video, pause it, share it, and more. And what’s even cooler is that you can use your phone’s hardware volume buttons to control the volume of the video.

Since YouTube is generally made up of short videos, the app also lets you queue them up very easily by tapping the Plus button next to each video. You can then set up an entire evening’s watching on the app, hit Play and not have to think about it again.

Final Thoughts

One of the coolest aspects of using YouTube Remote is that you don’t actually have to be signed in on the computer side. This means you can use the app to control YouTube on any random computer that comes across your way without having to type your Google Account password and possibly allowing other people to access your Gmail or other personal information.

It’s a very simple app to use, but I love it because it it’s one of those rare apps that make technology feel a little bit like magic. Absolutely awesome, and definitely worthy of inclusion in our Best Of Android list.

Non-Stop Nyan Cat! is surely the best way of embracing the damn thing. And you can make use of this particular website by testing your own tolerance levels and the tolerance levels of those around you. I swear that anyone who can spend longer than 10 minutes on the Non-Stop Nyan Cat! site deserves some kind of medal. A Nyan Cat-shaped one, obviously.

What The Hell Is Nyan Cat?

Nyan Cat is made up of three different components: an animated GIF drawn to show what a creature combining a cat and a Pop-Tart would look like, a remix of a Japanese pop song with the Japanese word for “Meow” repeated over and over on a loop, and a YouTube video bringing the previous two components together in one glorious whole.

Non-Stop Nyan Cat!, meanwhile, is a website featuring our titular hero. He dons many disguises, his catchy tune changes wildly, but it’s still Nyan Cat and he’s still as annoying as anything you could ever possibly imagine. In triplicate.

Pick A Flavor, Any Flavor

Non-Stop Nyan Cat! features an astonishing array of Nyan Cat’s brethren. Click on ‘Pick A Flavor‘ and a sidebar appears with a smörgåsbord of 23 choices (at the time of writing) for you to pick from. You surely have to try them all, don’t you? I did, and it hasn’t done me any harm. Everyone does have a rainbow trailing behind them as they fly, don’t they?

Three of my favorite twists on the original Nyan Cat are:-

Ganja Nyan

To become Ganja Nyan, Nyan dons a Jamaican beanie, and steel drums are thrashing out the original tune. Stereotyping at its best.

Jackson 5 Nyan

To become Jackson 5 Nyan, Nyan dons a huge 1970′s-style afro and the original tune is cleverly entwined with I Want You Back by the Jackson 5.

Retro Nyan

To become Retro Nyan, Nyan enters a sepia world as if he has been given a part in a Charlie Chaplin-esque silent movie. The piano cover of the Nyan tune is very fitting.

Test Your Tolerance

How much of Non-Stop Nyan Cat! can you stand?

I managed 600 seconds (or 10 minutes). At which point I was ready to either put my fist through the screen or kick my own cat purely because he vaguely resembles Nyan Cat. In the end I merely took a screenshot as proof of my powers of tolerance and quickly shut the page. Then I lay in the bath sobbing for a while in order to recover from the emotional turmoil I had just put myself through.

See if you can do better. Just don’t cheat by muting the volume. Suffer! Like I did. Not that I’m bitter, you understand.

Annoy… Everyone

Once you’ve got sick of testing your own tolerance levels for listening and watching an animated flying cat with a rainbow shooting out of its backside, it’s time to annoy everyone else with it.

Whether you’re at work, school, in a public library, or even at home, I’d say it’s entirely appropriate to hijack a friend or colleague’s computer and make him sit through Non-Stop Nyan Cat. Just open the website, pick your favorite flavor of Nyan Cat and walk away quickly. And quietly. Trying not to hum the Nyan Cat tune as you do so.

Sometimes it isn’t even necessary to actually hijack someone else’s computer to annoy them with Non-Stop Nyan Cat! While playing with the site in order to write this article I’ve made sure to have my volume up high. You know, to really get into the spirit of the thing. My housemate is almost ready to throttle me, and I’m pretty sure one of my neighbors (thin walls) had a nightmare involving Nyan Cat thanks to my spectacular efforts.

Extending The Life Of The Meme

You may have thought, like I did, that Nyan Cat was set to be an Internet meme that lived and died in 2011. But no. Thanks to Non-Stop Nyan Cat! and the efforts of many on YouTube, Nyan Cat looks set to live on for a while yet.

You can also have Nyan Cat invade a webpage, or add Nyan Cat to a progress bar. God help us all.

YouTube has many variations on a theme starring Nyan Cat. My favorite of which has to be the 10-hour, 24-hour, and 50-hour videos which feature nothing other than Nyan Cat flying through the night sky. The 10-hour one, as embedded above, is even presented in HD. I’m sure YouTube really appreciated processing that particular waste of time.

Non-Stop Nyan Cat! even features a store selling various Nyan Cat products. These include games, wrapping paper, mugs, and clothes. My favorite of which has to be the ‘Yes We Nyan!’ t-shirt and hoodie featuring Nyan Cat as Barack Obama. I’m easily pleased.

Conclusion

Have you had enough of Nyan Cat yet? Please say you’ve had enough by now. Because I can’t take any more. I’m out. Nyan Cat is dead to me. Non-Stop Nyan Cat! has finally managed to kick my habit of listening and watching this foul creation galloping endlessly to nowhere. Now I need to find a darkened room suitable for me to curl up in the fetal position.

If you’ve ever been to a website, watched a hilarious clip, and thought to yourself, “Wow, I wish I could keep that one forever. What if it gets deleted?”, you’re now looking at the correct article.

Downloading Flash Files Using Your Browser

Saikat wrote an awesome article nearly three years ago that still works like a charm. This method is still my favorite as it can be performed in every browser available. Although the method still works like a charm, exactly as it’s described in Saikat’s article, let’s go back over the process for Firefox.

Start by going to a page with a Flash video on it. YouTube is a good example. You can tell if a website is using Flash to power their video front-end by right clicking on the video itself and looking at the context menu. If Flash is mentioned, there you go.

After you’ve found your video, right click on the page (not the video) and select “View Page Info“.

Now, click the “Media” tab across the top. Scroll through the list until you find the content with the “Type” matching “Embed“. Click on it, and then “Save As…“. A download prompt will come up and you’ll be saving the SWF file right to your drive.

Using Offliberty

Offliberty is my best-kept secret when it comes to pulling video content off of the web. I’m not sure if it can get any more easier than this solution.

There are a lot of ad-filled websites that extract videos from YouTube for you. There’s also a lot of sticky, bad adware that you can download to get it done. With Offliberty, you just paste the URL and then wait for it to crunch some numbers, then download.

It’ll take a few seconds and then your results are in. You can actually rip the MP3 or the entire video from YouTube with this service, but for the sake of this article, let’s go with the video.

Offliberty supports a lot of the most popular video and music websites. Just plug a URL in and give it a shot, pretty good chance that it’ll be able to instantly convert and spit out what you’re looking for.

Just a little warning: Offliberty uses a script to randomize their page background. I refreshed anywhere between 10 and 15 times and one of the backgrounds was set to a very faint image of a male and a female, the female being topless. It was nothing explicit or hardcore and I’d classify it as “artsy,” but don’t use this at work. You shouldn’t be, anyway!

NetVideoHunter for Firefox

NetVideoHunter Video Downloader is one of my favorite Firefox add-ons. This page explains the usage of the add-on better than any, but let me give you a quick rundown.

Download and install the plugin. Restart Firefox. Go to any website that streams video. Start the video. Look at your Add-ons Bar for the NVH icon and click on it.

Here, you’ll see a list of every video that you’ve loaded this browser session. From this menu, you can watch the videos or download them. If using a site like YouTube where many formats are supported, every format should be available in the menu (as you can see it is in the screenshot). Can’t be much simpler than clicking “Download” and saving the video locally.

If these three are less than what you want, check out some of our other related posts:

• Capture Streaming Video From Any Website With These 5 Tools
• How To Download Videos From Hulu The Easy Way
• 4 Quick Ways To Download YouTube Videos Off The Net

What are your preferred ways of downloading videos off the web? Let us know in the comments below.

An artisan is a craftsman who is a master of their field. Here is a collection of some of the most interesting and mesmerizing videos of artisans who take immense pride in their work and strive to be the best at what they do.

Tea Server

I’ve been to a good number of restaurants in my day and I’ve seen waiters and servers with enough balance and dexterity to put trained acrobats to shame. But I’ve never been as impressed with a waiter as I was when I first saw this video.

As if the balancing act wasn’t enough, he pours hot liquid into the cups without dropping or flinching – twice!

Fish Filet

When a skilled man falls into a rhythm with their work, mechanically repeating their actions with robotic perfection, I become enthralled. Perhaps this is commonplace in the fishing industry, but seeing this man filet his fish in record time without leaving anything leftover has left me impressed.

Shoe Shiner Duo

Shoe shining may or may not have a slight stigma surrounding it, specifically that it is a job relegated to those of lower socioeconomic status. But these two men, in shining a pair of shoes, have injected a new sort of life into their occupation. It’s obvious that they take pride in their work and enjoy what they do, and that just makes it more awesome.

The King’s Dessert

Now, there’s nothing particularly difficult with what this man is doing. He’s essentially just pulling and twisting strands of frozen honey. However, you can definitely feel the enjoyment and pride he has in his work when you take in his charisma and charm. Plus, he’s funny. Funny is always good.

Ironing a Shirt

What if I told you that you could be entranced by something as simple as a man ironing a shirt? Most people, men in particular, would scoff at the idea of ironing a shirt. It’s nothing more than a chore, right? Well, this man seems to disagree. Passion can make the most mundane tasks interesting.

There’s a certain fluidity and confidence that this man possesses, and it absolutely shows in his work. You can tell that he has years of experience under his belt.

Santalum Shoes

(Warning: Silence until 0:25. Don’t foolishly pump up your speakers like I did…)

Santalum makes some pretty darn good quality shoes, but they’re hand-made and only available in Indonesia. That’s too bad because I’m sure there are plenty of fashion-heads all around the world who would love to grab a pair of these for themselves. Just watch the video and you’ll see the amount of skill, energy, and passion that is put into every shoe.

Ink Maker

In this video, Peter Welfare of the Printing Ink Company describes his love for the ink making process and what goes into the creation of said ink. Not only is this video highly informative, and not only does it showcase Welfare’s artisanship, but the video is just well made – high production values and fantastic editing.

Every time I start this video up, I can’t help but watch it to its end.

Perfect Cappuccino

If you love coffee and all things coffee-related, forget about Starbucks and pay attention to this guy from Intelligentsia Coffee. His knowledge precedes his passion, and he speaks in a way that just makes the whole topic so interesting. For most of you, this won’t be more than a simple video of someone making a cup of coffee. I’m hoping that the rest of you will be able to see the beauty of it.

Do you have any artisan videos of your own that you’ve enjoyed? Share them with us in the comments!

Image Credit: Shutterstock

This new feature, which goes by the name of YouTube Slam, is a head-to-head match race between two videos at a time, and you get to vote for your favorite of the two. Each week, there will be new videos to watch and choose from, and the votes will be tallied on the YouTube Slam leaderboard.

The videos are not random, you can choose from five different Slam channels: comedy, cute, music, bizarre and dance. Just pick a category and start playing the game!

But it gets even more interesting. Not only can you test your viral-video predictive abilities, if you’re good at it, you also get points. You can then enjoy the game even further by comparing your score with friends and seeing who the best predictor of viral videos is. You can also subscribe to Slam channels to keep track of all the top videos in each one.

What do you think of YouTube Slam? Is it your favorite new game, or a waste of time?

Source: YouTube Blog

That Replay button sure took a beating and all because YouTube does not provide a natural, human-friendly way to loop a streaming video. The above two needs aside, I do like to loop a few videos myself…mostly when I am trying to learn something or a hummable song. So, I usually sit back – pick one of the ways described below – and put the videos in a continuous loop till I switch them off.

You can too. Just try them all once and then pick the one you like.

Endless YouTube

Endless YouTube allows you to set a YouTube to loop a specific number of times. Plus, with this service you can also loop a part of a YouTube video rather than the entire one. The easiest way to use the site is to alter the YouTube URL in the address bar. For e.g. if you’re watching the The Dark Knight trailer at “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx2rhzcIVxo” you can watch it endlessly at “http://www.endlessyoutube.com/watch?v= bx2rhzcIVxo “.

You can also go directly to the site and paste the video ID code in the box provided. You can set the part which you want to loop with the two time boxes. (See Directory mention)

Infinite Looper

You can use the handy bookmarklet or just copy-paste the YouTube video URL in the box provided. You can also use the blue slider to a point in the video to loop only that section. This web service is among the simplest to use.

PlayinUrTubez

PlayerTubez comes with a stylish interface. The site is ‘specialized’ for YouTube playlists. Of course, you can use it to play single videos too. You can enter a user’s name and get all his hosted videos as a playlist. The web app has quite a few controls like a feature to play the highest quality video first and to hide the unplayable videos from the playlist. All the remaining default features of YouTube are also available. You can search for videos from here and also connect to the video page on YouTube. (See Directory mention)

TubeReplay

Take a YouTube URL, paste it into the box and hit Replay. The video keeps on looping till you shut it off. You can also try the links to the two looping ideas given on the site which turn your monitor into a fireplace and an aquarium. (See Directory mention)

YouTube Repeater

The site looks a bit crowded, but you don’t have to visit the site to use its YouTube looping tool. You simply insert ‘repeater’ between ‘youtube’ and ‘.com’ then press Enter. Your video starts playing in a loop. You can also loop a portion of a video by fixing the start and end points. Launch the mini-player if you want the looping video to play in unobtrusively in the background.

Loop YouTube Videos with Chrome Extensions

SmartVideo for YouTube

The Chrome extension’s primary purpose is to improve YouTube play by controlling the way it is buffered. You can set your preferences so that the extension’s ‘smart buffer’ kicks in. One of the features included is that you can set videos to loop. This extension supports embedded HTML5 videos as well as YouTube videos.

YouTube Looper

This Chrome extension for YouTube adds a simple ‘Loop this’ button to on the YouTube toolbar. Click on the button to make the videos play continuously.

Loop YouTube Videos with Firefox Add-ons

YouTube Auto Replay

Hit the Replay button to loop the entire video or specify the time to watch a section of it in a continuous loop. This Firefox add-on helps you to loop a YouTube video without a hassle.

Do this web services, extensions, and add-ons seem like overkill for what is a simple task? Well, you could always use your mouse to replay the video again and again. But ask anyone who likes to watch an instructional video or a specific part of it again and again, and he will disagree. So, tell us if you can make use of these tools to loop YouTube videos. Which is your favorite YouTube trick?

This year, YouTube has reached one trillion views (that’s 1,000,000,000,000 playbacks), and they are now announcing the most watched videos of the year, most watched music videos, most viewed channels and more. On the Rewind site, you can view an interactive timeline of the entire year, with all the most popular videos for each month.

There were many viral videos this year, which one had the most views? Was it Nyan Cat? The talking dog? Was it a baby video? Or the usual cat flick? Watch this video to find out:

If a teaser is not enough, you can watch all the top 10 videos on this playlist. That is, if you haven’t watched them a hundred times already.

So what do you think of the list? Is there an awesome video that’s sorely missing?

Source: YouTube Blog

We really are encroaching on “old internet” territory here, and my first memories of watching these films was in a classroom many years ago. By this point you’ll either already have the line “pork chop sandwiches!” running through your head or you’re staring rather blankly at the screen (don’t worry).

The films that follow earned Eric a cease-and-desist order from Hasbro for using their intellectual property, but it was probably worth it.

Pork Chop Sandwiches

Fenslerfilm’s formula involved taking original clips, removing key aspects, adding hilarious dialogue and sound clips before sewing it all back together again. Pork Chop Sandwiches has to be one of the most famous of all the parodies, and that’s why it’s on this list first.

Interestingly the parodies can often also included additional animation work, or simply basic looping of an animation as is seen in this video.

Body Massage

Depending on your sense of humour, one of funniest aspects of these videos is the inanity contained within. “Body Massage” starring Roadblock is fairly random, and that’s before you even consider that the original PSA must have been advice to stop kids playing with flailing, live electric cables or something.

Body massage!

Skier

A fairly obvious PSA warning children about the dangers of running on ice, Skier involves foul-mouthed kids, a winter accident and one grumpy version of G.I. Joe character Snow Job.

There are very few straight audio-replacement parodies that pack as much punch as this one.

Reggae

What appears to be a “don’t drink the stuff in the medicine cabinet” PSA soon evolves into a reggae sing-along that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever – but who cares, that’s why these parodies are so great.

Those of you who have been wondering for years and years, the lyrics appear to be “Sunshine dey yah, a time fi di bus ride,” in reference to the song “Fun Time Deh Ya” by Night Rider.

Dockside Bars

Some of these parodies make the original PSA messages quite hard to determine. This one, I believe, is “don’t steal your friends bike in front of your friend” which is an odd message to be putting out.

Regardless, things quickly take a downward turn for Johnny who soon learns a few things about his parentage.

I Wanna Get In The Fridge Too

Children! Constantly playing with old refrigerators – am I right? Well, not entirely but that’s what this PSA was originally designed to warn against: the perils of an abandoned fridge.

So how do you make it funny? Reverse the message entirely of course.

Nosebleed

Previously I mentioned Fenslerfilm’s additional animation work that was often carried out to change the tone, voice and of course message delivered in the original film. Sometimes the changes were short but sweet, as seen at the end of this clip.

Japanese

Not only pardoying G.I. Joe but also classic Japanese anime, the audio from this PSA has been completely replaced with Japanese dialogue which has little relevance to what’s actually occurring in the scene.

Basic greetings and phrases are uttered, before the trademark vocal ending is replaced with the Japanese “Jii wara tashi fu sukuru”.

Buzz Lightyear

Opening with an emphatic “I haxx0red your mom’s ass last night!”, this film was clearly meant to deliver some safety tips about wearing a life vest and not falling off boats. That message has not been entirely lost, though it is a lot funnier now.

1, 2, 3, Err…

One of the defining moments of stupid internet humour, this particular film starts out as a baseball match and soon becomes some sort of strange competition between the coach and a student. Additional praise for the outro is also warranted.

The Rest

These 10 should get you started, but there are in fact 25 films in total that make up the Fenslerfilm PSA parodies. YouTube user ‘escapingplutoscave’ has uploaded the lot and you can enjoy them all in the playlist below.

Watch: Fenslerfilm G.I. Joe Parodies 1-25 @ YouTube

Conclusion

Now that all 25 of the G.I. Joe Fenslerfilm parodies are at your disposal why not let us know which ones you prefer in the comments below? Are there any other parodies, redubs or recuts online that are anywhere near as funny these? If so we want to hear about them – add your thoughts, comments and links in the section below!

YouTube for Schools is a special network which school administrators can turn on to grant access only to YouTube EDU content. YouTube EDU is a huge source of educational videos which is divided into videos for primary & secondary education, university and lifelong learning.

But anyone can access YouTube EDU from anywhere, so what’s special about YouTube for School? Using the network, schools can use content from YouTube EDU in a way that doesn’t expose students to inappropriate content. There are no related videos, no comments, and only educational videos to go around. To make it easier for teachers to find the right videos, they have been divided into categories such as math, science and social studies, and are further divided into subjects and grade levels within these categories.

In order to get started, head over to YouTube for Schools and sign up using the school’s Google account. YouTube for Schools can actually be a useful solution for other organizations, who wish to allow only educational, appropriate content.

Do you like the idea? Or do you think it’s bad for education? Share your opinions in the comments.

Source: Official YouTube Blog