/2012/03/26/howto-youtube-download/
{"item":{"status":"visible","url":"\/2012\/03\/26\/howto-youtube-download\/","trash":"","name":"howto-youtube-download","parent":"","title":"HowTo: Download a YouTube video only using your browser","date":"2012-03-26 11:35:13","filepath":"posts\/20001448_howto-youtube-download.xml.json","type":"post","content":"<img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1451\" style=\"margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;\" title=\"download flash youtube link\" src=\"http:\/\/www.8bitrobot.com\/media\/uploads\/2012\/03\/download_package.png\" alt=\"download flash youtube link\" width=\"107\" height=\"128\" \/>So you want to save a YouTube video? \u00a0You've probably used a search engine and found tools like <a href=\"http:\/\/keepvid.com\/\">KeepVid<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/keep-tube.com\/\">Keep-Tube<\/a>, and a plethora of browser extensions for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chromeextensions.org\/other\/easy-youtube-video-downloader\/\">Chome<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/addons.mozilla.org\/en-US\/firefox\/addon\/video-downloadhelper\/\">Firefox<\/a>.\n\nYou probably thought twice \u00a0about using those tools because adding an extension to your browser or running a Java Applet inside it can be a security risk. \u00a0It makes you wonder why you can't simply obtain a link to the flash file to download. \u00a0It's saved (cached) on your computer when you watch a video anyway...\n\nWell, you can get a link to the flash file (.flv) on a YouTube video without needing anything but your browser if you are using Chrome. \u00a0If you are using Firefox, you can use the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/getfirebug.com\/\">FireBug<\/a> developer tool extension.\n\nHere's how you do it. \u00a0I'll keep it short and sweet, but keep in mind the method is similar for both Chrome and Firefox.\n\n<strong>Overview: <\/strong>Use developer tools to see which files are being sent from the server, identify the video flash file, then obtain a link to it.<!--more-->\n\n<strong>Steps to obtain a Flash link to a YouTube video:<\/strong>\n<ol>\n\t<li>Open your browser.<\/li>\n\t<li>Open the appropriate developer tools (Chrome: CTRL+SHIFT+I, \u00a0Firefox<a href=\"https:\/\/addons.mozilla.org\/en-US\/firefox\/addon\/firebug\/\">*<\/a>: F12).<\/li>\n\t<li>Click on the Network or Net tab.<\/li>\n\t<li>May need to enable Network Monitoring (obvious if you see an explanation in the Net tab).<\/li>\n\t<li>Navigate to the YouTube video.<\/li>\n\t<li>When the video loads monitor the file list and find the one that is the flash file. \u00a0On Chrome, the type will be \"video\/x-flv\" and named something like videoplayback. \u00a0On Firefox, it can be named the same \"GET videoplayback?....\", but you will need to click on the file to see the type, \"video\/x-flv.\" \u00a0If you have trouble, just look for the file that has a long transfer time... the one that continuously transfers (See the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.8bitrobot.com\/media\/uploads\/2012\/03\/flash.jpg\">image below<\/a>).<\/li>\n\t<li>Right click on the file and choose either \"Copy link address\" or \"Copy location.\"<\/li>\n\t<li>Now you have the link. \u00a0However, before you can use it, <em>make sure you close the original YouTube video webpage<\/em>. \u00a0YouTube has smart caching logic so that only one of your connections will be active at one time.<\/li>\n\t<li>You now have two choices:\n<ol>\n\t<li>Paste your link into your browser (after closing the previous playing video), then doing a \"Save As\" to save it to your computer. \u00a0This will download the video a second time, which is why I recommend...<\/li>\n\t<li>Create a link, right clicking it, and choosing \"Save link as...\" \u00a0How do you do this? \u00a0Use <a href=\"http:\/\/www.8bitrobot.com\/utilities\/linkit\/\">this tool<\/a> to create an HTML Link for you.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.8bitrobot.com\/media\/uploads\/2012\/03\/flash.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1453 aligncenter\" title=\"getting youtube video flash link with chrome developer tools\" src=\"http:\/\/www.8bitrobot.com\/media\/uploads\/2012\/03\/flash-300x205.jpg\" alt=\"getting youtube video flash link with chrome developer tools\" width=\"300\" height=\"205\" \/><\/a><\/p>\nNow you can get a link to the flash video on YouTube with only your browser. \u00a0Expect a later post on how to convert a flash video into another format like mpeg."}}
