Downloading YouTube videos FYI [View All]

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With as many different combinations that there are available for OS and browsers, it is sometimes difficult to figure out which OS and browser will be able to download the videos you want to keep from YouTube.

I can't help with Macs, but I have info for PC users if it helps. Netscape aka Firefox has a plugin to enable downloading directly from YouTube and save the gems you want most to replay over and over again. For whatever reason, Internet Explorer doesn't have any options to do the same, but there is a way, even if it's not exactly the normal way most people will expect.

Every time a person goes online to the 'net, they begin to accumulate "temporary internet files." These files are stored on your computer along with the many text "cookies" that pile up from your visits to different sites in what is called the "cache."

Cookies aren't always the stuff of espionage--sometimes cookies just make it easier for a user to get into some of the websites they frequent often, without having to login every time. A cookie recognizes a user (actually, it recognizes the computer, because of the cookie installed), and offers regular users a more personalized experience.

All those other temporary internet files are the result of your browsing. Graphic files, java applets, javascript, flash, html or other webpage files, forms--these are all downloaded to your computer so that you can look at a page in all its glory. When the cache of files reaches a limit which you yourself most likely set, the computer starts to delete older files in order to get the new ones. You can clean out the cache manually as well: Tools--Internet Options--on the General Tab, Browsing History, Delete. This will flush out the cache and the browser will begin all over again.

But the truth is, your YouTube videos also get shunted to the cache in order for you to view them. And there they will remain until you flush the cache or until it reaches that limit of how much space the files occupy.

And that is how you can save the YouTube videos you've watched on your computer. Go to Tools, Internet Options, General, Browsing History. Instead of hitting the "delete" button, however, hit "settings" and then "view files." The folders of the cache will open in a Windows Explorer window, and you can sort the files, in this case, by size. Why size? The largest files most people download are the multimedia files. And if you go by descending order, the media files will show up right at the top of the list. You can't move the originals, though, to a folder of your choice, but you can "copy." And copy you shall, to the folder of your choice. The files may or may not show up as *.flv files--if they don't, you need to add the extension on to them. They will be named something completely simple, like "video" with no other information about them. You will have to screen them to correctly name them, but always make sure you designate the extension as *.flv so that the Flash player will play them for you.

It's a bit roundabout, but you are able to save them and that's what counts, huh? As an administrative assistant and legal assistant for many years, I always insisted on knowing all the regular ways for performing an operation within a program such as Microsoft Word. I would tell people that it is only when you know the entire action that shortcuts become more helpful. If you don't understand the operation in its entirety, how can you appreciate those shortcuts? If you learn only the shortcuts, you're going to get more impatient when that doesn't go fast enough for you, and end up doing sloppy work. This operation could probably be shortened, and perhaps by some shareware program or freeware, or whatever. But if you can understand the process, you won't get so jaded that you take it for granted.