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Is there a video downloader extension/program that still works?
In the past I used whatever Chrome extension I found, then moved on to youtube-DLG because Google Play store doesn't allow extensions that let you download off of Youtube. Now neither is working, on and off Youtube. I'd wager websites are trying to actively fight people downloading videos, even though (I assume) the data is likely identical to what we're viewing in the browser.
And, if you're not willing to learn it, just running
youtube-dl <url>after installing downloads the highest available quality by default.Hey @pun there is also a GUI/front-end for youtube-dl: https://mrs0m30n3.github.io/youtube-dl-gui/
(I'm sure there might be other similar offerings.) However, as @tindall noted, the core youtube-dl is worth learning. You don't even need to know every single available parameter (of which there are many of them), just learn a few basic ones for your needs. My having learned just a few of the basic parameters has been invaluable both for my convenience as well as a massive time-saver!
Thanks! The thing you linked is actually Youtube-DLG that I mentioned. I asked here just in case there was another one with a nice GUI because I'm lazy. I guess I'll have to deal with the command line anyway. Off to watch some tutorials, I suppose.
Oops, sorry about that. Well, let's call it a "great minds think alike" moment! lol :-)
As far as the command line, i promise you that whatever time and effort that you invest - with any command line tool, not just youtube-dl - will not go to waste and will definitely pay back dividends. ;-)
It looks like youtube-DLG is a GUI front-end to youtube-dl. The reason it's not working is probably because the underlying youtube-dl install hasn't been upgraded in a long time. It gets updates often--typically several times per week--to unbreak what youtube breaks on a regular basis.
As of this writing the current version of youtube-dl is two days old and it's working properly for me on several machines.
If you're uncomfortable using a command line program, try checking the last update date/time of the GUI app you're using and make sure it's recent. If it's not self-updating, uninstall and reinstall to see if it fixes you. All else failing, try switching to something else that updates frequently, or drop to pure youtube-dl which makes it easy to grab the latest.
I looked into this for a friend a few weeks ago. I found youtube-dl-gui to be the simplest. This is a different project than mrs0m30n3's, even though youtube-DLG shares the same name.
I've read good things about Tartube, but haven't tried it. It also seems to be pretty straightforward.
What I ended up installing for her though is Persepolis. It's a bit out of scope since it's not just meant for youtube, but it's a full-fledged download manager. It seems like it'd be useful for enqueuing and downloading whole channels and playlists etc.
All of these projects use youtube-dl as the backend. Perhaps the main benefit of the latter two is they don't have it included, and will download the latest version. Youtube-dl is in a perpetual arms race with google, and every time youtube changes something, youtube-dl needs to come out with a new version. As far as I can tell both "youtube-dl-gui" projects include a static copy of youtube-dl, so you'd need to update the whole program to get the latest version of youtube-dl, whereas tartube and persepolis have options to download new versions automatically. They also include ffmpeg and can do transcoding, embedding subtitles, things like that. Persepolis also has browser plugins available, though I haven't tried them. All of the above are cross-platform and open source.
I'd totally forgotten about JDownloader! I used it in the past to download a few Twitch streams and probably lost it somewhere in a computer upgrade. I'll try if I can get it going again.
Just a warning to anyone else trying it, though: it tries to shove 3rd party apps down your throat during installation (McAfee, really?!). Still can't help getting a slimy feeling installing something like that.
Youtube recently removed the old layout for pages which made some downloaders that rely on them to fail. You have to update them. Youtube-DLG is a simple frontend for youtube-dl, you need to update youtube-dl itself by going to the gear on the top right and clicking update.
If that fails, download the executable from https://youtube-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl.exe and place it in
%appdata%\youtube-dlg(ctrl+v this into the start menu) replacing the version that's there.