«The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.»
«1984» by George Orwell
I strongly recommend downloading anything you find online that is interesting to you (if it’s legal, that is). Websites vanish, get blocked, stuff get’s removed by kindly inquisitors.
When it comes to YouTube Videos, y2mate.com (/!\ no warranty, not sure what else they do, esp. to your computer, or how they finance themselves /!\) worked fine for me, esp. with a JavaScript browser bookmark:
javascript:window.location='https://www.y2mate.com/youtube/'+window.location.href.replace("https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=","");
Pressed while you are on a YouTube page with an interesting video, it takes the current URL and goes to the y2mate.com website with this URL.
However, I got this message recently:
Finding an alternative wasn’t easy, as apparently, Plugins for Chrome that allow you to download YouTube Videos are not allowed:
So I installed Firefox and looked for suiting plugins. Video DowloadHelper works for some videos, but often it has to convert videos, which requires huge amounts of processing power (= time + fans spin on max) and sometimes embeds QR codes — unless you pay. What worked better for me was Easy Youtube Video Downloader Express, which allows you to quickly save videos without paying (at 720p, which is good enough). Given the obnoxious YouTube ads, I’ve also got AdBlocker for YouTube and for general ads AdBlocker Ultimate installed. Again, without warranty.
Strangely enough, y2mate.com seems to be running again, but it’s always good to have some redundancy. Oh, and BTW, if you use download sites, you can frequently bypass stupid “you have to sign in to see this video” (or whatever the message is) barriers.
