The fundamental issue is that he’s looking for someone to provide a free service instead of for someone to provide free software.
The latter happens so much more often because it doesn’t create ongoing costs for the developer.
What’s the best free software?
Yt-dlp
I haven’t tried enough of the options to tell you that.
Personally I use Smooth Video Project anyway, so it’s conveniet to also use their SVPtube tool. It just wraps youtube-dl and provides a little GUI for it.
There are a bunch of other GUIs for youtube-dl too
If you are into docker use tubearchivist as it lets you host the videos as well.
This was legit me untill I learnt about yt-dlp. I remember I used some random ass website for downloading yt vids, since I didn’t have mobile data back then, and I wanted to listen to some tunes while I was going to school. The site would completely mess up file names every single time. Yt-dlp is the reason that pushed me to use cli apps more.
Yt-dlp my beloved
Yeah yt-dlp is an amazing software, unfortunately it no longer works for nsfw without cookies.
jdownloader includes yt-dlp and is generally good if you want to download things that you might or might not be supposed to download
yt-dlp
You can add it as a right-click option to Firefox:
- Install: https://webextension.org/listing/external-application-button.html
- In the Extension options, add an application
- Name it something like “Open in YT-DLP: mp4”
- Set the exe name to the path of a local copy of yt-dlp
- Set the arguments to be -S res,ext:mp4:m4a --recode mp4 [HREF]
- Under the Placement options -> Context Menu -> select “All Contexts”
You should now be able to right click on a YouTube page and choose “External Application launcher -> Open in YT-DLP: mp4”
If you want audio only, add another application in the extension settings and use the arguments -f ba[ext=m4a] [HREF] for m4a files.
I love you
I was surprised at how well it works but anything command line is not for normies
Anyone who’s done “/gamemode creative” is smart enough to figure out “yt-dlp <url>”. Seriously people need to stop acting like typing the most basic commands that you can find tutorials about is some kinda level 9 magic
It’s not that peoplecan’t figure it out, it’s that they won’t. As soon as you mention the terminal they stop listening or thinking
/gamemode creativedoesn’t have that problem because it’s not a terminal, it’s a chat windowI think you’ve defined the problem rather well there…
It’s not that Normies couldn’t use it, it’s that Normies won’t use it.
Which generally helps it fly under the radar so us nerds can have nice things for longer.
I’m not for gate keeping, but I kinda like having tricky things if it means they don’t get ruined/stopped as fast.
Thats why I run it in docker with a web ui (On my server behind a reverse proxy, so I could get HTTPS working)
Shut up, im not a nerd
Metube?
Exactly
Nah I’m sorry. There is a point where it’s unreasonable to expect someone to learn something, but that isn’t it.
Using yt-dlp is extremely straightforward.
Being ignorant and proud of it is a horrid personality trait. The average person knows how to drive a car, how to call others using their phone and how to use an ATM.
Typing 7 characters and copy-pasting a link is well within their abilities.
simply downloading a video? sure, but literally anything else is insanely complicated for an average person.
If they want the music from a video they would have to look through all of https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp and probably still wouldn’t find what they’re looking forThe average person learns how to drive a car, which is akin to operating it. The average person does not know how to muck about in the engine of their car, and should not, because if they do the wrong thing they could break it. For that matter, I wouldn’t even recommend someone OPERATES the car without training.
The terminal is considered for advanced users for the same reason. Learning to copy/paste into the terminal without understanding how to use it could mean I say "oh yeah the fix for that issue is doing
rm -rf / --no-preserve-root.
If you are on an android phone you should check the F-Droid pages for Seal. No commandline, a nice GUI, works great.
+1 for Seal, Newpipe and Tubular both work fine too
You can use the OpenWith extensions to add it as a right click option.
I have this setup for my non-technical family members, so they just right click on the page choose open with -> ytdlp and it saves it to their downloads folder.
You can set up different options for example video or audio only.
- In Firefox install: https://webextension.org/listing/external-application-button.html
- In the Extension options, add an application
- Name it something like “Open in YT-DLP: mp4”
- Set the exe name to the path of a local copy of yt-dlp
- Set the arguments to be
-S res,ext:mp4:m4a --recode mp4 [HREF] - Under the Placement options -> Context Menu -> select “All Contexts”
You should now be able to right click on a YouTube page and choose “External Application launcher -> Open in YT-DLP: mp4”
If you want audio only, add another application in the extension settings and use the arguments
-f ba[ext=m4a] [HREF]for m4a files.There’s GUIs for it though. Obviously not for everyone, but I made my own.
That it can download virtually from any site is pretty useful, assuming you know what to give it.
Grayjay works too, and they have a desktop client now (at least for Linux, and probably windows).
Youtube seems to be blocking that for me
Might need an update. Just fixed mine by grabbing the latest release from 2 weeks ago.
It shouldn’t. When I first set it up the commands I was entering were creating an unreadable file. Double check the format you’re outputting too and dont listen to the people in this thread saying its easy. Its pretty complex.
I just tried it again and the problem seems to have fixed itself
!piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com has a list ;)
Also, I’m just gonna leave this here: https://github.com/jely2002/youtube-dl-gui
Thats what I use now. Got it through scoop.sh.
Pro tip to teach people to fish instead of giving them a fish:
Whenever you’re looking for a new software tool to do something, especially something “sketchy” like this, add something like “GPL” or “open source” to the end of your search string. It might not be quite enough to raise the official site of the best tool all the way to the first search result, but it cuts way, way down on the scam sites.
Or perhaps even better yet, go straight to checking AlternativeTo.net.
Or add “reddit” and check what people recommend Though you would have to use Google or perhaps Startpage
This worked a few years ago, but half of reddit is just bots and guerilla marketers now :(
Hence why reading comprehension is important. You need to assume that people are out to screw you on the internet, so look for their motivations. Someone pushing a paid service could be getting a kickback, whereas someone pushing a FOSS service probably just wants it to get attention so it sticks around.
Yes, but eww.
How dare you.
May as well walk into an AA meeting and tell people they can just keep drinking
?
Reddit is bad and we shouldn’t use it.
But it’s not bad in anywhere near the same way as alcohol is bad for alcoholics. It’s a terrible analogy.
Hyperbole is dead. Everything is 1:1. Please label your jokes.
I respect fully disagree. Reddit may be a shitty corporation, but at least their software is better usable. Most importantly, they have communities there.
yt-dlp
The screenshot is an old version of MacOS. Either install yt-dlp (at the command line) or, and this is better by far, get the Downie app. I’ve been downloading videos all morning.
If on Android, use Seal, a FOSS app that uses yt-dlp and allows you to download the video in a shit ton of format and stuff. Apparently can even embed subtitles and metadata into the files, although I never do that.
I really like Seal. Clean UI, FOSS, transparent about the fact that it’s “just” a yt-dlp frontend
EDM mixes, downloaded as audio only, split by YouTube chapters, thumbnail embedded as cover and the single parts named by the chapter names, 5/5. I usually do an extra step where I embed fideo name and file name splits as Album, Artist and Track and then they’re good to go into my Jellyfin instance.
yt-dlp
Cobalt.tools
On firefox: shift + right click -> save video as
Some say there’s an allow right click extension needed to bring it back for YouTube
Alternatively yt-dlp
The save as option is greyed out for me. I’ve even inspected the element, removed a
class="nodownload", but no dice
Same thing when I use to want to download photos from instagram for… uh… personal research.
