Since the World Wide Web invention in 1990, there has been a powerful surge of users in the technological world. The internet world has become so popular that about 60 percent of the world population are active users of the internet. Almost everything you love is a click away, and therefore, life has been a lot easier lately compared to the nineties.
Everybody loves watching videos, be it movies, series shows, or anything at all, and as said earlier, it is just one click away. But not every nook and corner need to have access to the internet for streaming the videos online. For example, my internet connectivity is satisfactory, making it necessary to download the videos and then watch it peacefully. Or there also can be situations where you want to cherish it and give it a save.
One fact to keep in mind is that when life is made more accessible, the number of risks posed around it also escalates. There are a credible number of video downloading platforms that work on various policies. If you are a person who is more comfortable watching your favourite videos without obstruction, there are some things you have to look into.
Perhaps we can categorise the downloading platforms concerning convenience and power, respectively:
URL Entry
This is one of the most common types, and most of us have done this. It is merely copying the URL and pasting it on the downloader, which would provide you the link for downloading the MP4 file on your desktop. This is the simplest and easiest way of downloading and perhaps the most popular.
Some downloading platforms also provide drag to install options placed on your toolbar, which is very convenient, but renaming it would be a hassle. Well, some of them are error-prone, which should be taken care of with utmost precision as nobody wants your system to be infected with viruses.
Firefox Extensions
Some sites don’t possess a unique URL for each video, making it challenging to carry out the traditional URL entry method. So, we need a much more powerful engine to carry out this work. Some downloading platforms like Video Download Helper have an icon placed on your toolbar, and it activates itself as soon as you navigate a page containing a video. This method is quite satisfying as it is simple and is also an immensely powerful tool.
User Scripts
This technique is something that makes downloading more convenient. Scripts can be created that would work on most of the video sites. If you don’t want to have a bookmarklet doing this work for you, you can use scripts like Download Video to appear on the video pages. But these kind of scripts are very glitchy and would not work on video sites like YouTube that has a very tight security software
Downloading Software
Well, this is the moment that calculates your urgency and desperation to download videos. If you want to take this to another level, leaving the browser would be the first step. Another application would be downloaded that is designated only to download and save videos. Finding free apps is another primary task.
There are apps like aloha on the iOS platform that help you download videos from many video sites, including YouTube. The only disadvantage is that these videos aren’t saved on your device; instead, it is held on the app and can only be played on the app. But I don’t think that matters as long as it is present on your system, be it in an app or any other file. Get Tube is another similar software that is a Mac alternative that works only on YouTube videos.
Other Features
The real player has always been ready to download video solutions by carrying out the process by placing a download button around the video like in user scripts options. You could learn how to download videos from Facebook. But it works similar to the app mentioned above, aloha; it downloads the videos and locks it into its system. But moreover, all these are apps and can malfunction or stop working anytime. Hence reliability is a factor that has to be given a lot of thought to.
Online videos are posted in numerous formats like AVI, MPEG4, WMV, WMA, etc. Therefore, the video downloading platform that ought to be chosen should be capable of performing with almost quality. Controlling complicated video and movie formats remain the strength of any video downloading platform or app.
Suggestions
Firefox adds one has been doing a great job lately, where new add one can download or convert videos from any sites recently. It reduces a lot of work and saves up much space and ram that a downloading app takes to run.
But yes, everybody has their preferences. Some like to use add ons, some prefer the traditional URL pasting technique, and some prefer dedicating themselves by using software for this purpose. I choose Firefox to add ons because I don’t download very often, and I’m not ready to compromise on my storage by downloading an app or risk my system by using scripts that come in a lot of glitch forms. Robust with a nominal size works right for me.