Saturday, February 28, 2009

Tips to download Flash Videos


You can get a Firefox addon called,

Live HTTP Headers

1. Install the addon
2. Restart Firefox to activate the addon
3. Open the addon
4. Visit the webpage that contains the video

All the headers will load in the addon. There might be a lot of information to sort through but when you load the particular page with the video, all of the header information is loaded top-to-bottom in the addon. So starting from the bottom of the Live HTTP Headers window, scroll upward looking at each URL. You will possibly see URLs pointing to GIF, JPG, javascript, PHP files etc but you will also see the direct path to the *.FLV file. You can right click this path, copy and then paste it into a new tab to begin downloading.

Also, another solution is to download the Maxthon web browser, which has an option to save files/elements directly off a web page simply by hovering your mouse over the target image, video, etc then clicking the " + " sign that appears. You can do a save-as and that's it or you can use the file sniffer to get the direct path of the *.FLV video or even *.SWF for that matter.

Some *.SWF videos get a bit trickier, but *.FLVs are very easy to download. These methods might seem complicated but they are really not. A lot of the addons for Firefox should work in downloading *.FLV videos, but they don't work (as I have found) for *.SWF videos. More people will eventually move to *.SWF videos because its easier to secure the video preventing less downloads of content they don't want shared. It's not impossible, just a bit more difficult for some people.

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