As much as I would love for this to be a long hub, it is just far too easy to download YouTube video’s for it to be a long article. There is absolutely no skill or technical expertise required whatsoever, and these are the easiest and quickest possible ways to download as many videos as you wish from YouTube.
In my opinion window’s based software is dying, and Web 2.0 is completely the way to go, so to bring this ancient practice (OK, so a few years old is not ancient!) into the modern era, all of these programmes are browser based, require no software and are completely free. So go ahead and fill your hard drives, your iPods and your mobile phones with as many as you want! If you just want to download music from YouTube and not the associated video then you need my article How To Download Music From YouTube.
Free YouTube Download Sites
http://www.downloadyoutubevideos.com/
The URL given above is a link to the easiest way to download YouTube video’s that I have ever found. Simply enter the link/URL of the video that you want to download, press ‘get started’ and simply wait for your YouTube video to appear on the specified location on your computer. No software, no messing about, as easy as 1-2-3. An added benefit of this site is that it will also download Myspace videos, Google videos and all sorts of other videos too. You could be sticking the video on your iPod or watching it in Windows Media player in no time.
The URL directly above is a similar site, except it is not half as pretty. There is a major benefit to using this site however for many people, that is those that happen to surf the Internet at work (naughty people!). That is because the site downloads via a proxy, meaning that you can find videos on google search (as YouTube may be blocked by your workplace) and then copy and paste the URL into the field provided. The site is just not sexy, but it isn’t half handy!
Zamzar is more than just a video downloader, it is also a handy file converter. Gone are the days that you need to download a stupid 14 day trial of a piece of software to make your files compatible with your brand of portable media player / media software. Its all gone Web 2.0 on us and all this stuff can now be done completely browser based! Great stuff.