Here are ten handpicked tools that can help you make the most of YouTube. Among these, are tools that will help you block ads, remove comments, accelerate video buffering and download YouTube videos in different formats like 3gp, MP4, FLV, HD and more, easily.
1) High Quality Videos
YouTube video quality can vary depending upon certain factors. If you have a computer with good configuration and good Internet speeds then watching videos in their best possible quality won’t be a problem. Here’s a user script that can help you view videos in 720p High Quality. To install this user script, simply visit the following site: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/31864. Click Install. This script also gives you more features like auto-looping, downloading in multiple formats, removal of in-video ads, etc. You need to make sure that your browser supports such scripts.
2) YouTube Prevent Autoplay
It’s a great tool, for advanced users, to block Autoplay of YouTube videos. This can be used with any browser that has a script editor like Firefox has Greasemonkey. It is available at the following site: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/12008. Once on this site, simple click ‘Install’. The script will be automatically installed into your browser and will take effect immediately.
3) YouTube Comment Snob
Comments in YouTube can sometimes be quite annoying. Here’s a great Mozilla Firefox add-on that can get rid of invalid comments posted on any video. ‘Comment Snob’ doesn’t remove all comments from YouTube page; rather, it filters out comments that fulfill the following criteria: More spelling mistakes that those specified (value is customizable), no capitals, all capitals, no sentence case, unnecessary punctuations and profanity. It is available for download at the following site: http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7115.
4) Quietube
Searching for a video and loading it can be quite cumbersome on a computer with a slow Internet connection. Here’s something that can considerably lighten the load on your browser while viewing videos. All the elements on the page will be removed and you will see your video on a plain white page without any other elements. This keeps distractions to a minimum and lightens the load on the browser. All you have to do is visit http://quietube.com. On this page, you will come across a ‘quietube’ button. Click and drag this button and drop it on the tab or on the page that has the YouTube video playing.
5) Easy YouTube Video Downloader
This one is my personal favorite.
If you use Mozilla Firefox, then here’s a fantastic tool to help you download videos directly from YouTube. However, since this is a Greasemonkey script you will have to download the script editor from the following site: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748. Once you install this Greasemonkey, visit the site: http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10137. Click ‘Download now’ on this page to install the add-on. Once you install this script you will be able to download videos from YouTube in four formats, FLV, 3GP, MP4 and HD Quality. You can specify the name of the file while saving it.
6) KeepVid.com
The main problem that surfaces when you try to download large files with videos is slow Internet speed. Users with low bandwidth speeds have to often bear the brunt of failed downloads and timed-out connections. Keepvid.com is a great site to get your YouTube videos downloaded without worrying about the bandwidth. Simply copy the YouTube video link from the address bar and paste it in the textbox in http://keepvid.com. You will see two different download links available; one for FLV (low quality) videos and one for MP4 (hight quality) ones. Select your desired format to download the video.
7) Vixy.net
Just like keepvid.com, but Vixy.net provides more formats. after entering the link in the textbox, select the file format from the dropdown box that’s provided below and click ‘Start’. Visit http://vixy.net.
8 ) Sprink
Browsers are often responsible for slowing down videos and causing them to load after a long time. If you feel that your browser is slowing you down then you can always switch to Sprink. This is great tool to enjoy YouTube videos on a Standalone Player. A major advantage of using a standalone player is that it allows you to continue with other work while still keeping the video in view on your desktop. Sprink can be downloaded from here: http://redmondpie.com/a-wpf-based-youtube-client-for-windows.
9) Speedbit
Insted of waiting for your YouTube videos to load at a snail’s pace and watching it later, because of a slow connection, you can get the videos in jiffy. Thanks to SpeedBit Video Accelerator, streaming and buffering speeds are upped, thus getting rid of interruptions caused because of lagging. Visit the following site: http://videoaccelerator.com to download the application. This application can also increases the speed of streaming multiple YouTube videos at a time.
10) Tubestop
By default, when a YouTube video loads, it starts playing automaticlly. There are number of resons for which users may not want videos in YouTube to play automatically. Mozilla Firefox users can disable the Autoplay feature of YouTube with the help of an add-on called Tubestop. This is available at following link, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6648. Users can also use this tool if they want to open up multiple videos in YouTube and want to view them one at a time.
CoreDump: “unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep” – my daily unix command list
Super post, Need to mark it on Digg
Have a nice day
IcyVideo is better than KeepVid.
Try it: http://www.icyvideo.com/
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