VideoCacheView
 

I'd like to inform everyone about this wonderful freeware I use frequently, VideoCacheView (http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/video_cache_view.html).
This utility grabs any videos stored in your browser's cache or temporary folder (including of course, Youtube).

If you're currently streaming a video, it's likely that it will be currently stored in the temporary folder as fla???.tmp. VideoCacheView copies that file to anywhere you want (for Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Opera only). It's best if you do that when the video is fully loaded to avoid corruption. More information: http://www.nirsoft.net/articles/copy...temp_file.html
If the video is saved in the browser cache (in the case of YouTube) then it will always be available to copy out of, until you clear your cache.

I've also tried it with IronPortable, it doesn't detect the temporary flash files, but it does detect the browser cached youtube videos.

Unless the site you're streaming the video from uses encryption, it wil always capture those videos 9at least in my experience).

I have recommended this before on the Best Free Streaming Media Recorder, but was ignored.

Ultimately VideoCacheView saves bandwidth and time, no point using those downloaders anymore (except maybe for encrypted videos, ie Hulu, Tv Company sites, etc).

J.L. Please don't take this question personally. I've asked this question before and I'm not sure that I've gotten a definitive answer.

Are these types of programs things that we want to highlight or recommend on our site? My reason for asking is that I'm not clear that downloading or saving videos off the internet (i.e. YouTube, Hulu, and others) is legal?

I imagine that in some cases it is legal, while in other cases it is not. I'm concerned that we are potentially opening up a can of worms if we are not clear in explaining to people what is legal and what is not? Obviously, we can't control what others do with the software, but shouldn't we at least warn people?

It's up to you guys, I'm fine with anything you do about this. Personally, I think this is a great (and different) software for saving streaming videos, legal issues or not.

Edit:
Actually, I'll edit my post.

Also please move this to Software Suggestions, which I think is more appropriate.

J.L., the topic can be in the Software Suggestions Forum too, but on a wider perspective, its alright for it to be here :).

I have used VideoCacheView in the past and yes, it works well. But, recently, it does not seem to work for me, I don't know why. One time, it just hanged, and the other time, it did not show any videos.

Also, I think you have to keep the webpage with the video open, otherwise the cached video gets deleted, if you close the webpage.

kendall, I too am not clear about this, whether videos from video sites can be downloaded or not. But, if you see over the internet, there are many many such software available... some even free and open source... to download videos from YouTube, or such sites. So, if such software are available, that means it should be OK? Really, am not sure.

This is one of those areas where both things are possible i.e. legal or illegal so we have to rely on the personal ethics of those using the software to make this judgement for themselves. We don't for instance ask folks for their genuine Windows key if they post a request in the support forum.

I see.

VideoCacheView hanged for me before as well, but stopped after I upgraded LastPass to 1.66.0. Version 1.64.4 is known to cause this problem, I have contacted the LastPass team about this before.

For Youtube, the video gets stored in your browser's cache, so therefore VideoCacheView can grab it as long as it's still there.
For most (if not all) other video sites, Adobe Flash stores a locked fla???.tmp file in your temporary folder, VideoCacheView can copy it. More info about this on my second link (once again: http://www.nirsoft.net/articles/copy...temp_file.html)

The legal issues are something I'm not going to comment on further.

My view on these issues covers two aspects:

1. It is not up to us to judge how our site visitors use software we recommend. So if a piece of software can be used for legal purposes and illegal purposes we should not exclude it just because someone may use it inappropriately.

2. If we do recommend software that can be used both for legal and illegal purposes we must be very careful never to imply or give examples hinting at any possible illegal use.

A good example is password revealers. These are really handy tools that everyone should have in their toolkit even though some people may use them the wrong way. However when mentioning a password revealer we should never suggest in any way that it could be used to reveal other people's passwords.

I think VideoCacheView falls into this category.

There are some products like keyloggers where the legal use is marginal or non existent. We should stay well away from such products.

Gizmo

Thanks for the advice Gizmo. What you said makes perfect sense.

Totally agree with you Anupam. It used to work great but now it doesn't seem to find any video files. I have updated it and also tried Opera cache view. Perhaps places such as YouTube have got wise to this little gem and somehow blocked it. I"m back to going through my cache manually and copying and pasting the file to another folder and renaming it with the .flv extension - it takes longer but on my tight download limit it's the best option for me.

I haven't really noticed it before (because I just copy flash videos from my temporary folder), but it seems VideoCacheView cannot grab youtube videos from the browser cache now.
Tried both Iron and Firefox.