How to Download YouTube Videos

Sometimes you come across a YouTube video that is too funny, too shocking or too insightful to be watched once and forgotten about. What if I was to tell you that you could transfer your beloved YouTube video clips to your hard drive to be watched again and again without ever downloading a pesky bit of softwre? Here are three websites that make it happen. Downloading YouTube videos is a piece of cake.

1. Zamzar is a free online file converter that allows you to input an URL and convert that linked file to a format of your choice. Information about downloading the new file is then e-mailed to you.

zamzar.com

2. KissYouTube is a website that works only with YouTube. When you are browsing the video sharing website and come across a video you like, insert "kiss" in front of "youtube" in the URL. You will be redirected to the KissYouTube website where you can download the video in FLV, or Flash Video, format.

kissyoutube.com

3. I am including VideoDownloader 2.0 in this list because this website allows Firefox web browser users to add an extension to the browser toolbar that, with the click of your mouse, allows even quicker and more efficient downloading of YouTube videos.

VideoDownloader 2.0

When you download YouTube files from some of these websites, you may end up with a "get_video" file on your desktop. You may have to edit the file name, changing the extension to ".flv" in order to open up the file on your computer.