YouTube Downloader 2.6.5

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• Quick specs
• Price: Free
• Operating system: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7
• Date added: December 16, 2010
• Total Downloads: 55,840,364
• Downloads last week: 822,384
• Product Ranking: #1 in Download Managers
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• CNET editors' rating: 4.0 stars
• Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 2124 votes
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CNET Editor's Note: Certain scanners can flag the included toolbar as a low-risk malware. The toolbar is an opt-out and is not necessary for the program's correct work.

CNET editors' review

Reviewed by: Seth Rosenblatt on November 07, 2008
This simple freeware application works pretty well, given how basic the interface is. It has two main features: to download FLV files from YouTube, and to convert them to most major formats. If there's a YouTube URL in your clipboard, it will automatically paste it for you when you click on the dialog box. From there, just hit OK and the downloading will commence. One more left-click is all it takes to load the file in the converter, which supports iPhone, iPod, PSP, cell phone, AVI, MP3, WMV, and Xvid. Surprisingly, there's also a basic video editor for cropping videos by time stamp. You can also cut out the sound when converting.
This is one of the lightest editors around, but the simplistic interface belies its functionality and it performs exactly as advertised. We'd like to see support in future editions for hunting down missing codecs, and version 2.1.5 and earlier won't work because of embed code changes on YouTube itself. Still, the YouTube Downloader is proof that not only is video-making accessible to everyone, so is video downloading and editing.
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