But here comes the foremost question, is it really possible to download streaming videos?
Well, It basically depends on which website we are talking about. Suppose we’re talking about popular streaming platforms like YouTube or the popular game streaming platform, Twitch. In that case, it’s entirely possible to download videos from these websites with various tools available out there.
How? That we’re going to see later in this article. Some tools and web applications listed below will allow you to download the streaming videos from the streaming websites.
Not all video streaming websites are the same. Some are free; others are paid. Some are really popular; some are the ones no one even ever heard of. So it depends on what site we’re talking about. But for the popular streaming sites like YouTube and Vimeo, there are tons of online tools that allow you to download these videos from the platform.
Various OTT Streaming platforms like Hulu, Netflix, and Prime Video are protected with DRM Protection, meaning you’ll need a DRM-free downloader to download from these OTT platforms. These are special software that allows you to download DRM-protected videos. You could use an online video downloader like FLVTO to do so.
Later in this article are listed some tools that will let you download the streaming videos from the DRM-free streaming platforms.
Do you ever think downloading these streaming videos is illegal? All of the reputed streaming platforms restrain users from downloading streaming videos from their platforms. The two most prominent reasons are:
Companies themselves are not content curators but rely on people to provide content on their platform for which users can monetize their channels to show ads on their videos and streams.
Since the content creators on these websites earn from the ad impression and clicks, the videos have to be restrained from downloading. If people start downloading content offline, there wouldn’t be any ad-based revenue paid to the creator.
All the achieved views will not churn out any royalties to the content creator making it bad for both the creators on the platform and the company who is providing the platform.
The second reason is to protect the integrity of the copyrighted material that creators upload on the platform. Let's talk about YouTube; you’ll find numerous niches in which creators are uploading their work.
There are singers who put up their songs, and there are vloggers, there are reviewers, there are gamers who go on streaming, and so many other creators doing numerous other things. All of these videos are protected by the standard YouTube license provided by YouTube.
So, due to these reasons, if you try to download streaming videos, you’ll infringe on someone’s copyright and also kill their revenue. As per applicable law, it's illegal to use someone's copyrighted work without their proper permission.
Note: This article is for educational purposes. It does not promote downloading copyrighted content in any way, and even if you do so, please do it only for your personal use rather than using it for commercial purposes.
Let's first talk about the most popular video streaming service that allows users to watch as well as create content on the platform for free.
YouTube is the largest video streaming website with over 2 Billion monthly logged-in users where 500 hrs of fresh content is uploaded every minute, and content of about a billion hours is watched every day on the platform.
FLVTO.CH is an online tool that allows you to download YouTube videos in MP4 as well as in MP3 in multiple qualities ranging from lowest quality of 144P to highest HD Quality. With so many options, you can download the video in any of your desired MP4 quality.
This tool also allows converting and downloading YouTube videos as MP3 files, so you can download any YouTube video as a high-quality MP3 file for your personal use.
The UI is minimal and clean, and even the user experience is excellent; with no ads whatsoever, this tool has just a 2-click process to convert and save any video to your device locally.
The most crucial factor for an online streaming video downloader is that it doesn’t limit your conversions so that you can download any amount of videos in a day. Well, FLVTO.CH doesn’t have any limitation meaning you can download a plethora of YouTube videos or audios without worrying about any restriction.
Here some of the most prominent features of FLVTO.CH that is very easy to use for downloading videos from YouTube:
Full HD Video Download.
Choose your download quality from 144P to Full HD.
High-quality audio download.
No ads – clean and minimal user experience.
Two clicks easy process to download videos.
No limitations – Unlimited conversions.
If you’re a chrome user, then here are some of the best streaming video downloader extensions and tools for chrome that you can use in your Chrome browser, any compliant chromium-browser, or the browsers that allow you to install extensions from the chrome web store.
From a recent chrome web store policy update, they’ve removed the plugins that allow downloading from YouTube. Most of the extensions that allowed downloading videos from YouTube were thrown out, and the rest that still survived had to remove the YouTube downloading functionality to remain in Chrome Web Store.
If you want to download videos or mp3 from YouTube for your personal use, You can use FLVTO. The list below contains the extensions that allow you to download videos from other video websites.
Apart from YouTube, another popular video streaming platform is Vimeo, where users can upload and watch uploaded videos. Vimeo is not entirely free, but it allows a free membership with a limit of 500MB storage per week.
If you want to download videos from Vimeo, Vimeo Video Downloader is an excellent option to try out. It’s an online service that lets users download Vimeo videos by pasting the video URL. The tool has new tab pop-up ads, but the process is easy. Some features of the tool are listed below.
Download Vimeo video in High Definition.
It shows you the video preview and downloads size.
It also allows downloading high-quality audio files.
Multiple qualities and formats to choose from.
It also allows conversion into desired quality before downloading.
This is a chrome extension that provides you the options to download videos from any website in multiple qualities. This works on almost all sites, including social media platforms. It scans the web page you’re on to find and lists the found videos with the option to download them.
Allows downloading videos from multiple websites.
Also downloads from social media.
You can download or send videos for chrome cast.
Multiple qualities are available to download videos in.
Install Video Downloader Professional from the Chrome Web Store.
Go to the video page and hit the extension icon. It will crawl and will list the videos found on the webpage. You may require to refresh the webpage once if you’re doing it just after installation.
Select the video and its quality you want to download the video in and click Download.
Your file will begin downloading.
Stream Recorder is a stream video downloader that uses the recording functionality to let you download live and streamed videos. The downloaded data is converted into MP4 format while preserving the quality of the video and audio. It lets you download all the HTTP Live Streaming Videos(HLS) and archived m3u8 videos.
Download any m3u8 video served over HLS.
Preserves the audio and video quality.
You can record live streams using capture functionality.
Delivers an MP4 file.
It May require a refresh sometimes
Your recording may be lost if the live ends and you don’t save it.
Install Stream Recorder in your chrome browser.
Go to the page where you want to capture the live video.
Hit Capture option in extension function.
Wait until you want to record.
Stop and save the file when you’re done.
UnTwitch is a tool that lets you download videos from Twitch.tv. The tool has a neat and simple UI with a friendly user interface. There are no annoying ads, and the site offers a handful of functions while downloading the videos.
Simple and clean UI and User Experience.
Download Video in multiple qualities.
Download the Video as Audio.
Long videos are divided into multiple download segments.
Cool Down Duration before downloading the next video segment.
No Live Stream Download Support Yet.
Visit the web app, Untwitch.
Paste your twitch URL.
Click Submit.
It will fetch the video preview, video details, and available download options.
Choose your preferred Quality option to download from the drop-down list.
Click ‘Download Video’
If the video is long, it will be downloaded in segments with a 20-second cooldown between each.
This is another chrome extension to download streaming videos from a webpage. Apart from allowing to download Audio and Videos present on a webpage, this extension has the feature to download streaming videos served as HLS. All the HLS videos will be downloaded and merged as MP4.
The videos that can not be directly downloaded can actually be recorded using this tool.
As the name suggests, HLS Downloader is an HLS streaming video downloader for chrome. It scans the webpage for HTTP Live Streams and then lists in the extension function that further lets you download the streams as per your preference. It is an open-source extension with the source code available on GitHub.
Install HLS Downloader from Chrome Web Store.
Go to the webpage containing the HLS video that you want to download.
Click on the extension icon, and it will list the HLS Videos in different available qualities.
Click on your desired video quality to download the HLS video.
Savefrom.net is an online tool that you can use to download videos from a huge number of websites. The good thing is that it also supports YouTube video downloading along with other popular social networks. The UI is simple and robust. There are no annoying ads, and the downloading process is quick and easy.
Visit savefrom.net
Paste the video URL that you wish to download and hit ‘Download.’
It will fetch the video details and download options.
Choose your preferred download quality and format from the dropdown and hit download.
This will begin your download.
savethevideo.net is an online app that lets you download videos online. But one of the worst experiences you’ll have after stumbling upon this website is a lot of ads and pop tab ads which is really annoying. For the most part, it works, but sometimes it just reports unknown errors that would stop you from downloading the video.
Easy and fast downloading process.
Choose from available qualities to download.
It has a separate chrome extension for social media downloading.
Sometimes shows errors that prevent downloading of the video.
Way too many annoying ads.
Go to savethevideo.net
Paste the video URL and wait for initialization.
It will show you the available download options.
Choose the download quality and hit download.
It shall begin your download.
Video Downloader Plus is a Chrome extension to download videos from websites. It allows downloading from almost any website. The extension layout is well managed and minimal.
Download videos from almost any website.
Allows downloading in audio format.
You can download as well as send videos to Chromecast.
Choose from multiple download options.
The extension setting allows you to control the format of the video that you want to download.
Install Video Downloader Plus in your chrome browser.
Go to the video webpage.
Hit the extension icon, and it will fetch and show you the available video and quality options.
Click the Download button on your preferred download quality option, and will start your download instantly.
At the end of our list, another good chrome extension to download streaming videos is Video Download Helper. This extension also allows you to download videos from the internet. The best part about this extension is that it's highly customizable. You can control most of the aspects of its appearance. If you’re one of the people who like to customize the appearance of their systems. You surely gonna like this plugin that will also help you to download videos from the internet, by integrating itself right into your Chrome browser.
Customizable extension appearance
Download in multiple qualities.
Also gives the option to download images.
Supports full conversion into other formats.
Downloading streaming videos from YouTube is no longer supported.
Doesn’t detect on most social media websites.
Needs the companion app for some conversions.
Install Video Download Helper.
Visit the webpage where the video is available.
Click on the extension icon.
The extension will quickly fetch the detected videos and list the available quality.
Choose your desired video quality that you want to download and hit download.
It will start your download.
So this was it for the list. You can use your preferred extension or web tool listed above to download videos from the internet as per your needs.
Concluding the article, these were some of the tools and websites you can use to download streaming videos and videos from the internet. Chrome Web Store recently pushed a policy update that removed the extensions that allowed users to download streaming videos from YouTube. As a result, the remaining extensions had to remove the YouTube streaming video downloader facility to refrain from being kicked out from Chrome Web Store Listing.
If you want to download the YouTube videos, try FLVTO.CH. It is a simple to use online tool with absolutely no annoying ad. You can easily download any YouTube video as MP4 or MP3 in multiple video quality, including High Definition Quality as well as high-quality audio.