I’ve been very pleased with ClipGrap to download YouTube videos, but having recently learned about Freemake Video Downloader I thought I’d give this new tool a try.
INSTALLATION
Standard stuff…
In the setup program you will see that the default installation is ad-supported.
I selected the oddly named Parameters settings (which presumably means “custom installation”) instead.
NOTE: I wouldn’t mind some form of gentle advertising in the app – I just don’t want to install additional ad software.
OVERALL LOOK AND FEEL
Really, really, simple and elegant application.
MENUS
OPTIONS
SUPPORTED SITES
Many major sites are directly supported. Also the application is refreshingly candid in its support for downloading pornography. One must know one’s audience! (A blurred out two of the names because I felt they were inappropriate to show on the blog). I also appreciate that they are up-front about what sites are not supported.
DOWNLOADING A YOUTUBE VIDEO
I picked this video of the latest NASA Mars Rover called “Curiosity”.
I copied the URL from the browser address bar
And clicked Paste URL
The app sat there for about 5 seconds, apparently trying to learn more about the video
And then this dialog appeared.
Again, the design of the UI is quite nice. However, I would appreciate some indication which format is the “original” – this is very obvious with ClipGrab. MP4 is the default that ClipPicks for this YouTube video as the “Original” so maybe the tool is indeed finding the original – but it would be nice to mark it that way in the list.
Very conveniently, the app provides the file sizes for the different videos.
Extraction of audio is also supported and even format conversion
I chose Only Download and clicked Convert.
One the downloading starts, progress will be shown like this
And upon completion you’ll see a notification at the bottom of the screen.
Once it is done, you can Show in Folder or Play the file.
QUICK THOUGHTS
- Slick UI – a bitter cooler than ClipGrab.
- Well thought-out UI and feature set – the creators of this software have delivered exactly what is needed
- It is definitely worth you time to try this tool the next time you need to download videos