You can name the file anything you want, but in order to see the video once you download it, you will need a Flash Video viewer A free player is available at but pay attention during the installation or the Yahoo toolbar will be installed in your browser and Yahoo will become your default search engine (just remove the checkmarks during the installation) Simply copy and past the exact URL of the video that you want to download, tell the downloader which site it’s hosted at and you’ll be asked where you want to save the file. There are a number of download “helper” websites that can grab video and download it to your computer One of the more popular sites that can download video from YouTube and many other video sites is.

There are two steps to achieving your objective: downloading the video and choosing a method to view the video.

The reason you can’t just right-click on the video and save it to your hard drive is because YouTube videos are in the Flash Video (.flv) format

That’s not the same as downloading it, but it will allow you to keep track of your favorites. Their method of saving your favorite videos is to sign up for a free account and save it to your Favorites which is only available when you log in. The folks at YouTube really don’t want you to download the videos, because they make their money from visitor’s “page views”, so they designed their videos to only play from your browser. Most of us have gotten an e-mail with a link to a YouTube video that was funny or interesting and thought “I’d like to download that video”. The extraordinary popularity of YouTube for both aspiring videographers and viewers has made online video one of the most consumed types of content on the Internet. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting. This question was answered on February 8, 2008.

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