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The best YouTube downloaders, and how Google silenced the press

(windowsread.me)
439 points Leftium | 1 comments | 19 Sep 25 12:20 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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superkuh ◴[19 Sep 25 17:25 UTC] No.45304182[source]▶
Youtube is a youtube downloader. Everything is a downloader. It's literally impossible to interact with a thing without downloading it and having the data. The difference is that the data is usually deleted later (a silly practice done to trick the lawyers into believing the world is like they think it is, hiding actual reality that would confuse and enrage them).
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miloignis ◴[19 Sep 25 17:48 UTC] No.45304435[source]▶
Agreed, more or less, but I would argue you could make a distinction for a "streaming" situation where say no more than 10% of the data is on your computer at any one point in time, vs "downloading" where the data exists in its entirety at once.

You could encode these terms in a contract or something about allowed usage of a service, I believe.

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superkuh ◴[19 Sep 25 17:49 UTC] No.45304456[source]▶
You could. But youtube's website itself would fail this "only 10% at once" test.
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littlestymaar ◴[19 Sep 25 19:37 UTC] No.45305558{3}[source]▶
Why? IIRC you can flush the SourceBuffer in Media Source Extention and only keep a small part of the video in the browser's RAM at all time.

(It won't work for Youtube shorts though, because 10% of a 30s video just isn't enough for reliable smooth playback)

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1. superkuh ◴[20 Sep 25 01:31 UTC] No.45309038{4}[source]▶
I understand now that I was talking about how youtube currently works and you two were talking about how youtube could be contrived to work.

Yes, it could. It'd only just waste more bandwidth having to redownload and cause more pauses. But people who buy things (the important ones to advertise to) have fast connections and everyone's locked in so google can focus more on advertiser issues over the lower end network user experience.