Good Video Downloader

wrote:
There is a Previous Versions menu at the bottom of this page.

http://download.cnet.com/VDownloader...-10888393.html

Since it's packaged by CNET, watch for adware!!!

Paul
Hi Paul,

I downloaded VDownloader via CNet, but I will try it out after
I resolve an issue with a particular computer I want to
use for VDownloader.

UPDATE:

I fixed the issue with that WinXP PC I want to use
VDownloader on.

When I tried to install VDownloader (from CNET), I received an error
message. The details about the error was not clear, but I think it has
something to do with my OS.

John

There are three hits on virustotal. My guess is, the
program exhibits some behavior that is borderline.
AVG flags it, AVAST doesn't.

https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e...8053/analysis/

I can't find any other reports of value about that
program. As to what it does to the machine.

Paul

Paul wrote:

There are three hits on virustotal. My guess is, the
program exhibits some behavior that is borderline.
AVG flags it, AVAST doesn't.

https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e...8053/analysis/

I can't find any other reports of value about that
program. As to what it does to the machine.

Too bad the AV companies don't agree on a "protocol" for the naming
convention. All I could find is that the 3 AVs at VirusTotal are
claiming the program is some kind of downloader or some generic pest.
Well, yeah, duh, downloading is what it does. Generic? Yeah, real
useful ... not! Users need more info than that to determine if a
program exhibits unwanted behavior(s) and what those are. With
VirusTotal, quite often the alerts are on PUPs (Probably Unwanted
Programs unless, of course, YOU were the one that did the download of
the program). Nirsoft often runs afoul of the PUP detection in AVs
because, gee, script kiddies might use those tools but I don't see the
AVs listing the C runtimes or .NET packages as malware despite those are
also employed by pests.

http://www.whois.com/whois/vdownloader.com
Vitzo is listed as the trademark on the vdownloader.com page. They are
not hiding behind a private domain registration.

The IP addresses (as seen by "nslookup www.vdownloader.com) for their
site are in Cloud Flare's IP pool (a webhoster of many sites). A
traceroute on "www.vdownloader.com" also confirms the site is hosted at
CloudFlare.

I'm not saying vdownloader is malware free. I'm saying the AV vendors
often make it impossible to know if a program really is bad or good, and
sometimes it seems they do so deliberately to qualify their sales; i.e.,
it must be bad because they say so without explanation. They need to
sometimes flag something as bad because a completely silent AV program
might be interpreted by the user as an ineffective one (few users
overall do research to check on AV testing). Think of it as a "I'm
here, don't forget me, I'm doing something" message.

Considering the alerts were from AegisLab (Chinese) and AVG (high false
positives), I'd toss those alerts since they are obviously very much in
the minority. While Fortinet (American Chinese) in the latest
AV-Comparatives.org False Alarms test has zero false positives, that has
not been true in the past. Just last March 2016 the False Alarms test
had Fortinet false alert on 13 clean samples.

Signature detection too often produces false positives. A binary string
with a file matches on a signature and the AV alerts. It doesn't
determine if that string is actually executable code. It could be a
data block. I've had AVs false positive on .vhd files - virtual disks
for a virtual machine that only had a non-updated instance of an OS
(gold version) installed in that virtual machine. Running the AV inside
the VM found no such sig. The results at VirusTotal are only based on
signatures. They obviously are not running the pest on a computer to
monitor its behavior (heuristics).
Also, VirusTotal leaves the AV programs in their install-time defaults
which means PUP detection is enabled. PUPs *you* install are not PUPs.

I've looked at the Av-Comparatives.org False Alarms tests going back to
March 2013. ESET had zero to 3 false positives in that time (but was
worse before March 2013). The others have bounced around a lot as to
how many false positives they issue. Alas, ESET is not free. The only
one that has a free version with minimal false alerts was BitDefender
(in the tests reviewed back to March 2013); however, that is on the
payware version, not the freeware version. AV-Comparatives doesn't test
on freeware AVs unless there is no payware version. However, although
ESET placed well for over 3 years on very low false alerts, its pest
detection by sig is not as good as Avast or Avira (which have high false
positives) or Bitdefender. So being aggressive seems to incur more
false positives.

https://www.virusbulletin.com/testin...-rap-quadrant/ shows
how they judge AVs regarding both reactive detection (using the latest
version and sig database) and proactive detection (older version with
old sig database to determine how well unknown pests get detected via
heuristics). Being high (up) means good reactive detection. Being
further out (rightward) means good proactive detection. Both are good
but you want an AV that is good at both. Until there is a sig for a
pest, proactive detection is all you'll have for discovering the pest.

So, as best as I can tell, VirusTotal's results are inconclusive and, to
me, the vast majority of no alerts means the program is very likely not
malware (but could be a PUP). From https://vdownloader.com/upgrade/, it
looks like the free version (crippleware) is bait (lureware) for their
payware Plus version. $29 seems a tad high (by ~$10) for their payware
version except by comparison to the limited features of their
crippleware free version. They want you to use their crippleware to
lure you to their payware, so I doubt they need to stoop to inclusion of
malware in their installer. You'll end up getting frustrated with the
limitations and either get their payware version or try something else
(which means you are customer they never would have had, anyway).

On 13/10/2016 14:34, wrote:
When I tried to install VDownloader (from CNET), I received an error
message. The details about the error was not clear, but I think it has
something to do with my OS. John


The easiest way to download any youtube videos is to insert the letters
ss. For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NPPE6a7mSI

Can be changed to:

https://www.ssyoutube.com/watch?v=2NPPE6a7mSI

You can now download it easily without any apps to install.

Download http://i.imgur.com/Uk2Jn1O.png

Hi "Good Guy",

I will give your procedure a try at a later date on a certain
WinXP PC I use to try out "stuff".

An older version of FireFox is installed on that PC. I hope that
won't "hinder" the procedure.

Note: I was using "YTD" (YouTube Downloader) in the past, but
then it became "impotent" (unusable). However, it is usable for converting
video formats.

Thanks, John

On Sat, 15 Oct 2016 13:54:29 +0000, wrote:

Note: I was using "YTD" (YouTube Downloader) in the past, but
then it became "impotent" (unusable).

Youtube "formats" are frequently altered to frustrate such third-party
apps as YTD. Then those apps are updated to keep up with those
tweaks.

I haven't used YTD for a couple of weeks (and last needed to update it
about a months ago) but it worked fine then. I'd look at updating it.

However, it is usable for converting video formats.

My current teev won't play MP4's, so I need to convert to .avi. I have
found that the YTD conversion is somehow losing quality in the
process.

pedro wrote:
On Sat, 15 Oct 2016 13:54:29 +0000, wrote:

Note: I was using "YTD" (YouTube Downloader) in the past, but
then it became "impotent" (unusable).

Youtube "formats" are frequently altered to frustrate such third-party
apps as YTD. Then those apps are updated to keep up with those
tweaks.

I haven't used YTD for a couple of weeks (and last needed to update it
about a months ago) but it worked fine then. I'd look at updating it.

However, it is usable for converting video formats.

My current teev won't play MP4's, so I need to convert to .avi. I have
found that the YTD conversion is somehow losing quality in the
process.

Could you transcode with something other than YTD ?

When using FFMPEG, there is a quality setting Q.
A quality setting of 1 makes high quality video
but with a lot of bitstream usage. So the file
takes a lot of space to store. A quality setting
of 32 would look awful. The files would be larger
than they are now, but the conversion should save
more of the quality.

You can convert for a "fixed quality" or for "average bitrate"
where the quality varies. For example, in a Star Wars
explosion scene, the compressor uses an implied Q=32 and
you'll notice compression artifacts in the constrained
average bitrate video output.

For example, this is a command I use for capturing
the screen on my Test Machine. This takes a screenshot
once a second, and uses the MJPEG codec. The quality
is turned all the way up. Each screen frame takes
0.5MB, but, they're fairly sharp in detail.

C:\FFMPEG\bin\ffmpeg -framerate 1 -f gdigrab -i desktop -f image2 -q:v 1 -c:v mjpeg a%06d.jpg

FFMPEG has all sorts of capabilities and manual control.
This would be an example of two-pass conversion with a
target bitrate of 3900k, and intended for DVD playback.
The "bufsize" is an emulation of the buffer an average
DVD settop player has (2MB). The first pass charts the
bitrate required at various points in the movie, and
allows the second pass to select the appropriate variable
Q to make the video fit into the available bitrate.
When viewing a static scene, the available Q=1. A
Star Wars explosion, the compressor tries to stay
with a bitrate of 3900k, and the Q shoots up to Q=32
and the quality suffers (temporarily).

ffmpeg -i G:\some.avi -target ntsc-dvd
-aspect 4:3 -g 12 -b:v 3900k -maxrate 8000000 -minrate 0
-bufsize 1835008 -pass 1 -y NUL

ffmpeg -i G:\some.avi -target ntsc-dvd
-aspect 4:3 -g 12 -b:v 3900k -maxrate 8000000 -minrate 0
-bufsize 1835008 -pass 2 F:\output.vob

For a TV application, you don't have to do it quite like that.
You'd remove bitrate constraint, set -q:v 1 for max quality,
do a single pass conversion, and test on the TV.

It's hours of fun to play with it. The web is full of sample
commands to try out. I use a static build from here, and install
manually in a fixed location. Several of my OS installs have one of
these set up.

http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/ (try a static, C:\FFMPEG\bin)

I see the download page has been messed with a bit. So you
can try their links page instead. The latest daily build
appears to be at the top of the page "ffmpeg-latest-win32-static.7z"

https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/win32/static/

https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/win64/static/

Obviously, you scan those before using them. The site
has never given me trouble, but if some third-party
exploits the site, anything is possible. So scan what
you get, before using it.

It really bothers me, when I see transcodes with the
wrong parameters set. For example, VirtualBox has a
screen capture utility, and it's not set up right.
So I can't use it, and have to use FFMPEG instead.

FFMPEG does screen capture, as well as transcoding.
FFMPEG does not capture all render planes like FRAPs
does, and for Youtube capture, you need to turn off
Flash hardware acceleration, if you expect FFMPEG
to grab the screen content. You also have to set up
sound properly, to get the sound.

This command shows the name of the sound device on
the computer. On Win7, you'd have to set up What You hear
(Stereo Mix) hidden device, you'd turn it on first.

ffmpeg -list_devices true -f dshow -i dummy

Then play around with screen capture. I didn't even
bother with a Q setting for this test. The result
you get, is purely up to your own imagination.

ffmpeg -offset_x 0 -offset_y 480 -video_size 720x480 -framerate 60
-f gdigrab -i desktop -f dshow -sample_rate 44100 -i audio="SoundMAX HD Audio"
-vcodec mjpeg -acodec pcm_s16le out.avi

You can capture in RAW format, but the output is
impossible to work with. The output isn't all that
practical. This is a good workout for your disk drive.
In this example, the output is stored on a RAMDisk.
And the max capture interval is pretty short. My
Test Machine has RealTek audio, with a goofy device
name. This run was probably done in Windows 7.

C:\FFMPEG\bin\ffmpeg -framerate 60 -f gdigrab -i desktop
-f dshow -sample_rate 44100 -i audio="Stereo Mix (Realtek High Defini"
-vcodec rawvideo -pix_fmt bgr24 -acodec pcm_s16le F:\out.mov

Paul

On 13/10/2016 14:34, wrote:
When I tried to install VDownloader (from CNET), I received an error
message. The details about the error was not clear, but I think it has
something to do with my OS. John


The easiest way to download any youtube videos is to insert the letters
ss. For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NPPE6a7mSI

Can be changed to:

https://www.ssyoutube.com/watch?v=2NPPE6a7mSI

You can now download it easily without any apps to install.

Download http://i.imgur.com/Uk2Jn1O.png

Hi "Good Guy",

I tried your procedure, but I was unable to accomplish the
task.

My FireFox browser is an old version and I am using WinXP.
Perhaps that is the reason?

I was transferred to a site (forgot site address) that recommends using
"savefrom.net helper"! I was unable to download that ap
at that site!

IMPORTANT:

You did not explain "Download http://i.im....."

John

wrote:
On 13/10/2016 14:34, wrote:
When I tried to install VDownloader (from CNET), I received an error
message. The details about the error was not clear, but I think it has
something to do with my OS. John

The easiest way to download any youtube videos is to insert the letters
ss. For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NPPE6a7mSI

Can be changed to:

https://www.ssyoutube.com/watch?v=2NPPE6a7mSI

You can now download it easily without any apps to install.

Download http://i.imgur.com/Uk2Jn1O.png

Hi "Good Guy",

I tried your procedure, but I was unable to accomplish the
task.

My FireFox browser is an old version and I am using WinXP.
Perhaps that is the reason?

I was transferred to a site (forgot site address) that recommends using
"savefrom.net helper"! I was unable to download that ap
at that site!

IMPORTANT:

You did not explain "Download http://i.im....."

John

Firefox 49.0.2 runs in WinXP.
Seamonkey 2.40 runs in WinXP.
Both support TLS 1.2,1.1,1.0 and have SSL turned off.
And those help provide support for https.

SSL/TLS have various exploits, which is why the browser
world has moved to later versions.

The "download" image shows an interface for selecting
the format for the conversion process by the ssyoutube site.

I don't think Chrome supports WinXP any more.

Browser support on Win2K is much worse, requiring
the usage of older browsers that lack TLS 1.2.

To test protocol support (when sites insist on using
https when they don't really need it), you can use:

https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/viewMyClient.html

Paul