The number of of multimedia streaming websites like YouTube, Google Videos, MetaCafe, DailyMotion, Tudou, VideoCure, AOL videos is increasing rapidly and has made it easy for all to get a sneak peek of any video or  music track we are interested in. Websites like Keepvid.com are super cool for grabbing multimedia content online but, for now, has a limitation up to grabbing links from the famous websites only.

A wide variety of link grabbing tools are also available and stereotypically, most being bundled with spywares and badly coded toolbars. They suck indeed.

Url Snooper is one of the best and cleanest freewares that grabs and lists all HTTP links that your network is conntected to and also the links that are being read by the browser. This tool makes it easy to understand the source of the embedded multimedia content from any public website.

Click here to visit the download page.

Getting started:

1) Visit the concerned website and hit the play button,

2) Run Url Snooper >> General Options >> Auto Determine Network Adapter Now

You can manually choose the adapter if you know the right one,

2) Click on Sniff Network, Select Multimedia URLs if so, or choose the option as per your requirement.

This app is a freeware, handy, only 3MB in size, and can be used for a lot of things.

A manual method

The most common way to grab your favourite video from Youtube, Metacafe, and any video streaming network is to go to a link grabbing website or to use a link grabbing software. I agree with that, as it’s pretty easy and just a click away. But what can you do if you have already streamed a video online and you want to download it with ‘not’ wasting your time?

Ok. I have a simple trick that anyone can use to grab any kind of streaming media. When you play a online media, it actually gets downloaded in your ‘temporary internet files folder’. Finding it in the ‘temporary internet files’ folder could be a little work for you, depending on the browser you used as the file may be downloaded with a blank extention i.e ‘video’ and ’music’ and not ‘video.flv’ or ‘music.mp3′. Anyway, you ‘can’ distinguish the cached files by selecting the ‘Detailed view’ and arranging the icons by ‘Modified’ in the internet cache folder and with this you can find the most recent cache with the largest size. Now, try playing the file with the largest size on your FLV format supported player. If it plays, then you are done and copy the file to a safe destination! If not, then try playing the next largest file and you will surely get what you are looking for. The trick might sound complicated, but it’s not at all!

Following are the steps for Firefox and Internet Explorer:

Firefox users (Windows XP):After streaming the online video, go to

• My Computer>
• Your Windows Destination Drive>
• Documents and settings>
• Unhide the hidden folders>
• Open the user folder (if you are logged in to windows with name “Blahblah” then open the “blahblah” folder)>
• Local Settings>
• Application Data>
• Mozilla>
• Firefox>
• Profiles>
• Select the recently created folder, mostly located on the extreme right >

(click to enlarge)

• Cache >
• Arrange icons with ‘Modified’>
• Try playing the most recent cach file in your FLV supported player>
• Copy the video to the safe destination!
  Internet Explorer users (Windows XP):
• Go to
• My Computer>
• Your Windows Destination Drive>
• Documents and settings>
• Unhide the hidden folders>
• Default User>
• Local Settings>
• Temporary Internet Files>
• Content.ie5>
• Open the recently created folder>
• 

(click to enlarge)

• Try playing the most recent cache file in your FLV supported player>
• Copy the video to the safe destination!

Sorry, I haven’t tried it on any other browser, but if you’ve understood the concept, then it’s gonna be a peice of cake for you, no matter what browser you are using.