YouTube is still the undisputed king of video sharing on the web, so it only makes sense that there would be a slew of tricks and tools for it. From Adobe AIR applications that let you download videos to Firefox extensions that protect you from RickRolls, and much more, here are over 100 tools and resources to help you enhance your video experience.

Have a favorite? Tell us about it in the comments.

Adobe AIR Applications

Sometimes you just want to get out of the browser environment, and Adobe AIR apps offer a viable solution with many of the same features you enjoy in the browser. Apps such as the YouTube Video Widget even work online and off, allowing you to watch your downloaded videos any time you'd like from an app you already enjoy.







DeskTube - A social YouTube viewer that allows you to send links to friends to open their DeskTube, tweet what you are watching along with a link, and more.

MyYouTube - Play or download videos from YouTube, create playlists, manage your collection and more.

YouTube Video Widget works Online and Offline - An application designed with mobile devices in mind. It downloads the videos to the local drive and then detects when the device is offline and switches to playing the locally stored copies.

YouTube Widget - Browse through the top rated videos or search YouTube just as you would from the web interface.

Alternative Viewing Methods

It can get boring watching YouTube videos in the exact same way day after day. Why not change it up a bit and look into some alternative methods of viewing? You can even create your own comedy by running videos through things like The Benny Hillifier, which oddly turns out funnier than you might think it would.







AlarmTube - Set a time you want to wake up, choose a video you want to hear as you rise, and you're done.

ILoveMusicVideo.net - A YouTube viewer focused on music lists generated by Last.fm such as top songs and artists.

InfiniTube.net - Enter some keywords, and you'll get a constant stream of uninterrupted YouTube videos related to them.

Splicd.com - Select a point in a YouTube video, say starting at 53 seconds, and this site will build a link to that point so you can share it with others.

The Benny Hillifier - Enables you to add The Benny Hill Show theme song to any video.

VirtualVideoMap.com - Take a virtual tour of the Earth by clicking on the tags on the Google Maps globe, and seeing a video related to that location.

WiiToob.com - A customized YouTube browsing site built with the Nintendo Wii in mind.

You3b.com - Why watch only one YouTube video, or even two, when you can watch three at once? Make a triptych of YouTube videos you can watch singly or all at the same time.

YouTube Doubler - Once in a while you run into a video on YouTube where the uploader says it will make more sense if you watch another video with it; Well, with YouTube Doubler, you can do just that. Enter the URLs of both videos, and you're ready to go.

Firefox Extensions

Is there anything Firefox can't do? Thanks to its extension development community there are a number of great Firefox extensions for YouTube. For example, by collecting some of the most popular Greasemonkey scripts for YouTube, Better YouTube allows for greater user control and a cleaner interface.

Download YouTube Videos







Ant Toolbar - The official toolbar for Ant.com includes a YouTube video downloader as well as a built in FLV player so you can play the videos you've snagged right from there.

Embedded Objects - This add-on will download pretty much any type of embedded file, including your favorite YouTube videos.

Fast Video Download - Fast Video Download works with numerous video sites and will also add a download link under embedded YouTube videos you find on other sites.

Flash Video Downloader - Besides allowing you to download your favorite videos from YouTube, this add-on will download flash videos from other sites and even games.

Flash Video Resources Downloader - Will let you download videos from most flash-based video sharing sites. Also, enter a YouTube URL and be presented with the download information without needing to go to the page.

Magic's Video Downloader - Assists you with downloading FLV videos from around two dozen video sharing sites, including the market leader, YouTube.

Media Converter - This extension will allow you to not only download your desired videos, but it will also convert them right in the browser to the format you desire.

Sothink Web Video Downloader - Besides downloading videos from YouTube, Sothink will also let you capture videos in swf, wmv, asf, avi, mov, rm and rmvb formats.

Video DownloadHelper - Once installed, Video DownloadHelper's icon will animate when you come to a page that has a video you can download. Once you start the download process, you can also choose which format you want to save the file as.

Tools





Better YouTube - Collects some of the most popular Greasemonkey scripts for YouTube that do things like give you an alternate player, a cleaner theater interface and more.

GoogleTube - This extension adds a YouTube icon next to Google search results that have videos associated with them. Click on the button and you can watch the videos directly on the search results page.

Groowe Firefox Toolbar - Gives you a toolbar that lets you search YouTube, Digg, Delicious and more.

Now Playing X - Allows you to feed videos you are watching to the Now Playing feature on messengers like Live, Yahoo, AIM, Skype and GTalk.

RickRadar - If you really fear being RickRolled, install this and it will evaluate pages. If it feels there is a high probability of Rick Astley being there, it redirects you.

TubeStop - Only has one job and that is to stop YouTube videos from autoplaying.

VodPod - Allows you to grab the embed code for a video and store it at VodPod.com and then publish it to your blog with just a click.

You Old Enough? - Tired of signing in to verify your age? This add-on will let you bypass the whole process.

YouPlayer - YouPlayer allows you to drag videos to your playlist and form your own list from around the Web. If you find anything you like, right click on it and you can choose to download it.

YouTube - An improved search for YouTube that uses Google's auto suggest system to help you fill out what you are looking for.

YouTube Cinema - Allows you to play all YouTube videos in a default that shows them in cinema view.

YouTube Comment Snob - This add-on allows you to hide comments from people with numerous misspellings, excessive punctuation, all capital letters, no capital letters and so on.

Greasemonkey Scripts

Gresemonkey scripts give you greater flexibility on a number of sites, enhancing your visual enjoyment, which is important on YouTube. For example, YouTube Cleaner clears away the rubbish and allows you to enjoy what the site was built around: videos.

BetterTube - With support for over 50 sites, this script will allow you to see embed-disabled videos, download to various services, and more.

Coralized-YouTube - Uses the Coral Content Distribution Network to cache videos and speed up their loading on your system.

Download ANY Video from YouTube - This will add a link to any YouTube page allowing you to download the video as an MP4 file.







Loopy for YouTube - Adds a button below a video that lets you loop the video as many times as you like, so it's perfect for that infectious song you can't get out of your head.

Play YouTube videos in full screen auto - This script will automatically open YouTube videos into full screen mode, completely bypassing the stand alone page.

Thumbs2Links - Allows you to click on "Get direct links!" from any video index page and begin downloading all of those videos without having to go to individual pages.

VidzBigger - Automatically takes the video to its largest size, and places the comments to the side so you don't have to scroll down, along with a few other features.

Video Focus - Allows you to watch videos without the distraction of chats, comments, ads and so on, while also giving you the ability to resize videos, customize the background color, center the video on the page and more. Works with dozens of different video sites.

Videoembed - Videoembed works with over 40 video sharing sites so that if you are on a page with a link to their videos, it will automatically bring up the video on the page you are viewing as if it was embedded. Saves you the time and bother of going to YouTube just to get RickRolled.

Years Watching YouTube - Ever wondered how much time is lost to a given YouTube video? This script multiplies the length of the video times the number of views to tell you in years how much time the video has consumed from the world.

YousableTubeFix - A good all-in-one script that blocks ads from the sections you want, lets you download videos into several formats, automatically expands the "More" section, lets you see all comments at once and more.







YouKing - Adds the ability to download the video in various formats by adding links beneath the embed code area.

YouTube Alternate Video Player - Replaces the standard YouTube flash player with the FlowPlayer player.

YouTube Animated Thumbnails - Force the thumbnails to cycle through the three preview images.

YouTube better embed - Cleans up the embed code for YouTube videos to be used on other sites.

YouTube Cleaner - Helps you clean up the appearance of the YouTube video pages by removing the comments, related videos, promoted videos, sharing information and footer. Also allows you to restore them instantly if you should choose to do so.

YouTube Double the Vid - Opens the video you are currently viewing in YouTube Doubler (mentioned earlier in this list).

YouTube Enhancer - Assists with downloading videos you wish to keep, giving you the ability to buffer with autoplay turned off, rollover previews and several media controller options.

YouTube Googler - YouTube Googler allows you to have more control over how a YouTube page is presented to you. You can resize the video, prevent autoplay, and reorder items in the sidebar.

YouTube HD Suite - Adds icons to your YouTube searches to show you which videos are available as HD and MP4, and then provides you with links inside each for downloading in the quality you want.

YouTube HQ + 720p - This script will seek out the highest quality version of a video and load it via Ajax so that there is no need for the whole page to reload. Also adds in the ability to turn autoplay on and off, change the video player color and so on.

YouTube "Lights Out" - Gives you a light bulb icon so you can turn off the "lights" and darken the background for easier enjoyment of your video.







YouTube Lyrics - This handy little script can search up to 11 sites for the lyrics to the song you are watching a video of. Words are added in a box in the YouTube sidebar under the video information.

YouTube Playlist Search Remover - Remove playlists from the search results you see on YouTube so you can stick to just the individual videos.

YouTube Prevent Autoplay - While several other scripts have the ability to turn off the autoplay feature, if that is the only feature you want, this is the script for you.

YouTube Remove Video Ads - Remove all of those video ads from your selected videos.

YouTube Static Video Size - With all the different YouTube video sizes these days, this script will keep them a constant size for you.

YouTube Without Flash - Adds links below the videos to either download the videos or play them in an external player.

YouTube - Previews, click-to-play, download, no flash, 16:9 - Gives you previews for three different sections of the video, uses alternate video player for higher quality clips, adds a download button and more.

YouTubr - Allows you to watch a YouTube video associated with a Flickr image right on the Flickr page.

Search & Browsing Tools







YouTube's search is not the most powerful thing around, it's doubtful anyone would argue that. Luckily kindhearted souls out there have built numerous alternative methods such as 7ags.com to help you muddle your way through the millions of video clips.

7ags.com - Browse YouTube keywords in a tag cloud format.

iDesktop.tv - Allows you to search YouTube, see the most popular, featured, or recent in a large display on the front and download anything you like.

Loom.tv - Search multiple video sites including YouTube with this one easy to use interface.

Mappeo.net - A Google Maps and YouTube mashup that lets you browse by geographical location and narrow things down with keywords.

MetaTuber.com - Search by various analytics, browse the tag cloud, see the newest videos and download whichever ones you enjoy.

oSkope.com - A visual search engine for several sources, including YouTube that presents the results as thumbnails on a desktop and allows you to hover over them for information, and move them around to your satisfaction.

TimeTube - Enter a few keywords and this site will build a timeline of videos related to them.

Utrecht.cc - Restrict your searches only to music videos on the popular video sharing site.

VizBand.co.uk - Search either for just music videos or all of YouTube and get the results as a screen full of thumbnail images you merely have to hover over to get information about.

YouTube Download Sites

For a site that doesn't offer you the ability to download videos, there sure are plenty of alternatives out there. Some are very easy, like KissYouTube.com, which just requires a simple URL change, making it a breeze for you to grab any video you want for your own collection.







Anjo.to - Download videos from YouTube and save them in formats such as MP4, AVI, MOV and others.

Catch-Video.com - A straightforward YouTube downloading service that allows you to convert videos directly to another format of your choice.

CatchYouTube.com - Simply enter the URL of the video, select the format you want to save it in, and click the "Convert & Download" button.

ClipNabber.com - Enter the URL of videos from a multitude of different sites and then save them in the .flv format.

ConvertTube.com - Enter the URL and convert the videos to formats such as MP3, MP4, MPG and more.

DownThisVideo.com - Either paste in the URL of the video you wish to download, or use their bookmarklet to grab the ones you desire.

ExtractVideo.com - Enter the URL of the video you wish to download, see recent downloads from other users, most popular & random videos and more.

ExtractYouTube.com - Have your choice of entering the URL you wish to download, or use their search to find videos you want to save.

FLVTo.com - Enter the URL of the video you wish to save as a FLV, or upload a video if you wish to convert it to this format.

KeepVid.com - Enter the URL of the video you wish to save, or add their bookmarklet to your toolbar and simply click it as you watch the video.

KissYouTube.com - You can either enter the URL of the YouTube video on their site, or simply add "kiss" in front of "youtube.com" while on the site, and it will start downloading the video.

StreamYard.com - Enter URLs from various video streaming sites to download and save the videos.

TubeZoid.com - Download videos from just about any video sharing site out there.

vconvert.net - Allows you to download your videos and convert them. Will also allow you to use a one-click tool to do it even quicker.

Video Downloader - Allows you to enter the URL from more video sites than just YouTube, download them, and convert them to another format.

Vidconverter.com - Enter the URL of a video from YouTube or any other of the numerous video streaming sites they support, and then convert them to other formats.

VideoDL.org - A downloader and nothing else. Enter the URL, right click to save target as, make the extension .flv and you're done.

VideoRonk.com - Search multiple video sites, download the resulting videos, recommend them, embed them and more.

Vixy.net - Convert downloaded YouTube videos into formats such as AVI, 3GP, MP3 and others.

YouTubeCatcher.com - Enter the URL of the video you wish to download, see the latest videos people are grabbing, and check out the videos that have been downloaded the most.

YouTubia.com - A site just offering simple downloads of YouTube videos in their native .flv format.

YouTubeMovieSaver.com - Simply enter the URL of the YouTube video you wish to download, choose to download, name the file as .flv and you're done.

Miscellaneous YouTube Tools

There are numerous one-of-a-kind apps out there for YouTube that will help you do things like share and explore playlists (MixMasterTube.com), track videos that have been removed for copyright violations (YouTomb), and much more.







Graffiti.VIDAVEE.com - Enter the URL of a YouTube video, click the load button and you will see a copy of the video that you can add effects & text to. Once you're done adding you will get a fresh embed code so that you can show off your creation anywhere you like.

MixMasterTube.com - Allows you to share your YouTube playlists with others, explore other lists, use it for music at parties and more.

Review Tube - Allows users to create time-based subtitles for various YouTube videos, and then they are made publicly available.

SiteVolume.com - Enter words in their YouTube tab to see how often they appear on the site. A good way to get suggestions for what keywords to use in your video description.

Subyo.com - Locate existing subtitles or add your own for any video on YouTube.

TubePopper.com - Add word balloons, comments, or subtitles to a video and then embed it in your site with the new additions.

TubeSurf.com - Search multiple video sites with one interface and see the results from all of them.

TubeSpy - Take a look at a constantly updating view of what YouTube videos people are watching at that very moment. See one that catches your interest and you can click on it to stop it and watch it.

ViralVideoChart.com - Get a sense of what videos are going viral and how they are trending.

VTubeTools.com - Add the video ID number and build a new player to use on your site with features like loop, custom skin, play in HQ and more.

YouTomb - A project from MIT that follows what videos are removed from YouTube for copyright violations. Tells you how many days ago the video was removed and how long it had been on the site prior to removal.

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