youtube-dl For Linux

youtube-dl is an open source command-line utility that will help Linux users to effortlessly download video streams from well known video hosting websites, via a Linux terminal emulator app.

Among some of the popular video hosting websites supported by this CLI application we can mention YouTube, Metacafe, Dailymotion, Instagram, Vine, Vimeo, Tumblr, Trilulilu, Syfy, Slashdot, RottenTomatoes, NBC, NBA, NBCNews, MySpace, MTV, Metacritic, KickStarter, GameSpot, Flickr, Dropbox, Discovery, CollegeHumor, ComedyCentral, CNN, CBS, Bloomberg, and 9gag.

In addition to the above, the 4tube, AddAnime, AppleTrailers, ARD, Bandcamp, BlipTV, Brightcove, Chilloutzone, Cinemassacre, Clipsyndicate, DepositFiles, and FranceInter are also among the supported websites. Users will also be able to download videos from adult-only websites, including YouPorn, XTube, XNXX, Pornotube, XHamster, PornHub, PornHd, RedTube, and Mofosex.

The truth is that this is the most complex video stream downloader application that was ever built. It supports over 270 video hosting websites (you can find the entire list at http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html) and provides users with many useful options. For example, you can specify a custom user agent, a custom referer, use HTTP or HTTPS proxies, download entire playlists from YouTube and Dailymotion, set a download rate limit and buffer size, resume downloads, fetch descriptions, and create thumbnails of downloaded video files.

The application can fetch subtitles, download all the available formats for a video stream, as well as to convert the downloaded videos to many other formats. Vimeo passwords and authentication options are also included. Yes, this is a command-line application, but it seems many Linux users dig it and use it on a daily basis. Several developers created graphical applications that use this CLI tool as a backend.

It is written in the Python programming language, which means that it’s a cross-platform software, supported on Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems.