The program is a little bit less comfortable than Youtube downloaders that come with their own search or browser. Users can either copy and paste single urls into the interface of the program or import text files that contain multiple Youtube links. The import only works if the text document contains one Youtube link per line.

A click on the Go button will initiate the download right away. The videos will be downloaded one after the other until the end of the queue is reached. By default high quality defintion versions of the video are downloaded from Youtube. It is however possible to change the quality setting to high quality or low quality instead. This will speed up the downloads a lot but reduce the quality of the downloaded Youtube videos.

YouDown requires the Microsoft .net Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 and a Windows operating system. It can be downloaded from the Codeplex [via Addictive Tips] website.

The Youtube downloader comes with an interface that requires some explanation. VYoutube videos can be added to the software’s database by going to the Preview tab in the browser which will open the Youtube video portal in the application. Videos can be added by clicking on the Save In Database button on tab. Another possibility is to right-click on a video thumbnail and select the Download Video option but there is no way currently to add multiple Youtube videos directly.

Videos are added to the Your Video tab from where they can be added to playlists that work in the Youtube downloader. Alternative playlists can be created for the video player VLC.

Once the videos are in the Your Video pane they can be added in batch to a playlist, converted to another video format or to mp3 audio. That’s actually one of the biggest strengths of this Youtube downloader as it can virtually convert hundreds of videos at a time.

The program would be excellent if it would provide the option to add multiple videos directly to the program. The version of the Youtube Downloader which is currently 0.0.1 could mean that the software developer has plans to add that feature and additional ones to the software program. The program works under Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Youtube HQ is a Greasemonkey script that takes that burden away from the user. The script can be configured in two ways: The first mode which is also the default one will always display the video in the highest possible quality on the Youtube website. It will automatically increase the screen size to fit the video on the screen. This makes only sense if the computer is connected to a computer monitor that is capable of displaying the high resolutions.

The second mode of the Greasemonkey script will always load the low quality version of the Youtube video which is excellent for users who are accessing Youtube with a low bandwidth connection or from a system with a small computer monitor.

The benefit of using the Greasemonkey script is obvious. It will automatically resize Youtube videos according to the user’s configuration of the script. Check out out article Youtube Video Download to find out how to download videos from Youtube.

Everything that I mentioned before can be added or changed using small Greasemonkey scripts. All you need to do is to install the Greasemonkey script for Firefox and add the following scripts to it:

• Download Video – adds a small bar to the top that displays a list of all videos that can be downloaded from that page.
• Youtube Junk Remover – removes Advertisements, Director’s Videos and special offers.
• Youtube Maximize – Adds a ‘maximize’ link on top of YouTube videos, so that you don’t have to use the built-in maximize button. This way you can middle-click to open full-screen videos in new tabs instead of new windows, keep your toolbars, and have several videos maximized at the same time.
• Youtube Remove Comments – removes all comments.
• Youtube Display all Comments – if you like comments. This displays all comments on one page.
• Youtube stop video download – adds a stop button to Youtube that stops the download of a video. Previously you could only use Pause to stop the playback but the video would still be transferred in the background.

Update: The userscript is no longer available. Firefox users can install the Firefox add-on TubeStop to stop the auto-playing of YouTube videos.