Cantio is a relatively new service that is probably best described as a music frontend for YouTube. Guests who visit the website can listen to music and artist right there and use the search to find artists and music they like.

Registered users get additional features like playlist and favorites support.

Individual songs are played with a double-click. Users then need to pay attention to the small video window in the lower left corner of the screen, as it indicates if the music video could be loaded successfully. The video itself is shown in that small preview window while the music is playing in the background. A click on the video preview launches it in fullscreen mode in case you would like to watch the video as well.

Cantio offers artist and music pre-selections. A click on music displays the week’s most popular songs, a click on artist popular and hyped artists along with their discography if available.

Some of the information and charts are pulled from Last.fm. Search results can be displayed in list view with track names, artists and albums or in album view mode where the album covers are displayed.

Keyboard shortcuts have been added to make navigation and handling easier. Space starts or stops the current song, left and right arrows play the last or next song and up and down arrows increase or decrease the volume of the music.

The player controls are displayed at the bottom of the screen. Here it is additionally possible to use the slider to jump to a specific song position, enable repeat and song randomization.

Registered users have the option to create playlists which they can play over and over again.

Cantio does a few things better than YouTube. It filters results efficiently for instance so that only the right band, artist, album or song are listed in the search results.

It remains to be seen if the service will be online in one year’s time. Revenue seems to be solely generated by Flattr donations currently.

Cantio should be compatible with all modern web browsers. Just head over to Cant.io to give it a spin.

It is a free service that can be used to convert Youtube videos into mp3 format with options to download the converted music to the computer. What I especially like is that the service is easy to handle. You enter the name of a song, musician, album or band in the search form on the Fetch Mp3 site and wait until the search results have been populated.

Search results are divided into tabs. The default results list displays videos hosted on Youtube, with the possibility to switch to Youtube HD, Dailymotion or a mix of all supported video channels.

Each video is displayed with a thumbnail screenshot, name, play time and view count. Controls on the right can be used to preview the video on site in a video overlay or to add it to the conversion queue.

Unregistered users can not use the custom conversion options (from medium quality to ultra quality), only the default option to convert the Youtube video or video from another hosting site to mp3 format.

Videos are added to a queue that is then processed in an iframe. This means that you can switch pages without losing the queue or conversions that are currently underway. Each song that has been converted to mp3 is then offered in that iframe for download. Just click the link and you get the download prompt to download the mp3 version of the Youtube video to your computer. Once you have done that the next video in the queue is processed and converted.

Registering an account is free and gives you access to higher quality conversions. This may be reason enough for some users to do that. Registered users of Fetch Mp3 have other benefits including access to a download history or the conversion of Youtube favorites by entering a username on the site.

One interesting aspect of using Fetch Mp3 to download music from Youtube is the fact that you can use it to download music from videos that are blocked in your country. It is on the other hand not compatible with Vevo videos which cannot be downloaded.

Fetch Mp3 is an easy to use service to download music in mp3 format from Youtube. Yes, there are a few minor points of criticism, like the massive amount of ads, the need to register to download higher quality mp3s or the stop all conversions until you download the current mp3 system.

The following guide reviews the best extensions, userscripts and programs to enhance the Youtube Music experience tenfold.

Youtube Music Player

[Firefox]

Youtube Music Player is a Firefox extension that adds controls to the browser to add and play music videos from Youtube directly. Youtube does not have to be open at all. The extension displays playback controls and music information in the status bar / add-on bar, and the music playlist in a sidebar that does not need to be open when music is playing.

Music is added to the sidebar by drag and drop or by using the built-in search. Every Youtube url can be dragged directly to the sidebar. Playlists can be saved and loaded which makes it possible to maintain multiple playlists on the local computer. The developer plans to integrate playlists from existing Youtube accounts in a future update.

Chrome Media Player

[Google Chrome]

A complete music player for Youtube songs, accessible from a button in the Chrome toolbar. The player has a search and all controls one would expect. May require manipulation of the Global Security Settings of Macromedia Flash.

Lyrics

YouTube Music Video Lyrics

[Google Chrome]

Youtube Music Video Lyrics is an extension for the Google Chrome web browser that ads a lyrics button to the Chrome toolbar. A click on the button while a music video is playing will display the song’s lyrics if they can be found. Chances are pretty high if the song is popular.

Youtube Karaoke rebirth!

[Google Chrome]

This Chrome extension adds lyrics to popular Youtube videos. Instead of just showing the lyrics it displays them in a Karaoke like fashion for users who like to sing along.

Misc Youtube music apps

Youtube Looper

[Google Chrome]

This Google Chrome extension adds a loop button to the controls on Youtube. It can be used to loop a music video indefinitely.

Youtube Music, Social Extension

This is a list of extensions that utilize social media sites, for instance to show your friends what you have been listening to on Youtube.

Last.fm Scrobbler

[Google Chrome]

Scrobbles Youtube music videos which basically means that Last.fm records that you have played the song.

Like.fm Social Music Tracker

[Google Chrome]

A similar extension that reports the music to Like.fm. The extension supports multiple sites and applications, not only Youtube. Also available for the Firefox Internet browser.

Userscripts

Youtube to mp3

Converts and downloads Youtube music videos to mp3 format.

Last.fm + YouTube

Adds icons to Last.fm’s website next to music tracks, albums and artists that redirects to a Youtube search so that the song, music from the album or artist can be played on the video site.

External Websites

Jukesy

Excellent web services that utilizes Youtubes’ vast music collection that offers genre based radio stations (it is all there from melodic death metal to music from the 60′s over Brit Pop to Bossa Nova) and a search. Jukesy plays the video in full screen in a tab in the web browser. Music is played constantly unless wanted otherwise by the user. The usual controls are available on the site. While it is still necessary to switch to the tab to pause or skip a song it is otherwise completely automatic. Pick a station and the music will play for as long as you keep the tab open.

Zebralizer

Zebralizer is very similar in functionality to Jukesy. Pick a genre or search for an artist or song and you will be presented with your personal radio station that plays non-stop for as long as you want. The full video is shown on the page next to options to add more custom music to the playlist.

Muziic

Muziic is not as automated as the other two services in the External Websites category. Users need to add songs to the playlist that then play on auto-pilot. The service offers a desktop application for Windows which offers a similar functionality.

Youtube Disco

An official Youtube feature that can be used to play a number of songs on Youtube without or only little initial configuration.

Download Youtube Music

It is not possible to add all extensions and applications that offer Youtube video downloading features. We have a separate guide for those under Download Youtube Videos here at the site. A recommendation is the Firefox extension Download Helper which is compatible with many different media sites, not only Youtube. Please note that the majority of browser extensions offers to download the Youtube videos, which would then need to be converted on the local system into mp3 if required.

Have we missed a tool in the overview? If you think we did let us know in the comments so that we can evaluate it.

The Firefox add-on Youtube Music Player tries to make this more comfortable to those users by offering them comfortable features such as playlists and an external player.

The extension supports multiple playlists which can be played, created and edited directly in the browser. Several controls are added to the browser which some users may not like.

The biggest concern is probably the Youtube Player entry in the Firefox menu which unfortunately cannot be disabled. Bad for users who need that screen estate for other elements of the browser.

Playlists are filled with music in two ways. It is possible to use the built-in search with preview to add single videos to the playlist or visit Youtube and add videos with a right-click and the selection of Add to Youtube Player in the context menu.

The player itself is launched in its own window independently from the browser window. It is minimalistic which means it does not take up much space (none if minimized).

The standard controls are available including pausing the video, changing the resolution or running it full screen.

Playlists can be saved and loaded which means that they are available in future sessions as well if saved properly.

The extension offers several options like randomizing the playlist, repeating it indefinitely or Last.fm scrobbling which requires the username and password.

The idea is interesting and there are certainly users who will appreciate the extension. The biggest concern for many are the elements that are added to the browser which cannot be removed. We have already mentioned the extra menu item, the extension in addition adds music player controls and information to the Firefox status bar of which the majority is removed if no music is played.

Users who want to try the Youtube Music Player Firefox extension can install it directly from the Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

The first method is a search that can be used to find exact matches for artists, songs, albums and so on. Youtube has one of the largest collections of music videos and it usually is pretty easy to find the music that you are looking for. Music that has been discovered can be added to playlists which can be saved after a free account registration at the official website. This is a great way of creating lots of playlists that cover all the songs and genres that the user likes.

The second option that is offered by Muziic is pre-generated playlists that can be accessed from the sidebar of the music player. Those playlists are sorted by genre. About 30 or so genres are available which do contain one or multiple playlists that can be selected for playback.

The video going along with the song can be displayed in the music player if that is something that the user wants to view as well while listening to the song. Besides the playlists that are offered users can import so called channels that have been created by other Muziic users into the application. Channels are also categorized in genres making it easy to pick a suitable one.

The music player is quite interesting as it uses a concept similar to cloud computing to provide access to a large collection of music to users. Users benefit from this by being able to search and access that large database and by saving disk space as virtually no local disk space is required. The only possible drawbacks are the quality of the songs which are definitely not high (but acceptable) quality and the chance that songs vanish if the videos get deleted on Youtube.

The result is pretty amazing. The complete discography of many artists are shown on the results page. All albums and songs can be played right on the website without additional plugins or registration hassles.

Users who want to listen to music online can enter a band or artist name in the search form or pick one of the suggestions in the tag cloud below. It takes only a few seconds before the next page is loaded containing information about the discography of the selected band or artist. The first song of one of the music albums will play automatically.

The results are spot on. Even the tested live albums did return the live songs (most of the times) and not other studio versions of the songs. All songs were playing fine during tests, there was no delay or any other sort of disturbance. The page with the music player uses several ads which might be distracting to some users. It provides the means to purchase songs at Amazon. There are also some concert information listed on some pages.

Vastfm is a unique interesting website that provides access to virtually any band and song that can be found on Youtube.

Everything – that means the search, results and playback – happens on the same page which is excellent for finding some music very quickly. One could argue that it is also possible to go directly to Youtube but there are some differences. One is that StreamDrag provides access to a very intuitive playlist that can be used to play multiple songs in a row without leaving the page.

Results are displayed almost instantly and of great quality. Songs can be played right there or added to the playlist to play multiple songs in a row. It is furthermore possible to loop songs or the playlist. The only other control on the page is the volume bar which can be used to change the volume of the songs.

Tests have been very good for most bands, songs and albums that have been entered in the search form. Results are basically the same that can be found on Youtube.

It would be rather chaotic if both the music player and the video would be playing the music; This is why the developers have made the decision to either play the music in Winamp and mute the video or mute Winamp and play the video with sound.

Minitube has a few additional options that can enhance the experience. It is possible to set the connection to low or high bandwidth, start the video in a window or fullscreen or to automatically hide the player if no video is found or skip to the next song instead.

The playback is normally not synchronous due to the fact that the music track begins playing before the search is conducted. It can also happen that the first result on Youtube is no longer available which would display a “The video is no longer available” message for the duration of the song or that an unrelated video – with the correct song – is pulled from Youtube.

The best application for this would probably be to load a mp3 playlist and select to play the Youtube videos with sound in fullscreen. This would be like a custom music video channel on the Internet.

Although the website is completely in German it should not be a problem for non-German speakers to navigate the website. The process is easy and clear. A search term is entered in the only search box on the main page of MP3 Getter. Youtube is then queried and the results are shown on the next page. Ten results are shown with preview images and names and a click on any of them loads the video in the foreground.

The video starts playing automatically and a click on the button MP3 downloaden starts the process to split the audio from the video. It takes a while and a save file dialog box is presented once the mp3 file has been created.

MP3 Getter has the advantage over similar web services in two key areas. It provides a Youtube search which means that the user does not have to copy and paste the url of the video that he wants the audio from. The second is that the video is actually playing while the ripping is processed.