Rated 5 out of 5 stars

by BlohoJo on Feb. 14, 2018 ·

This was simply the best and easiest direct downloader for YouTube, thanks to the pop up menu showing all available formats.

Regarding slow speed, this is coming server side from YouTube... ANY utility will have the same speed restrictions. Looks like they are throttling their bandwidth so nothing plays faster than it would for streaming... understandable; the amount of bandwidth they use must be staggering.

Sadly, it looks like this legacy add-on finally stopped working all together recently, as it will no longer download anything. The pop-up window showing all available formats is still working and useful however.

I would encourage the author to come back... web extensions isn't really needed as there are several XUL forks of Firefox now that people are using that this add-on in its current form can still work on... Pale Moon, Basilisk, and Waterfox, for example.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

by BlohoJo on Feb. 25, 2016 ·

This is the only tool that I know of that can download *all* YouTube streams in their original form.

Other tools (including tools that are **not** free):

1. Only download three pre-muxed and low quality encoded files (flv 240, mp4 360, and mp4 720), and

2. **Re-encode** those files to make "fake" 1080p files and/or 480p files.

Complete YouTube Saver can download the *actual* 1080p and other high quality video DASH streams, *and* high bitrate audio streams, then **only** uses ffmpeg to mux the stream content to a MP4 file format (there's NO re-encoding, it's the same encode that plays direct from YouTube. You have the option of downloading the higher quality DASH streams for 1080p, 720p, 360p, 240p, etc., as well as *only* high bitrate audio streams... a lot of people don't realize that many YouTube videos actually have 256K CBR and/or 192K VBR streams available, and Complete YouTube Saver can download these in their native M4A encoding!)

While YouTube is not encrypted for the most part, the actual download links for the streams are, which Complete YouTube Saver is able to decrypt from your browser's ability to play the links. YouTube regularly changes the way this works, and it usually stops Complete YouTube Saver from working, so with no more updates, this final version won't last very long.

It would be an ABSOLUTE SHAME to lose this important and useful tool because 150 people (of the over 22,000 users) could not spare $2.00 per month.

Some points to keep in mind about Patreon:

1) For the Patreon "rewards" of adding your name to the donations page and/or adding your name to the "about" window, ***YOU HAVE THE OPTION TO JUST PLEDGE AND NOT HAVE YOUR NAME ADDED TO ANYTHING***, if privacy is a concern for you.

2) YOU CAN EDIT YOUR PLEDGE ***AFTER*** PLEDGING!!

Please don't let this add-on die!

This review is for a previous version of the add-on (5.6.53). 

by cg-addons (Developer) on Feb. 27, 2016 ·

Users who wish to be anonymous on Patreon can create a user name different from their real name, or simply make their account private.

Thanks so much for the great review and support!!

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

by BlohoJo on Oct. 10, 2014 ·

Folks, this is the only WORKING app that lets you download full 1080P from YouTube WITHOUT UPCONVERTING FROM 720P. You NEED FFMPEG in order for it to work, and you should also configure the plugin to NOT HIDE the FFMPEG window. Do that and it WILL WORK.

********BUT*************

You NEED version 5.5.3 or it will NOT WORK.

In a very sad turn of events, Mozilla, going against its users, has removed version 5.5.3 from their site. I in fact had a Mozilla moderator tell me that he believes that addons like this should be completely banned as he views that this addon is only used for "stealing." Wrap your head around that for a moment. This is also not the first time that Mozilla has removed working versions of Complete YouTube saver from their site with no explanation.

Sadly, it seems there is no Internet link to download version 5.5.3 anywhere else on the net as the developer does not want to set up a GitHub for some reason which would be the best way to solve this problem.

I recommend that you visit the developer's site, and send an e-mail to the e-mail address posted on their front page and request version 5.5.3 from them.

Hopefully something will be figured out soon to support the users of this very useful addon.

This review is for a previous version of the add-on (5.5.1.1-signed). 

by cg-addons (Developer) on Oct. 13, 2014 ·

Thanks for your review, we appreciate the support!! Yes, v5.5.3 was reviewed and removed by an editor. A new version should be up sometime this week. For now, you can download v5.5.3 here:

https://cys.mantishub.com/view.php?id=1

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

by BlohoJo on Nov. 22, 2013 ·

After YouTube made changes which make 1080p saving impossible using the older conventional add-ons, a whole bunch of fake (and not free) programs started to be advertised which claim full 1080p support. But, they only download the 720p stream, and upconvert it. Many people fall for those and pay for them to get 1080p support back. They may get a 1080p file, but it's simply upscaled from the 720p YouTube download. It's not the actual 1080p YouTube stream.

Complete YouTube saver is free and works... it downloads the actual 1080p stream. As far as I know, the streams are unencrypted, they are just separate video and audio streams now, which is why older add-ons no longer work. Complete YouTube saver automatically downloads both streams and muxes them using FFmpeg. Don't worry, there's nothing complex or anything involved... FFmpeg is a simple executable, and Complete YouTube saver runs it automatically in the background. You don't have to specify anything other than you want to download and save the 1080p stream, and you will get a .mp4 h264 file with video and audio automatically. There is no upconverting, and muxing is not memory or processing intense; it should work just fine even on an old PIII.

When YouTube starts to encrypt the streams (RTMPE), which I suspect they will some day, then we're in a whole new boat of screwed.

This review is for a previous version of the add-on (5.0.4.1-signed). 

by cg-addons (Developer) on Nov. 27, 2013 ·

Thanks for the nice review and overview, we do appreciate when someone sees the value given away here for free.

As for your "boat", we believe it would be rather impractical for them to resort to such dramatic solutions for many reasons - even then, they certainly do not need more ideas to make things more difficult for us, download folks. Thanks again!