YouTube Downloader Extraordinaire
For several years we’ve resisted the urge to recommend a free YouTube downloader because it seems that every time we’ve done this in the past, a few months after we recommend it, the developer decides to monetize the freeware – and that almost always means bundling it with something else – usually something useless, bad, or malicious.
Yesterday we started testing a new YouTube downloader that is unbelievably simple to use, yet has all the features you could ever want including downloading audio-only – which is useful when you only want the music from a music video, option to download as both a video and an MP3 or download the complete video in your choice of video quality (depending on the quality of the original video).
The program is called “Free Video Downloader for YouTube” and if you like to download videos or music from YouTube, we think you’ll really like this program.
Downloading a video (or music only) from YouTube starts with you pasting the YouTube link in Free Video Downloader for YouTube.
Once you paste the link you can download the video in resolutions such as 1080p, 720p, 480p, etc. — depending on the quality of the video on YouTube or you can choose to download Audio only (M4A format). Additionally, you can also choose to “Save as MP3”. You also have the option to download the file to any folder on your computer. The default location is C:\Users\Your User Name\Downloads.
Once you’ve made your choices all you have to do is click “Download”.
You’ll see the progress of your download as soon as you click the download button.
For our test of Free Video Downloader for YouTube, I downloaded an audio-only file of one of the most haunting songs I’ve ever heard “The Bells of Rhymney” by the Byrds. And a video of Billy Joel performing “My Life” live at Wembley in 1984.
Once both were downloaded and saved to the folder I chose, Free Video Downloader for YouTube gave me the option to play the files right away, without going to the folder to which I saved them.
After listening to the sad “Bells of Rhymney”, I watched Billy Joel performing “My Life” live at Wembley in 1984.
It took me less than 3 minutes to figure out how to use Free Video Downloader for YouTube. It may not have all the features of other downloaders but it has the two things I want most:
- Free Video Downloader for YouTube makes it easy to download videos and audio-only from YouTube videos.
- As of November 18, 2019, it’s free and it’s free of all the garbage that other free downloaders of this kind have become notorious for.
If you like to download YouTube videos or want to download only the music from YouTube videos, you’ll not find an easier-to-use or better YouTube downloader than Free Video Downloader for YouTube.
Read more about Free Video Downloader for YouTube here.
You can download Free VideoDownloader for YouTube from this page.
And here is the direct download link for Free Video Downloader for YouTube.
Note: We retested this app again on January 13, 2023, and found it is still free of ads, malware, or any other tomfoolery.
Downloaded file, scanned with emsisoft. then installed. Opened program and emsisoft quarantened it and flagged it as a trojan. What is going on here?
Emsisoft does not detect it as a trojan or anything else. I was in contact with Emsisoft about Free Video Downloader for YouTube the day before we featured it. Here’s the reply from Elise at Emsisoft.
You have not installed the latest Emisoft update. Before we feature a program we triple-check to be sure it’s safe. We have Emsisoft installed on all our computers. We also checked it out with VirusTotal. Only one (off-the-wall) antivirus detected Free Video Downloader as”Freemake” bundler. None of the other 68 antivirus/antimalware engines used by Virus Total found anything wrong with Free Video Downloader for YouTube.
Please update your Emisisoft with the latest updates.
Okay, after emsisoft update program no longer flagged when opened. Thank you , looks to be a great tool for YouTube downloads.
I downloaded it last night and was having a ball downloading Elvis You Tube videos !!! He is my favorite singer and so thankful for finding this free download tool for us. I didn’t have any problem with Emsisoft flagging it.
Thanks again.
I tried to download a video from You Tube with this free Video downloader on 1-24-20 and Emsisoft quarantined it with the following message : Should I uninstall it or whitelist it ? It is in my quarantine files now ?
Emsisoft Anti-Malware Home v. 2020.1.0.9926
(C) 2003-2020 Emsisoft – http://www.emsisoft.com
ID Object
0 C:\Users\*********\AppData\Roaming\FreeVideoDownloaderForYoutube\helper\helper.dat Behavior.TrojanDownloader
False-positive, Emsisoft has fixed it:)