Apps Like Clipgrab

Here's the thing: you found a video online. It's so catchy, you can't stop watching it. On repeat, every day. Now you're thinking, 'Oh boy, I really wanna re-watch it when I'm offline. What's the easiest way?' The answer is: you get yourself a video grabber tool.

Using video grabbers is not rocket science. You just have to enter the URL of the video and then download it directly to your device. Once saved, you can watch it anytime.

In this post, I share a comparison of five top video grabber tools that stand out from the crowd to make sure you make the best decision. Plus, I talk about the rise of online videos and why Youtube is such a big deal.

Ready? Steady? Let's go.

Like the program Movie Maker Free Video Editor that converts videos, ClipGrab converts videos, but ClipGrab goes as quickly as your CPU allows. Our take ClipGrab is a video downloader and video converter that works for free. ClipGrab Marketed as a “ friendly downloader for YouTube,” ClipGrab is the last on the list. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s not as good as the others. ClipGrab is published as free software under the GPLv3 license. Unusually for an open source project, file checksums, code repositories, developer documentation, or online issue trackers are not publicly available. Until 2015, ClipGrab published an online source code repository including a GPL open source license.

What to Look For In a Video Grabber Tool

Before I started downloading online videos, I wish someone had told me not all video grabbing tools are alike. Inspired by Eric Griffith's post for PC Magazine, I've put together a list with some crucial aspects all video grabbers should have:

Must work with YouTube, Facebook, and Vimeo
Have a user-friendly interface
Except for your email address, not collect personal data
No malware, please

Without further mentions, let's see our winners.

Apps Like Clipgrab

Is Clipgrab Safe

The video grabber that lets you download files from a large variety of websites in no time.

How It Works:

You take the video URL, paste it into the app, and it will dig up for all the videos it can detect. You then select the videos you want to download. Boom---done.

Pros:

Supports the most popular streaming sites
Faster video downloads with multi-thread download technology
Multiple video quality (4K, HD included)
Allows downloading multiple videos simultaneously
Automatically detects and downloads files
Set bandwidth limitations
Auto-extract archives
Remote management feature to track downloads while away from the computer
Completes CAPTCHA forms for you
Intuitive and clean interface

Cons:

The installer has adware bundled with it. Select“Custom” installation to skip the adware
Consumes a lot of system resources

User Review:

'I download a ton of programs every week. I'm always looking for ways to increase productivity and get more out of my computer, so I try a lot of different programs. Keeping track of my downloads can be a problem because sometimes my browser hangs up, or the file goes missing, or a paused download refuses to resume. Having this download manager saves me from all of that with the added bonus of being able to set bandwidth limitations, something that is important on my internet plan as anything over a certain amount gets tethered.' - Madison Santos

Pricing: Free

#5. VideoGrabber

Simple video grabber tool to grab online videos, convert videos or record screen. You have two options: either use the online version or download the app.

How It Works:

Paste the link of the online video to the download bar and it will generate the download links.

Pros:

Useful “how-to” section
No ads
Converts video/audio files for Android, iPad, iPhone, PSP, etc.
Online platform and desktop application
Supports sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Tubechop, etc

Cons:

Limited formats are available for download: MP4, FLV, 3GP, WMV, WEBM (no mp3)
Unable to download RTMP video and live streaming video
No 1080p or 4k Youtube video downloads

User Review:

' Videograbber.net is a great site for converting videos from Youtube, Facebook, and other places so they are downloadable to your computer or phone. The site also shows you how to get rid of black lines and things that you don't want on your videos.' - Paige2

Pricing: Free

Conclusion

After checking out all five options, 4K Video Downloader was the clear winner. However, JDownloader, aTube Catcher and ClipGrab are also viable options. The only one that seems to score lower is VideoGrabber.

Now that you're armed with the proper data to make an informed decision about the best video grabber, let's talk about the rise of online video and how Youtube changed our lives.

Why Video Is the Most Engaging Type of Content

Hubspot's Research on 'The Future of Content Marketing' invites us to take a trip down memory lane. 'In the mid-’90s, access to the internet changed the way people sought and consumed information.'

True story. We used to consume more text, radio and TV content back in the days.

The Internet changed the way people interacted with content. Even with endless options and attention spans shrinking, we pay the closest attention to video content.

The same research shows that 45% of people watch an hour or more of video per day; plus, 43% of respondents want to see more video content creation moving forward.

According to Google, 50% of people aged 18-34 would stop what they’re doing to watch a new video by their favorite YouTube creator.

That said, the volume of online video content is growing exponentially. According to Zipstrr, 'video is at the top of the virtual food chain and here is why:

Video combines auditory & visual sense. Our brain loves video because it is programmed to retain visual content better than a page loaded with words.
Video encompasses all content types. A video can include text, music, photographs, links, and even podcasts, which makes video the king of all contents.
Marketers and consumers worship video. Videos make great storytellers. They make information more digestible and easier to understand.'

The Rise of Youtube

Since we're talking about the supremacy of online videos, we can't just move forward without mentioning Youtube. As Kim Smith from Brandwatch puts is, 'When YouTube first made its way onto the internet, few people realized how many hours of video we’d be watching years later.'

'Launched in 2005, YouTube was synonymous with video content long before video marketing became a buzzword. In 2018, a whopping 1.8 billion people flocked to the platform each month,' tells Farheen Gani from Zapier. Youtube is currently considered the most popular video hosting site. The reason is it offers some crucial features such as:

An easy-to-use interface
Compatibility with all types of browsers and players, such as Flash and HTML5
Compatibility with mobile devices
Basic analytics tools to measure the impact of your videos
SEO tools to make your videos search-engine friendly
The ability to embed your videos on external websites

Apart from these, what makes YouTube a big player is its relationship with Google, the platform's parent site. After Google purchased YouTube in 2006, it went from being a niche hosting site to a mainstream one. Plus, their search algorithms match each other so that Youtube videos receive first spots in Google search results.

To make sure you're all caught up, we've gathered the most up-to-date facts on Youtube to help you own your place on the platform.

12 Insightful and Fun YouTube Statistics For 2019

Whether you're simply using Youtube to watch your favorite videos, you wanna create your own channel or you're currently managing one: knowledge is power.

And if you're ever looking to create videos for social media that turn heads, Lumen5 is your platform.

Youtube User Stats

1. YouTube is the 2nd most popular social media platform with 1.9bn users.

2. In an average month, 8 out of 10 18-49 year-olds watch YouTube.

3. YouTube reaches more 18-49 year-olds than any broadcast or TV network on mobile.

4. 50% of American internet users aged 75 and overuse YouTube.

Youtube Usage Stats

5. YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine and second most visited site after Google.

6. 400 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.

7. People watch over 1 billion hours of YouTube videos a day, more than Netflix and Facebook video combined.

8. The first video to hit one million views was a Nike ad featuring Ronaldinho.

9. The most searched term on YouTube is ‘despacito’, followed by ‘bts’.

10. The time people spend watching YouTube on their TV has more than doubled in the last year.

11. YouTube provides almost 50% of all on-demand music.

12. 70% of millennial YouTube users watched a video to learn how to do something new last year.

Over to You

If you need to capture and download online videos, it makes sense to research the right video grabber tool for the job.

What's your favorite one?

Alex helps businesses create content that converts users into customers. She flips over wording challenges while keeping her zen. When she’s away from her desk, you’ll probably find her doing yoga, surfing, reading, camping, or walking her dog on the beach.

If you are a Google Chrome fan, for example, you will find that Google doesn't allow any kind of extension in its store that can facilitate the download of clips from Youtube or such online sources. You might find some third-party extensions that can do this, but it's not a good idea to install stuff from third-party stores. Things are a little bit different on Firefox, which has a ton of add-ons that can handle this type of job.

In fact, the Linux platform has quite a few of these applications available right now. Some of them are commercial, other free, and there is, of course, the terminal version, named youtube-dl. One of the problems with these apps is that developers need to update them all the time because the websites will often make changes that turn applications obsolete. It can be some minor fix or an API change, but the end result is pretty much the same. Granted, stuff like that hasn't been done in a while with YouTube, but that doesn't mean that it won't happen again.

Installation

ClipGrab has a really nice website, and downloading the application is quite easy. The makers of ClipGrab provide a single archive, which, in fact, holds a single binary file. The application runs with just a double click and seems to integrate well in the system.

I tested ClipGrab in Ubuntu 15.10, and that means that I encountered a little problem, but it's not the application's fault. The distribution is not yet stable, and the new OS is not supported in the PPA, at least for now. On the other hand, I can run it with just a double click, and the only inconvenience is that I don't get any new updates when they are released.

In any case, if you want to install the application in Ubuntu, via a PPA, you will need to have anything less than Ubuntu 15.10. Just enter these commands in a terminal near you (don't forget that you need to have root):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:clipgrab-team/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install clipgrab

Usage

There are a couple of ways of using this application. It has a tabbed menu, and the first entry is named Search, so you can use that to find the video that you want. You don't have to open an Internet browser for it. The second method is to get the link from the browser and enter it in the second tab named Downloads.

Users can choose what kind of format they want to have, the quality of the video, and the location of the file. It's worth pointing out that, if you have FFMpeg installed on your system, you can also convert the files to a few other formats.

The Third tab gives users some basic options like metadata download, ignore SSL, clear download list, and a few others. It's extremely easy to use, and users shouldn't have any trouble with it.

The Good

Clipgrab Similar Applications

ClipGrab is advanced enough to let users transform the videos with the help of FFMpeg, and this is quite important. Also, the fact that the application integrated itself with the notification system and even put an indicator made things a lot easier.

The Bad

There are only two issues with ClipGrab that I could find. Firstly, there is no delete button for clips that have been stopped, which is a little bit annoying. And secondly, you can't download an entire playlist. This function is present in youtube-dl, and that runs in a terminal.

Apps Like Clipgrab

Conclusion

ClipGrab is a hassle-free application that is able to fulfill the simple task of downloading something from an online source. It's not complicated, you don't have to install it, and it runs flawlessly. You can't really ask for much more. Well, a playlist download would have been nice, but maybe this feature will land in the future.

What to Look For In a Video Grabber Tool

Apps Like Clipgrab

Top 5 Video Grabber Tools to Download Online Videos

#1. 4K Video Downloader

How It Works:

Pros:

Cons:

User Review:

Pricing: Free basic functions, Standalone License ($15) and Bundle License ($20).

#2. aTube Catcher

How It Works:

Pros:

Cons:

User Review:

Pricing: Free

#3. ClipGrab

How It Works:

Pros:

Cons:

User Review

Pricing: Free

#4. JDownloader

Is Clipgrab Safe

How It Works:

Pros:

Cons:

User Review:

Pricing: Free

#5. VideoGrabber

How It Works:

Pros:

Cons:

User Review:

Pricing: Free

Conclusion

Why Video Is the Most Engaging Type of Content

The Rise of Youtube

12 Insightful and Fun YouTube Statistics For 2019

Youtube User Stats

Youtube Usage Stats

Over to You

Installation

Usage

The Good

Clipgrab Similar Applications

The Bad

Apps Like Clipgrab

Conclusion