There is no arguing that YouTube is the most popular video sharing site out there, but that isn’t to say that there aren’t things about it that annoy users. With that said, there are a wide array of plugins for Firefox to make the YouTube user experience that much better. Here are over 20 that will let you save your favorite videos before they disappear, stop them from autoplaying when you come to a page, and more.
What would you build an extension to change if you could? Let us know in the comments!
Download YouTube Videos
Ant Toolbar – The official toolbar for Ant.com includes a YouTube video downloader as well as a built in FLV player so you can play the videos you’ve snagged right from there.
Embedded Objects – This add-on will download pretty much any type of embedded file, including your favorite YouTube videos.
Fast Video Download – Fast Video Download works with numerous video sites and will also add a download link under embedded YouTube videos you find on other sites.
Flash Video Downloader – Besides allowing you to download your favorite videos from YouTube, this add-on will download flash videos from other sites and even games.
Flash Video Resources Downloader – Will let you download videos from most flash-based video sharing sites, will also let you enter a YouTube URL and be presented with the download information without needing to go to the page.
Magic’s Video – Downloader – Assists you with downloading FLV videos from around two dozen video sharing sites, including the market leader, YouTube.
Media Converter – This extension will allow you to not only download your desired videos, but it will also convert them right in the browser to the format you desire.
Sothink Web Video Downloader – Besides downloading videos from YouTube, Sothink will also let you capture videos in swf, wmv, asf, avi, mov, rm and rmvb formats.
Video DownloadHelper – Once installed, Video DownloadHelper’s icon will animate when you come to a page that has a video you can download. Once you start the download process, you can also choose which format you want to save the file as.
Tools
Better YouTube – Collects some of the most popular Greasemonkey scripts for YouTube that do things like give you an alternate player, a cleaner theater interface and more.
GoogleTube – This extension adds a YouTube icon next to Google search results that have videos associated with them. Click on the button and you can watch the videos directly on the search results page.
Groowe Firefox Toolbar – Gives you a toolbar that lets you search YouTube, Digg, Delicious and more.
Now Playing X – Allows you to feed videos you are watching to the Now Playing feature on messengers like Live, Yahoo, AIM, Skype and GTalk.
RickRadar – If you really fear being RickRolled, install this and it will evaluate pages. If it feels there is a high probability of Rick Astley being there, it redirects you.
TubeStop – Only has one job and that is to stop YouTube videos from autoplaying.
VodPod – Allows you to grab the embed code for a video and store it at VodPod.com and then publish it to your blog with just a click.
You Old Enough? – Tired of signing in to verify your age? This add-on will let you bypass the whole process.
YouPlayer – YouPlayer allows you to drag videos to your playlist and form your own list from around the Web. If you find anything you like, right click on it and you can choose to download it.
YouTube Cinema – Allows you to play all YouTube videos in a default that shows them in cinema view.
YouTube Comment Snob – This add-on allows you to hide comments from people with numerous misspellings, excessive punctuation, all capital letters, no capital letters and so on.
YouTube Tooltip – Allows you to hover your mouse over a YouTube link and see what the video may be before you click on it. Can also show author, ratings and number of views.
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