Getting started

To do this properly, you need to understand how those websites work.

For the shake of simplicity fellow “pirates”, they utilize m3u wiki link

  • m3u8 99% of the time.

You will also need yt-dlp install it if you don’t have already

Example on utilizing this knowledge
  • Go to your favorite streaming site
  • Simple press F12
  • Go to Network
  • Select XHR (XMLHttpRequest)
  • Filter URLs for m3u8
    • If you find more than one, just test them out, you will soon find the trick on your own :)
  • Copy the URL
  • Open a terminal and type yt-dlp <your-copied-link>

Do it Ethically

Some may call us pirates, which I find really cool

But the true evil Pirates/criminals are the ones that keep the power to themselves and don’t share it with others

Information is the only true power, and it should be free(free as in free speech) for all.

Share your own tips & tricks in the comments if you want!

  • Soltros@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    This doesn’t have to do with the topic at hand, but it’s just so cool being able to directly reference sites and ways to download on Lemmy, rather than dancing around the topic on Reddit.

  • NOOBMASTER@kbin.social
    2·
    1 year ago

    I have VideoDownloadHelper addon for Firefox, and most of the time it works. There are some exceptions of course, where it cannot download the video. But I love finding out new ways to do it, in case the old ways fail one day. Good post, man!

  • Prollol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    @The person who said one can use VLC to download m3u8 links, I tried this multiple times already, but sadly the resulting files were never complete. Either the video was cut off or the audio missing or the like. I used VLC on Windows.

  • Astaroth@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    Edit: It seems yt-dlp was at some point moved from AUR to Extra. I was half expecting it to happen eventually since youtube-dl stopped working about a year ago, but I never noticed it happening.

    Either way, as it’s a package on extra instead of AUR there’s a lot less of a security concern for anyone worried about that.

     

    Original comment:

    I have yt-dlp from the AUR (Arch User Repository). youtube-dl package also exists, and it’s on extra, but it stopped working about half a year ago

      • Astaroth@lemmy.world
        0·
        1 year ago

        like I said only the original youtube-dl package is in extra but it stopped working a while back.

        since then I’ve been using the youtube-dl fork yt-dlp that OP mentioned, but it’s in aur atm since it hasn’t gotten as recognized as it’s a fork (I assume)

         

        Basically yt-dlp is a fork of youtube-dl, and unlike youtube-dl it’s in aur instead of extra.

        At least last I checked all youtube-dl forks are in aur, but you have to use yt-dlp (or maybe one of the other forks) since youtube-dl doesn’t work anymore.