Download anything with Firefox and Firebug.
- Details
- Created on Sunday, 02 October 2011 12:44
- Written by Ian R-P
Advanced Downloading
Using Firefox and Firebug you can download just about anything, including finding the location of radio streams and such for online stations that attempt to restrict you to their ad filled players. A friendly reminder that this technique isn't foolproof, company's constantly change techniques to get their data and sometimes it is just impossible to obtain content. But for the most part anything is obtainable.
Some sites are tricky and as you become faster at this you will be able to get the GET data copied and pasted at the same time it's download. This is good because some company's use Amazon's S3 service which will stop sending the file when it's fully downloaded by the browser and the access key times out. So if you notice that the content is on Amazon, you need to get the GET link and start downloading the content before it's finished caching into your browser.
Useful Addons
- Firebug
- YSlow (requires Firebug)
- Adblock Plus
- LastPass
Requirements:
- Have Firefox installed.
- Have Firebug installed.
Quick Tech Info
What we will be doing is using the Net tab on Firebug and analyzing the GET requests to obtain the file/stream locations.
Main Instructions (common file)
- Open Firefox to another webpage aside from the one you wish to get this content from.
- Press F12 to open Firebug, or Tools -> Firebug -> Open Firebug but for the sake of simplicity i recommend you remember F12.
- Click on the Net tab
- Click on the dropdown arrow beside Net and select Enable
- Do the same as above but select Disable Browser Cache
- Navigate to the webpage you wish to get content from, if you can do not start playing the content yet.
- Make sure Firebug is open (F12) and on the Net tab
- Now start playing the content and pay close attention to the lines within Firebug.
- What you need to do from here is look at each "GET" line for the one that looks like the content you want.
- A few tricks:
- Content will be larger then anything else on the website so look for the GET with a larger size then anything else
- Since the content is usually larger look at the Timeline, that blue/grey bar tells you how long it took for an item to download to your computer and the longer it is the more likely thats your content.
- Once you've found what you think it what you want, you need to right click on the GET line with item and Copy Location.
- Open a new tab, paste the location and hit enter and you should hopefully now be downloading the content you want.
Radio Streams
The technique is pretty much the same as above the only difference is that streams are never ending and alot of companies try to fool you with multiple non-stop streaming. Look for a GET with a direct IP address and copy that location into a player that is capable of playing it's stream. I personally like to test if i have the proper link by using VLC because it can play almost everything. The major thing you need to watch for is when the stream dies one day, the IP address has probably changed on you. But i have a doubting feeling that this would ever happen.
Alternatives
- Youtube Downloader - Simple to use and will convert the FLV to MP3 instantly if it's just a song you want.
- Media Convert - If you need to convert downloaded media to anything else, give this a shot.
