video downloaders

[davidh]

I had been using Real Audio Real Player to download videos, but quite a while ago it stopped working in my Firefox. Maybe when I updated Real or Firefox?

Anyway, I also tried the Ant.com video downloader extension for Firefox (for MS IE too, I think).

Eventually after reinstalling and/or updating the Real Player (free version) a number of times probably over a period of over one year [?], the Real video downloader started functioning ok again in Firefox (always worked ok in MS IE).

The Real Player video downloader seems now to work much more generally than the Ant.com video downloader.

[davidh]

ant.com today gets a RED rating from McAfee SiteAdvisor. User comments or ratings on SiteAdvisor for ant.com indicates that the RED rating is in dispute. Nevertheless, since ant downloader is not needed by me since Real Player seems to do a good job, I figure "the fewer add ons / plug ins the better" and I uninstalled ant downloader, even tho' it's probably still offered by mozilla addons. I figure there still might be a privacy issue since I think most all of these downloader programs incl. Real give info to their own host computer, even if such info might or might not contain personal info.

FWIW: Recent news article from one of ISC news feeds indicates that most windows PC / browser combinations offer up enough impersonal details to web hosts in general so as to make most users uniquely indentifiable. (Probably even if you do use Better Privacy extension of firefox and other measures :( )