Save Flash from Firefox
We all know stealing, ripping, or otherwise infringing on ones copyright is wrong and should never...ever...ever...never be condoned. That should be a given (although it still needs to be said). However inspiration, learning from others, and improving on what has already been done is good, and in most circles encouraged. Which is why many people save screenshots of others work, bookmark websites, or "right click - > view Source"... to save code/files/images, for later reference. With Flash files however it's not usually as easy as save as, or right clicking to viewing source (until more people start implementing Mike Chambers idea).
Instead most people wanting to save Flash sites for inspiration and future reference are left digging through their temporary internet files looking for the files that hopefully apply to the site. This isn't too hard for IE users as most know where to look to get at their temporary internet files that IE uses. But what if you prefer a real browser, one that works for you, one that isn't so clumsy, what if you use Firefox? Do you know where your temporary internet files are in Firefox???
Well the good news is you don't need to in Firefox, anything you want you can get directly in the browser while browsing the page of interest**. Here's how:
While in Firefox, just right click anywhere on the page (outside of the embedded flash object) and click "View Page Info" (or select the "Tools" drop-down in the browsers menu bar) and click on the "Media" tab. You will see a list of all objects that page contains. If you look under the "Type" column and find the word(s) "Embed", that will be the flash file(s) in the page. You can the select the desired file from the list and click "Save as...", at which time Firefox will give you a dialog box asking where to save your file.
You now have a Flash file "for reference use only". Also please keep in mind that these works (unless otherwise noted) are protected by copyright, and not free to use as you wish, copy as you see fit, or otherwise rip! If you do see something you want to know more about, try emailing the creator, you'll be surprised how many are willing to offer help/feedback and answer your questions.
**There is one drawback to this method however, it does not give you access to loaded swf's.**
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October 14th, 2005 at 5:13 pm
useful, thanks.
October 19th, 2005 at 9:58 pm
this also works for embedded video and many images as well
October 19th, 2005 at 10:39 pm
Instead of doing all that, just install the Adblock extension and get the direct address from the Adblock tab.
October 19th, 2005 at 10:40 pm
A simpler way would be to use the Firefox Adblock plugin and grab the link that way.
October 19th, 2005 at 10:50 pm
Old concept, new trick. However, it not being able to save the loaded swf’s is a huge drawback.
October 19th, 2005 at 11:33 pm
yaaay… i didnt know that
..
thank you mr. and i think the one in 1.5beta is kick ass cuz it displays most images, i loweee it
cheers
October 19th, 2005 at 11:36 pm
The scrapbook extension captures the entire page with flash and CSS and makes it as easy to use as a bookmark. It’s a great method for playing flash games offline. However, both of these methods only work with flash files that don’t load external files like images, sound or video.
October 23rd, 2005 at 7:35 am
Something i was looking for a long time….
Thanks a lot!!!
October 29th, 2005 at 6:47 pm
[...] The other day I posted an article on how to place a flash file for display on your desktop. I mention a couple of methods for saving the flash file to your hard drive. Both methods involve examining the source code to get the flash file URL. Turns out there is a much easier way in Firefox. I’ll leave the details to the source but basically, you can view a list of all media on the page, including flash files, from the “View Page Info” menu. Once you find the appropriate item in the media list there is a “Save As…” button that allows you to easily store the file to your HD. Very nice stuff. [...]
November 13th, 2005 at 5:05 am
nytimes use dispatcher.swf so you can’t..
December 19th, 2005 at 8:49 am
I use this feature all the time to save Flash files. To my sadness, this seems to be broken in Firefox 1.5. The domain part is somehow chopped off. I was hoping that in 1.5 we would have Flash preview under Page Info. It got worse.
January 17th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
“instead of doing all that” ? What are you guys talking about? you just right-click, page info, media, select and save as.
It takes like, 10 secs. Now grabbing the link requires you to redownload it… that takes a couple mins if you’re grabbing a 50mb flash file.
January 20th, 2006 at 3:35 am
A couple of comments:
At a site like YouTube (the home video hoster), right-clicking on the “embed” link under “Page Source” or “Page Info” — while a video is playing — simply gives you a copy of the generic “player”, but does not give you a copy of the particular “video content” file which is actually loaded into the player. The direct URL to the individual video file itself remains hidden behind a server firewall of some sort, which is absolutely maddening.
I have indeed found those data files (representing the individual video) in the IE6 cache after playing a YouTube video, and managed to save them permanently to the HD. But I’ll be damned if I can figure out how to play the files back. I’ve tried renaming them with and without adding the .swf extension, but no player I’ve got will seem to open them. Anybody got any suggestion how to crack them to make the useable?
January 23rd, 2006 at 12:02 pm
thanks for the tip.
but i disagree elsewhere: copyright infringement should be incouraged and practiced. IP laws have been promulgated by large corporate interests without regard to things like public good (e.g. vacines and medicines, largely funded and subsidized at public expense). morover, the original intent of copyright (to give the author of an original work a few years to promote the idea before others get into the game. however, this idea got lost along the way so that, for example, the disney corporation considers mickey mouse to be it’s IP, despite the fact that the corporation didn’t invent it, and the person who did died long ago.
finally, there’s a pervasive conflation of stealing and theft (i.e. taking a thing away from someone else so they don’t have it anymore: like someone jacking your bicycle), and copyright infringement which amounts to someone monentarily and legally bossing people around for no good purpose (other than to make corporate shareholders more rich).
let me offer a countervailing ideology to “free” market claptrap: information should be free.
January 25th, 2006 at 3:54 am
Yeah, it’s not as simple as it used to be. I’m sure most of you have already figured this out, but for the n00bs, here’s a tip that will work for SOME websites. It depends on how the webmaster has the file load. But: If there a .swf file you want to get but the “save as” function won’t work, another way to get it is to find the file you want, find the name of it under “page info” (i.e. http://xxxx.xxx/xxxx/nameoffile.swf), you might have to do a little guesswork if the file doesn’t have a proper name, and copy the web address into a new window. The flash file should come up by itself, then just click on “File” – “Save Page As” and voila.
Hope that helps with some, I’ve used it to get several different things, but unfortunately it’s not foolproof.
February 8th, 2006 at 10:36 am
to get the url of loaded files (ie: loaded swf’s). use a program called charles. it monitors all http requests and will show you urls to all loaded swf’s
http://www.xk72.com/charles/index.php
this should fix the problem LR2 and Nikos are having.
As for Aster and Youtube’s site, they probably code something into their swfs that checks the global _url value to make sure its running off their site.
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:09 am
Aster, the correct extension is .flv (flash video). You can watch them with VLC.
April 6th, 2006 at 3:05 am
i like make flash, many times got very confused that i don’t know how to save them , how to manage them, but since i use Save Flash, i have never suffered by these problems.
http://www.yaodownload.com/video-design/animation/save-flash/
April 6th, 2006 at 3:54 am
Another option if your using firefox is to look in it’s cache. In the address bar type in about:cache
find the flash file you want and click on it. then on the link right click on it and save as.
It’s a bit more of a process but if the other way doesn’t work maybe this will
note: Not sure if this will make a differance or not but just incase right click on the flash file and click settings/local settings, and raise the amount of information the site is allowed to store
April 20th, 2006 at 6:09 am
First and foremost, YouTube uses the Flv format, so you’ll need an FLV player if you want to watch the videos from your PC.
The semi-complex but sure fire way to extract YouTube videos from Firefox cache is to open a new tab and type “about:cache”, without the quotes. Select and copy the location that appears next to “Cache Directory”. It should look something along the lines of: “C:\Documents and Settings\Mendicant\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\2axh0jg5.default\Cache”
Next, you have to open up Windows Explorer, and go to the Cache folder. Unfortunately, none of the files in the cache folder have extentions, so some guesswork is involved, but usually the videos are the large files. So, you basically need to manually add “.flv” extention to a file, try and run it, and repeat.
It’s not pretty, but this is how I “save” videos…
April 23rd, 2006 at 9:34 am
Thank you R1!
Works perfectly, like a charm!
I simply deleted the cache and then visited the site hosting the video. With the finished download there was only one bigger file in the cache directory, so not much guessing was needed.
Thanks!
May 28th, 2006 at 4:02 am
Another way to get rid of files without extension is Trid.
This is the command line version
http://mark0.net/soft-trid-e.html
and shall be used in a dos command prompt. If you doesn’t dislike to install the .Net framework (about 80 megs) you should use the Graphic version:
http://mark0.net/soft-tridnet-e.html
the best way to use it is to make a link to trid executable in your sendto folder, so, when you right click on a file in windows explorer, and choose sendto,Trid will apear. (just type “sendto” in “Start\Run” menu of windows, and place the link in the folder that will be opened)
Third way, if you don’t want to install anything, is to use the online version of Trid, but use it only on files that aren’t strictly confidential, safety first!
http://mark0.net/onlinetrid.aspx
Was that useful?
July 23rd, 2006 at 5:05 pm
An easier way to get videos from the Firefox cache is to use the CacheViewer extension.
Go to Tools > CacheViewer to bring up the window. To get youtube videos, search for “get_video” and select the video you want. If you want the last one you viewed, click the icon thingy below the Show All button, an click Last Fetched to add the column and sort it by that.
Then right click the video, click Save As and save the file as nameofvideo.flv.
BTW, for google video, the string to search for is “vp.video.google”.
Also, if you want the CacheViewer window to open in a tab, make a bookmark that points to chrome://cacheviewer/content/cacheviewer.xul its pretty cool.
August 18th, 2006 at 3:23 am
OK, this greasemonkey script works.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/4032
September 15th, 2006 at 12:55 am
Thanks Terminal Shutdown!!
That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out for ages. Many of the scientific animations I use in lectures are now becoming “non-cached” and I’ve been trying to find a way to bypass this and save a copy. Your method works a treat (and your right….it does take a bit of guess work sometimes)
Cheers
October 27th, 2006 at 7:29 am
http://inner.geek.nz/archives/2005/05/15/howto-save-nearly-any-multimedia-file-in-your-web-browser-to-your-hard-drive/
dont have to do any installation just go here ppl & problem is no more a problemo,jus tclick here & trust me ur gonna love it.
Take care
YO!!!!!!!!!!
February 26th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
I have had my flash game (swf) swiped and reposted on other websites. There is a way to shut that off, so if it happens the flash will shut down. You can sync it with a php database. If the sync is good you run the game. If it isn’t you shut the game off (blank screen). The thief who stole your flash will look like an idiot when he tries to get posting points and the file does nothing….
April 6th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Hi sir,
when we run a flash file it will go with one page to another automatically. can i to do this manually.i want to open a flash file from one page to another with giving the link next and previous.
So plese tell me if any solution u have.
Thanks & Regards
Satyendra kumar pandey
unistal systems pvt. ltd.
April 7th, 2007 at 10:22 am
@Satyendra – my apologies but I don’t understand exactly what your asking. Can you elaborate please?
May 29th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
@R1, it worx.
n to figure out flv video, just sort the files by size. mst of the time it shud wrk.
July 1st, 2007 at 1:38 am
Thanks for this! It works really well. Now I have a use for Firefox after all!
July 11th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
all Very well-we can now save em
but how do u play these files back – can one download a player for thiz swf thing
Anybody……………………..???
July 11th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html
August 17th, 2007 at 6:02 am
just read this over tonite while bored…
i’m currently using firefox version 2.0.0.6 — the most current stable one version..
anyway, you don’t just click tools -> media, the actual process i found after playing around for a few was the following:
- tools
- page info
- media tab (4th tab from the left)
- search for embedded files
- save as
- select location on hard drive and type in desired name
* i’m sure this is just annoying to most of you out there but i decided i’d type out clear directions for us idiots out here…
-sum1
November 30th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Does anyone know how to get the video off of a site like this? I just want to be able to save the video independent of the site for future reference off a site with video embedded this way. http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=5257639&ch=4226725&src=news
I tried the Firefox Page Info way as well as the cache method, but couldn’t get it to work.
Thanks.
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:55 am
Hi it was a great tip. I was searching for it
November 9th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
it only saves games as Shockwave Flash Object which cant be used as game
January 26th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
I can save the video fine but i cant play it. I have the newest shockwave player. PLEASE HELP :S
January 27th, 2009 at 9:07 am
@Nate if your trying to play Flash video (flv) you will need and FLV player. Try downloading this free FLV Player.
Hope that helps.
-Dave