Sunday, January 18, 2015

Download Facebook Videos

I was afraid this would happen: there are some family videos on Facebook (if that's not bad enough), that are only on Facebook, the source has been lost, typically because it was on a cell phone, which has a somewhat temporary nature.

What to do? I want to get a copy of those videos, and back it up, even if the quality is bad.

So I googled "download facebook videos". Yikes! Turns out there are two common solutions, both horrible in my opinion: (1) Install a browser helper or download a utility. The problem is all of these seem to be very harmful, and also do not work as advertised. Just read some of the comments about them before you go clicking on them. (2) Get the facebook video URL and plug it at a certain website. As best I can tell that website then has your personal video, and does what it wants with it.

Is there a safer (more secure, more private) third option? You bet! I found the answer here: http://www.wikihow.com/Download-Facebook-Videos-Free . It's in the second section. Basically you get the video going in Chrome's developer mode. Find the video on the network tab, and open the URL in a new window, then you can rightclick on the video to download it. Yay! Problem solved without installing a virus or posting my videos to who knows where.