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Though not the first to win an award for most self-explanatory title, YouTube to MP3 Converter allows you to do just that: "convert" YouTube clips to the MP3 format. This freeware title only hints at its full capabilities, which include converting YouTube movies into AVIs, MP4s, FLVs, and WMV formats. The program also allows you to download up to 1080p formats for the HD-inclined.

In a crowded world of free converters and clones, perhaps the most outstanding aspect of this title isn't its function, but rather its flexibility and presentation. YTtoMP3 Converter has a simple and easy … Read more

Reversing the trend of recent court upsets for the Web giant, Google had a notable success in French Court today. Siding with Google in its battle against French broadcaster TF1, the court ruled that the Internet company is not liable for filtering out pirated content on YouTube, according to Reuters.

The French media company brought the case against Google alleging that copyrighted sports and movies were easily accessible on YouTube, according to Reuters.

In this case, TF1 sought more than $176 million (141 million euros) in damages, but the French court ended up ordering the broadcaster to instead pay Google'… Read more

If you've ever found yourself going back to a certain point in a YouTube video over and over again -- because you're trying to master a dance step, because you really like that part of the song, or because you're trying to figure out exactly how that cat did a back flip -- YouTube Auto Replay is for you. This incredibly useful Google Chrome extension lets you replay YouTube videos either in their entirety or in specified segments. We think that virtually anyone who uses YouTube will find it good to have around.

YouTube Auto Replay installs … Read more

Do you watch a lot of Internet video? With so much out there to consume, from hot music videos and "SNL" skits to arty Vimeo clips and sports highlights, it's impossible to see everything. But an app that's new to iPhone helps you discover new videos by organizing them into channels you can browse by category, popularity, and Web site.

Squrl Video Discovery, (free) was formerly for iPad only, but now brings the app's wealth of video discovery tools to the iPhone. You can get started by browsing through popular or "Fresh" (new) videos to see the type of content you can watch. But to really get the full experience of Squrl, you should connect with social networks like Facebook and Twitter so you can watch videos posted by your friends and share your favorites with them.… Read more

According to Wil Wheaton, a "Star Trek: The Next Generation" actor turned writer and blogger, "Google is making a huge and annoying mistake."

His main complaint is the Internet giant's move to "force Google Plus on everyone." His woes began yesterday when he watched a YouTube video and tried to like it by clicking the thumbs up icon below the video. Instead of the icon he saw a big G+ like button along with a popup that said, "upgrade to Google+."

Wheaton immediately took to his popular Tumblr blog and wrote: … Read more

You've probably seen people take videos of street performers or their dog doing funny tricks at the park, but how can you find videos like these later? Aside from hoping that the person who took the video added all the appropriate tags and other information to make finding it easy, why not use a tool that does the work for you? A developer at labnol.org has created a simple and useful Web site that will allow you to view videos based on a two-mile radius of a chosen geographical location. Here's how to find the videos:

Step … Read more

Ever wanted to know how to turn a phrase in Esperanto, Bengali, Chinese, or some other language? Seems lots of people do, in fact millions.

Google announced today that more than 200 million people actively use Google Translate monthly. Add up all those words and that equals roughly the same amount of text per day as there is written in 1 million books.

"To put it another way: what all the professional human translators in the world produce in a year, our system translates in roughly a single day," Google Translate research scientist Franz Och wrote in a … Read more

Comcast annoyed media activists last week by announcing it wouldn't count television programming retrieved through a customer's Xbox console against a monthly "excessive use" threshold for Internet access.

As with any change to existing Internet services -- even one that sounds like a good thing -- the response in Washington was to sound the doomsday alarm. "The reports that Comcast is offering a video product through the Xbox 360 without the data counting toward the customer's data cap," Public Knowledge said last week, "raises questions not only of the justification for the … Read more

At some point, we'll all experience being sucked into the black hole that is YouTube. Minutes or hours can go by as you browse through videos uploaded by everyday people like you and me. Some are funny, others useful, or (believe it or not) thought-provoking.

Whether you consume most of your videos on YouTube or another service like Vimeo, downloading a favorite video for offline viewing or personal use has probably crossed your mind.

Before we continue, note that policies for the many video Web sites vary, so review those policies and move forward at your own risk. Distributing … Read more