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Firefox 33 allows downloading of YouTube videos by simply right clicking Save As. Moreover, upon inspect element, it reveals the source where the file is hosted (Googlevideo, etc.). It is right there in the <video> element.

For newer browsers, upon inspecting an element of a YouTube video link, the source is to some blob URL which is inaccessible.

Viewing the source of the entire page on Firefox and attempting to find (simply CTRL+F) the <video> fails. This doesn't make sense; if the inspect element indicates that there is a <video> element, it should be present somewhere in the source.

I believe there is some trickery going on here to prevent me from finding the source of the file in the entire mess of code. Is this even possible? Change of encoding perhaps?

And, to ask further, how is the browser able to change or hide a particular part of the source code?

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  • Use backticks to put code elements into posts.
    – mtak
    Commented Sep 5, 2016 at 12:58
  • Some screenshots showing where you went and what you saw would be helpful.
    – user3169
    Commented Sep 7, 2016 at 4:05

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