Regarding of the initial idea of Product Hunt, I want to share with the community a tool I've found across Internet and its name is Cobalt
Cobalt is a platform which helps you to download video, audio, GIF, etc from any site or social media – with just one click. Paste URL and push the button, that's all.
No ads, trackers, paywalls, or other nonsense. just a convenient web app that works anywhere, whenever you need it.
Cobalt was created for public benefit, to protect people from ads and malware pushed by its alternatives. we believe that the best software is safe, open, and accessible.
You can find more information about the project's motivation and mission on their website, as well as all the ways how to support Cobalt – because it's free to use (but donations are always welcome for the team)
Great product - already swapping it for yt-dlp. Having a UI that can choose sections of a video would be fantastic. 2 parameters: start time and end time. Just a thought!
Hi, That's very useful. thanks.
I see that the chrome extension isn't working. is there a way to create a link directly to the download page for a url? like https://cobalt.tools/?video=www... or maybe there's an alternative extension that can be downloaded from github and not extensions store?
@wukko This is such a useful tool! The simplicity of just pasting a link and downloading content without the hassle of ads or paywalls is amazing. It's great to see a product focused on user privacy and safety. I'm curious if there are any plans to support browser extensions for even quicker access?
@renchu_song we aren't planning on making browser extensions at this time, because google and mozilla take down or block updates of similar extensions. it already happened to a community-made extension in the past, and that one simply opened a link to cobalt (https://github.com/dimdenGD/coba...)
This definitely seems like a very useful product! I'm curious though-how will it generate revenue? Will the approach be similar to ad-blocking extensions on Chrome browsers?
@zhiqi_shi hi, thanks for your comment, but better forward it directly to the team via contacts on their webpage: no any members of Cobalt actually involved into this launch
@zhiqi_shi revenue is not really our goal here, we rely on donations & partnerships (such as with royalehosting) to keep cobalt online.
btw, if you're looking for a proper and unbiased/unsponsored adblocker, try "ublock origin".
I appreciate its compatibility with various popular platforms and the ease of pasting a link to get started. The focus on privacy and avoiding unnecessary tracking is also a great featur