Firefox has so many extensions or add-ons and of course there are several for aiding downloading of content from the Internet.

Video DownloadHelper 2.6 is an easy 188KB download and it installs automatically. With Vista I had no problems installing it, but you’ll have to restart Firefox to complete the installation.

Once Firefox is restarted you’ll see the media icon to the right of the address bar – it is three little spheres.

Using Video DownloadHelper is simple. When you visit a page with content that you want to capture and if the extension can download this item for you, the icon will become animated. Click the little down-pointing arrow next to the icon, select the media file to save, then give it a name and click OK. The browser will now download the video.

If the icon does not become animated while you are on a page with a video that you want to save, play the video so that Video DownloadHelper can see it.

The problem with trying to download a lot of stuff through the browser is that it’s unreliable. While you start a second download, the first one may stop and you know it’s not done when there were still 58 minutes left to complete that first download.

Right-click the file that did not finish downloading and click on Properties.

Highlight the address of the video in the “From: box” and drag it to the Free Download Manager’s (FDM) Drop Box.

If the FDM Drop Box is not visible, make sure that FDM is open and then right-click the FDM icon in the start tray and select Drop Box. The Drop Box will appear on your screen and the next time you right-click the tray icon, the Drop Box option will be checked.

Not sure what FDM is? Check out yesterday’s post on the Free Download Manager – this is great free software that you will want to pick up.

For some of the videos, which were hosted on personal sites unlike youtube or google, I was able to right-click on the “download” link that popped up just a second before the video screen appeared. Then, choosing download with free download manager, I could download the video at my leisure.

Pick up the Free Download Manager (FDM) and install it today. This is not an affiliate link! FDM will help out immensely when you want to download media from the Web. Have you ever wanted to save a PDF to read later instead of opening it in your browser? After you install FDM, just right-click the pdf link and choose to ‘Download with Free Download Manager.’ A new window pops up that lets you choose the new file name and location to download the file.

FDM runs in the background while you turn your attention to more pressing matters. You can even set how fast it runs so that downloads can trickle in and not interrupt your surfing activities.

Free Download Manager is free, open source software that allows resuming of interrupted or broken downloads. FDM also has an upload manager for sharing your files and has support for downloading video from video sites like google and youtube. The downloaded video can then be saved in native .flv format or converted to one of more popular video formats.

FDM has been a real time-saver and has helped me organize my stuff!