Tubemaster Plus Plus (the sequel to previously mentioned Tubmaster Plus) can download media (video/audio) from video sharing sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, MySpace, Dailymotion and others, as well as encrypted media from “ani-leeching” websites sites such as Imeen, Pandora and Last.fm.TM++ can also perform on-the-fly format conversions as well as general Video and MP3 searches.
If you’ve seen the previous incarnation of this program you’ll be happy to know that this new version is a complete departure from its predecessor, completely re-written in JAVA.
It avoids or circumvents all of the problems/issues that afflicted the previous incarnation including false positives reported by some anti-malware programs, restrictions on some (adult) sites, memory issues, and issues with registry entries and drivers that the program installed and left on the system (in truth, by the time the last version of Tubemaster plus was released all of these were actually already remedied, but I wanted to make sure to mention that these issues were a thing of the past).
Improvements also include a better looking user interface (the built-in browser of the predecessor is done away with). In fact the only feature of TM+ that I liked that TM++ does not have is portability. Here are more notes on this program:
- How it works: once you launch TM++ (it will reside in the system tray), use your browser to navigate to the video or audio that you want to download. TM++ will display a notification and start downloading your media as soon as it starts playing in the browser. You will need to keep the browser window open for the duration of the download in order for TM++ to download your media properly.
Media conversion: on-the-fly. Includes a couple dozen conversion presets, my favorite of which is the quick MP3 extraction.- Audio/video search: the search functions are very impressive. For video search, you can specify which site you want to search from a rather expansive list of sites.
- Virus/malware free: a clean bill of health from Virustotal.
The verdict: I’ve seen the development trajectory of this program and I think that developer deserves a lot of credit for taking this software in the right direction and creating what is undoubtedly an excellent product. But what makes this product noteworthy compared to others in its category is its ability to download from almost any site, including ant-leech encrypted media. It can be independently launched when needed and does not install itself as an extension in your browser.
Although TM++ is no longer portable (like TM+ was), this is understandable given that it relies on a number of other apps/technologies (including JAVA, which it will install if absent). Overall I highly recommend this.
Version tested: 1.0 beta
Compatibility: WinAll. Requries JAVA. Will soon be available on Linux and Mac.
Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 180K).
