Better Youtube Firefox Extension Now Firefox 3 Compatible

I never got around to talking about the Better Youtube Extension when I first got it, but it's one of the extensions I've kept installed through these past few months, offering minor but useful tweaks to the Youtube web interface that makes the experience just a little bit more tolerable (for ways to make Facebooking equally so, check out our recent feature series).

Anyway, the Better Youtube extension was one of the extensions that didn't quite immediately make it to Firefox 3's safe zone, and when for some reason Firefox 3 stopped letting me keep old extensions on regardless of whether it thought they were compatible or not, Better Youtube was one of the only ones that couldn't come back on.

Well, today the fine folks behind this extension have updated it to be Firefox 3 compatible. And with that, I'm happy to say that all of my extensions are now up to code! How are yours?

VidtoMP3 rips Youtube Audio to MP3

There've been a handful of Youtube-to-MP3 services that've popped up recently, and I'd always thought they were a cute novelty, but seriously, who wants mp3's of inferior quality? That is, until I began searching for music to use in my new animation reel, and the piece of music I'd decided on only existed on Youtube.

I tried several sites for this service, but VidtoMP3 was by far the best. You simply enter the full URL of the Youtube video you want, and the entire conversion process is done on VidtoMP3's end. Once it finishes converting, you just click on the Download link, where you are taken to a second page that lets you download the file.

While the process isn't as elegant as being one-click, for the service it provides it's a lot less of a hassle than many sites out there that are jam-packed with ads and pop-ups. VidtoMp3 isn't completely innocent of this, but it was perfectly tolerable. In fact, if you were to use their service regularly, I'd certainly recommend you send them a donation for their trouble.

(note: as of this specific moment the VidtoMP3 site seems to be down, potentially because of server overload. I'll keep you updated on whether the site comes back up, or if it's just a fly-by-night idealistic novelty.)