Determining temporary Internet file type (Chrome)

Question

My broadband speed is sometimes lacking, and therefore it can be difficult to view Flash streams of programmes.

So my idea is to start a Flash stream, let it run to completion no matter how long it takes, and then view the temporary .swf file.

I've discovered the location of my Google Chrome temporary files. However, there is no file type associated with these files.

Therefore, I'm wondering if the idea above will work, and how can I retrieve only .swf files?

Answer 1

You are correct; Chrome fills its cache with extensionless, numbered files (most browsers do something like this as well). That is partly by design because you are not normally meant to access cache files manually (technically you are supposed to view/save files via the browser). You can identify the filetype of unknown files with tools like TrID.

That said, you are looking in the wrong place. Streaming videos are not stored in the cache; they are stored in the temporary directory.

Moreover, Internet videos are almost always set to be deleted when finished with. That is, the browser (or the Flash/Silverlight/etc. video-players to be specific) create the temporary file with a flag set that tells the OS to lock the file while it’s being used and immediately delete it when it’s released. As such, unlike other temp files, you cannot just copy it (because it’s locked) and when it’s unlocked, it’s gone.

(You don’t want the .swf files, those are for the video-player, not the video itself which is usually either .mp4 or .flv.)

You will need to use some tricks to get the video file:

1. Download and install Unlocker
2. Open the web page and let the video buffer (you will want to do this for one video at a time to keep things from getting cluttered)
3. Open the folder %tmp% (defaults to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Temp in Windows 7, and %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp in XP)
4. look for a large file with a filename of the form fla####.tmp
5. Right-click the file and select Unlocker
6. Click the drop-down in the bottom-right corner and select Copy
7. Save the file to another location (it needs to be on the same drive letter for now)
8. Rename the file if needed (give it either a .mp4 or .flv extension)
9. Open the video in a video player (VLC) and check it
10. If good, then you can close the webpage and the temp file should be automatically deleted

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That is the manual method and it is a bit of work (though it becomes quite fast and easy after you do it a couple of times). An easier way is to use a Chrome extension specifically meant to facilitate downloading videos instead of streaming them. Many of them support multiple video sites. For YouTube in particular, I recommend the userscript YousableTubeFix which seamlessly integrates into YouTube and also lets you remove various parts of the page (like useless comments and time-killing related-videos), as well as configure other settings like the default video size and to not auto buffer/play the video.

Answer 2

I would use Firefox to download any Flash files, because:

• you can open an .swf file in a new tab, and save it through the File menu without having to fetch it through any cache directory.
• you can use the FlashGot extension to download any Flash-based videos (sometimes it downloads the same video multiple times but you can cancel redundant downloads)

Perhaps there's a similar extension/add-on for Chrome but I don't know of one.