Command Line Fun: Rip Flash video from Firefox cache

[Virchanza]

To install the Flash player plug-in, do the following:

wget http://virjacode.com/projects/beefup/dloads/linux_flash.tar.gz
tar xzf linux_flash.tar.gz
cd install_flash_player_10_linux
mkdir /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
install -m 0755 libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
cd ..
rm linux_flash.tar.gz
rm -r install_flash_player_10_linux

Now open up Firefox, on Youtube or whatever, and watch a Flash video or two.

Next here comes the command line fun

First you need to navigate to the folder where Firefox stores its cache:

cd ~/.mozilla/firefox/`cat ~/.mozilla/firefox/profiles.ini | grep -m 1 Path= | awk '{print substr($1,6,length($1)-5)}'`/Cache

In this folder is a load of randomly named files. We have to do some filtering to find the videos we want. Firstly, let's say we only want files greater than 1 megabyte:

find -size +1M

Next, for every file that is found, we wanna check if it's a Flash video file. We used the built-in Linux program called "file" to figure out what kinda file it is:

 find -size +1M | xargs file -F " "

Next, we use "grep" to filter out any files that aren't Flash files:

find -size +1M | xargs file -F " " | grep Flash

We can use awk to get the file name on its own:

find -size +1M | xargs file -F " " | grep Flash | awk '{print $1}'

Next I find it's helpful to see the file sizes, because when I'm ripping videos from my Firefox cache I'm usually looking for a fairly decent size video:

find -size +1M | xargs file -F " " | grep Flash | awk '{print $1}' | xargs ls -lh

From there just choose a file and copy it to your home folder, and remember to give the file an "FLV" extension:

cp 000aaa000bb ~/some_video.flv

Next you can play it with VLC:

cd
vlc some_video.flv &

[Ethical]

Thanks boss

[imported_gr8gorilla]

Thanks, for us geeks out there in the world, stuff like that really is fun. I think that it takes a special kind of geek to appreciate just how cool ripping flash video out of your browsers cache through the command line, really is!

[imported_aliosity]

Thanks for the step by step after every pipe, it's a really helpful way to learn - and i'm sure - explain too!

Didn't know what awk could do until now, so thanks again.

[Virchanza]

Thread bumped because I made changes to the initial post:

1) It is no longer restricted to just Backtrack 4, it will work on Ubuntu or Fedora or whatever.
2) Added extra points that make it easier to find the videos you want.

[Steel9]

Thank you Virchanza:

#!/bin/bash
cd ~/.mozilla/firefox/`cat ~/.mozilla/firefox/profiles.ini | grep -m 1 Path= | awk '{print substr($1,6,length($1)-5)}'`/Cache
find -size +4M | xargs file -F " " | grep Flash |awk '{print $1}' | xargs ls -lh
echo $1
echo " "
echo "Enter the name of the Flash file"
read FLASH
cp $FLASH ~/some_video.flv
echo " "
echo $FLASH "has now been copied to your home directory, Thanks to Virchanza"
echo " "
echo Press enter to quit
read enter

Maybe someone can help me by showing me a way to just display the flash file name. Other than that it works great on Ubuntu 9.10

Thanks again.

[dencydob]

uh... bookmarked thoughts )