How do I open Youtube content in an app instead of my browser, while clicking on a link?

Question

Now when I follow a link in my browser to Youtube, it opens in a new page of my browser, in my case Firefox.

I would have liked that it provokes the launch of another app, for example Minitube, VLC or Totem. This app should then run the desired video. This feature exists already on Android, where Youtube videos can be opened in the Youtube app or in your browser, and this association can be set as you want.

I suppose I could extend this question to other video platforms like Dailymotion, or to other contents, like streaming media, but I will leave it for another question.

Solution 1

Another possibility is: ext-youtube Firefox addon:

Play Youtube videos in external application.
You can use Minitube, SMPlayer or any other application that can play Youtube videos given the link.

Solution 2

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/no-flash this will do exactly the job in firefox but it may be annoying if you're just browsing through youtube videos.

*In my case the extension redirects the youtube links right to my Minitube so you may need to install it, too. http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/01/minor-new-features-adds-to-linux-youtube-app-minitube/

Solution 3

I suppose there's no tool to download and open youtube content given its url, but there are firefox add-ons like Video Download Helper to download and convert those contents. So it requires an additional step, but leads to the same result.

Comments

[Admin]

Actually VLC knows how to parse a youtube URL and get the stream (open up VLC with a yt url in the clipboard and press ctrl+v). So it should be relatively straightforward to write a chrome extension to do this

[Admin]

Here's a solution for Chrome and Minitube.

[Agmenor]

It's one of the most interesting answers, with the comment of Stefano Palazzo. But unfortunately it is not working for me. I'll write a bug report if I find how to do that.

[Agmenor]

The extension name has been changed, so now the link is addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/minitube-integration . The extension is in development, which is a good sign.

[vanlong441]

this one comes from the exact author of minitube-integration :) thanks for posting it