The VoIP protocol has caused a total revolution in the way people communicate on the Internet, and Skype is undoubtedly one of the most widely used VoIP clients you can find.

With Skype you can not only have voice chats on your computer – just like telephone, only for free – but also make real phone calls at much lower rates, using the so called SkypeOut service and paying with Skype credit. Besides voice chats, Skype also includes the standard IM functionalities (written conversations, emoticons, user avatars and so on) and also lets you have video conferences.

These video calls are precisely the main focus on Skype's latest beta version. The program's interface has been completely redesigned with video conferences on mind. This means it's been made wider (full screen, really) so that video fits in perfectly with your written chat, your contact list and a toolbar to manage conversation. Honestly, I'm not sure this is a big improvement; my guess is that most people still use Skype only for voice calls and will find the new interface too obtrusive.

The sound quality during our testing was perfect: loud and clear. Unfortunately we can't say the same from the video image quality. The fact that it was displayed at quite a big size made it look too pixelated. There was though one nice detail, and that's the ability to see your own video image built-in on your contact's video. Also, though this is still a beta version, I must say I didn't have any problems while testing it.

Other improvements in this beta are, among others, a call quality feedback indicator, the ability to turn alerts off, the possibility to group contacts and a new feature called Video in mood, which lets you embed online videos from Metacafe and Dailymotion in your status message.

Skype 4.0 Beta features a complete interface overhaul that now focuses more on video chats, and also adds some handy improvements to the way you communicate online.

Download Skype 4.0.0.166 Beta 2 in Softonic

You've probably spent many hours pouring through the videos on YouTube and then the next day intended to go back and enjoy them again. However, often you either forget or simply find that it's been taken off due to a copyright violation. WebVideoCap solves this issue by prompting you to save FLV (Flash) video files every time you watch them.

Just enter your target URL and hit "Start Capture." When you've done browsing, you can see all your video files stored in the folder that you selected. WebVideoCap allows you to capture the video files of all the most popular video-sharing sites, including YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, iFilm, Metacafe, Putfile, and more.

For video fans and archivists, this is a simple but effective tool to make sure your videos are saved for good.

Download WebVideoCap 1.33 in Softonic

Have you ever wanted to search for and download your favourite videos without using your browser? Free FLV Converter lets you automatically access sites such as YouTube, DailyMotion, Google and Metacafé without opening anything else.

You can search by keyword and preview each video found in the rather basic interface and also download them in FLV format. After that, you can convert the files to AVI, IPod, IPhone, 3GP or PSP format. It also works vice versa and if the files in question are already in FLV format, it can convert to DivX, Xvid, MPEG, DVD and AVI with automatic HTML embed links. This means you can paste them into your website or blog to share instantly with the world. If you don't require these functions, the program interface still provides a convenient search platform because you can browse and watch videos at the same time. With just one click, you can download the video you are previewing. For ease of use, it allows you to create a download list of videos you want to save. Once it's complete, you can just leave the program to download the videos whilst you get on with something else although unfortunately, it still doesn't support batch downloading.

A very useful application for those who are not content with only having videos on the Internet but also want them on their hard drive but don't want to visit each video content site seperately.

Download Free FLV Converter 5.6 in Softonic

Nothing helps you get through a tough day at the office than a good old-fashioned viral email. Whether it’s funny, stupid, interesting or just plain sick, receiving a forwarded video, picture or text document is the highlight of the day for many a tortured office drone. Now, thanks to the rather unique MetaCafe, you don’t even need to wait for your pals to throw this spirit-lifting material your way.

The basic premise of the software is that it automatically trawls the web for popular viral items including movies, images, games and other time-wasting files. Within just a few minutes of firing up the app (or allowing it to load automatically on start-up) you’ll be presented with a series of the hottest files doing the rounds on email at the moment. Each item comes with a preview thumbnail and a brief description of what it’s about. You can then choose to download and play any movies, or view images within the MetaCafe interface.

The simplicity of this program is quite staggering and it makes it as easy as possible to siphon the stuff that’s likely to appeal to you. The categories (video, images, games, and other) can be customized so you only receive items that are of interest to you, such as funnies, news-related, sports-related etc. There’s a very helpful idiot’s guide that appears when you launch the program and the online help is particularly useful.

Other useful features include a ‘TV mode’ for viewing videos in full-screen with movie player controls, and the ability to forward links to the items to your buddies from within the program. You can even submit your own files to MetaCafe if you’ve been forwarded a particularly good file that you want to share with the rest of the user base.

Generally, the operation and performance of MetaCafe is very slick but there are a couple of things that bugged us a bit. For instance, it can take a while for the program to find new items when you start and this is made more confusing by the fact that there is no progress bar to show you that it's actually doing something. You should also be careful to ensure that the adult content filter is checked, as some of the material can be a little risqué for youngsters or the faint of heart.

Despite these minor glitches, this is a very original software concept that will help brighten up your day and amuse your friends and family to boot. Just don't let the boss catch you playing around with it.

Download MetaCafe Pro 1.2.28 in Softonic

Ares Tube is a multi-video downloader that comes with a built-in browser and allows you to save clips from YouTube, Google Video, MySpace, Blip TV, DailyMotion, Metacafe and many more sites that support FLV files.

Ares Tube automatically converts to IPOD, MP4 and MPEG so you can watch films on your iPod or external device. Alternatively, you can export downloaded videos automatically to iTunes. Simply surf to YouTube and Ares Tube will automatically prompt you to convert and import the file directly into iTunes.

When you connect your iPod , Ares Tube will automatically prompt you whether you want to transfer your converted files to your device. Note, however, that you'll have to install the .NET framework to use it, although if it's not installed the first time you use Ares Tube, you will be redirected to it.

Ares Tube is a great way to download FLV files from multiple sites without having to worry about which particular one it is.

Download Ares Tube 3.2 in Softonic

There are great sites on the Internet to watch videos, but most of them don't allow you to directly download those clips to your PC. A good option is having this extension installed on Firefox, enabling you to download embedded video files from a great variety of video sites all over the Internet.

Although it gave us some error messages (it wasn't able to find anything on a Youtube video page) Fast Video Dowloader is still a convenient tool to download embedded clips. It sits unobtrusively on Firefox's statusbar and saves video files in several formats, depending on which website you're downloading from.

Download Fast Video Download Firefox Extension 1.6.1 in Softonic

Watching videos on Youtube, DailyMotion or other video sharing websites is a great pastime. However sometimes your favorite videos are removed and you lose them forever.

If you want to avoid this, the best option is using an online video downloader like TubeMaster. This easy tool works with the most popular video sharing sites such as Youtube, DailyMotion, Metacafe, MySpace and others, enabling you to download videos as you watch them. The program downloads videos in FLV, but features a built-in tool to convert them to other formats right on the spot.

TubeMaster doesn't require any installation and works great. One thing I didn't like though is the downloading process, which is a bit confusing. If you click on the "Media download and conversion" tab you'll see a list with the videos that the program has captured, but they won't be really saved to your computer unless you click on the Save button. This is obviously also a necessary step if you want to convert it to other formats. Conversion works fine, though it would have been nice to have a small progress bar instead of just a "Converting" sign that gives you no clue about how the conversion is going.

Despite some minor flaws, TubeMaster is a great tool with which you can browse, download and convert videos from the most popular video sharing sites.

Download TubeMaster 0.7.40 in Softonic

This program aims to make downloading any video content from the net - whatever site it's on - as easy as possible. Of course, most people will use it for downloading videos. In order to download videos to your PC there are a number of specialized programs, such as Power Video Downloader. This program is notable for two things however: first, the ability to download from several pages - the second allows you to save the file in the format you choose.

Among the pages Power Video Downloader can download are from YouTube, Metacafe, Myspace and Google Video, but there are many more making this a powerful video downloding application. Simply copy the URL link of the video you want, select the format in which you want to download (AVI, WMV, MP4, MOV, etc..), and you're ready to go.

A flexible and powerful downloader that should fit all your video needs from any site.

Download Power Video Downloader 2.5 in Softonic

Since YouTube became the greatest TV channel ever invented, there have been dozens of downloaders released that help you grab videos and save them to your hard disk. Few, however, can be as simple as Cool YouTube Video Downloader. This program installs an icon in your Windows taskbar to download clips from YouTube and other popular online video destinations.

Once you stumble across a movie that you like, you simply need to double-click on the icon and paste the link into the box provided. Cool YouTube Downloader will then save the file to a pre-specified directory, even displaying a little chart of the transfer speeds during the download. It includes a one-click shortcut to your download library plus direct links to YouTube, MetaCafe, PornoTube and Yuvutu.

It seems that advanced options and extra features have been sacrificed to make Cool YouTube Downloader so simple to use. This means that there's no search tool or a facility for converting downloaded files from FLV format.

However, if you're looking for a quick and unobtrusive tool for grabbing YouTube clips on the fly then you won't go far wrong with this one.

Download Cool YouTube Downloader 1.0.253 in Softonic

Scouta is a social networking site in which users can listen to podcasts and see videos from media sites such as Metacafe, Veoh or YouTube. All this amounts to a huge amount of video data but it certainly saves time on checking each site separately to see your favourite videos.

The community of video users on the internet is already so huge that you've got millions of people sharing videos and podcasts. It's therefore very easy to get lost in the jungle of information which is where the Scouta agent comes in handy by providing tips and recommendations on the latest releases.

First you need to register yourself in the Scouta community and before long, you'll have access to the Scouta agent. The system of recommendations is based on the score that you give to each video or podcast, in your profile where you can see which are your favourite videos and podcasts, as well as your visible subscriptions to podcasts and vodcasts from iTunes. The problem at the moment is that the Scouta community is relatively small so recommendations and member profiles are thin on the ground.

However, this could be a great innovation if more people join considering the amount of media vying for our attention.

Download Scouta 0.8.22 in Softonic

TubeHunter downloads videos from YouTube, MySpace, Photobucket, Metacafe, Dailymotion, iFilm, Flurl, Pornotube, Bebo, Break.com, VSocial, Grouper, Bolt, Yikers, Revver, Guba, Vidilife and Blip.tv, and saves them on your computer or directly to your iPOD.

All downloaded videos can be converted by TubeHunter to other video formats including MPEG, MPEG4 AVI, iPOD MP4, MOV, Flash SWF, M4A, PSP, MP3, WAV, OGG, 3GP and 3G2.

TubeHunter does not have any spyware or adware. No personal information is collected, stored, or transmitted by TubeHunter. Tubehunter does not modify your web browser or registry. It does not install any browser plugins or hijackers.

Download TubeHunter 9.6 in Softonic

This Firefox add-on enables you to directly download videos from YouTube, Google, Metacafe, iFilm, Dailymotion and many other online video sites. It also supports downloading of all embedded objects on a webpage (movies, MP3s, Flash animations, QuickTime videos, etc.).

VideoDownloader adds a small non-intrusive icon to the right corner of the status bar, at the bottom of your Firefox window. All you need to do is click on that icon and download the video you are watching.

The extension works with more than 60 video sites, including Youtube, Google Video, iFilm, Metacafe, Dailymotion and a lot more.

Download Firefox VideoDownloader 1.1.1 in Softonic