You don't have to have an Internet connection to enjoy your favorite online videos; there are plenty of ways to download files from YouTube and many other popular video sites. IE DownloadHelper is an Internet Explorer extension that makes the downloading process easy, although it doesn't have quite as many features as some similar programs we've encountered.

Once IE DownloadHelper is installed, it appears as a small blue arrow icon in the browser's status bar. When a downloadable video is detected on a Web page the arrow turns green. To download the video, simply right-click on the icon and select the file from the menu. A dialog opens, allowing users to choose where they want to save the video, and although it appears that videos can be saved in a variety file formats--even extracting just the audio--it turns out that these features are only available in the premium version of the extension. Users of the free version can only save their videos in the FLV format. The creators of IE DownloadHelper have confirmed that the extension works on YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, and Megavideo, but it may also work for other video sites as well. We tried it on Veoh and Metacafe and had no luck, but adventurous users may find other sites that the extension is compatible with. An online FAQ explained the basics of the extension's use. Overall, IE DownloadHelper worked just fine on the sites that's it's been confirmed on, but it didn't do anything to particularly impress us.

IE DownloadHelper installs and uninstalls without issues. We recommend this extension to all users.