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POImpossible to download FLV files on Android?
 

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  1. POImpossible to download FLV files on Android?
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    <p>I'm thinking if it would be possible to write an app for Android which would allow a user to download flash videos from a website without making the user to start playback of every video manually in a browser. The app should also ideally work for any website playing flash videos and not just some specific websites. The app should not require root. </p> <p>After doing my homework and googling a lot I came to the conclusion that such an app is not possible but I just wanted more experienced people to confirm this (or maybe suggest workarounds if I am wrong).</p> <p>How such an app could (theoretically, ideally) work:</p> <ol> <li><p>the app starts a service which runs in a background thread and doesn't even require an opened activity.</p></li> <li><p>the service loads the webpage (html file) where the video is</p></li> <li><p>the app parses the page to find the .swf file which normally plays the video</p></li> <li><p>the app somehow sends a fake click to the action script in the swf file as if the user pressed "Play"</p></li> <li><p>after a short while the app checks the cache of the webview (yet, there is no activity shown to the user). If there are any .flv files in the cache, it copies them, say, to some folder on SD card</p></li> </ol> <p>In this scheme multiple things would probably fail:</p> <p>in 3: I'm not sure one can emulate a click on Play button for the swf file, especially if we don't know what exact website we are on (we want the app to work on any website) and websites use their own, custom-written swf flash players. Also I'm not sure the .swf file would even be in a state where it could receive input if we don't even have a running activity </p> <p>in 4: web cache is stored under /data/data/app_package_name/cache/webViewCacheChromium and this folder is not accessible even for the app itself (?) unless the phone is rooted. </p> <p>I guess that's it, so it shouldn't be possible to make such an app.</p> <p>Btw, does the FVD extension for Google Chrome get FLV files by scanning the Chrome browser cache?</p> <p>Thanks!</p> <p>EDIT: I know that Youtube now uses html5, I'm not looking to download Youtube videos.</p> <p>EDIT: I've seen apps that work with specific websites (e.g. with Youtube) but making such an app is not viable since websites change ways they deliver flv files as basic defense. My question is about starting fake playback and getting the video files which are already in the cache.</p>
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