Is a shorter solution possible?<p>Is decompiling SWF and/or de-obfuscating Javascript really necessary?<p>Years ago, I approached these sites like the author in the blog post. I spent hours reading about Flash and figuring out the schemes websites used. I decompiled swf. I also tried rtmpdump, livestreamer and other all-in-one solutions. I used early youtube downloaders (clive, etc) and later quvi. I also used /dev/bpf to capture HTTP requests. I tried it all.<p>I can relate to what the author is trying to do. I never settle for "streaming". Download only.<p>However I found over the years either the websites have made things easier or I was simply trying too hard. Or maybe I just am not interested in the type of video that is served in this way. For some reason it takes much less effort now.<p>To make sure I am not imagining this, I decided to try one of the author's examples.<p>I chose projectfreetv.so<p>1. I followed a link on the main page for some TV show I have never seen.<p>2. I read the HTML.<p>3. I noticed /watch/?aff_id= URL's.<p>4. I chose the first one, 493165, and followed it.<p>5. I read the HTML.<p>6. I noticed a URL pointing to a website that serves TV shows and followed it.<p>7. I read the HTML.<p>8. I noticed a URL pointing to an MP4 file.<p>9. I downloaded the file.<p>I assume I got the TV episode on offer. The screen size is a little small but the file was about 89MB and appeared to be the full episode.<p>Total time: less than 10min<p>What did I use? sed, netcat, less and ftp for the download. The entire process is a one-liner.<p>If anyone has some more examples to try, please list them. I would welcome the challenge.