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On firefox you can click the lock icon in the address bar -> connection secure -> more information -> media tab -> sort by 'Type' to find 'Video' -> rightclick that entry and click 'Copy' -> paste in address bar of new tab -> rightclick video -> 'Save video As'

This works on most websites that serve you videos.

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This does not work for sites that serve videos in a segmented format, such as bluesky

I downloaded a video off bluesky this way before posting, I didn't check if the whole video got downloaded though, just the extension.

You are right that some websites give you .m3u or some kind of .htm that is not the actual video this way.

You presumably downloaded the first TS segment (in MPEG-TS format, not MP4), which could plausibly have been the whole video if it was short enough.

It was a very short .webm, looked like a gif converted to .webm

Sounds like you downloaded a "gif" embed, rather than a "video" embed. (It's 2024 and everyone serves """gif"""s inside video container formats to save bandwidth, but the UX and implementation details are still different to that of a "video" player)

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