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The original was posted on /r/modcoord by /u/TiffanyGaming on 2024-07-11 18:02:32+00:00.

Recently to the surprise of many users when they went to download videos from RedGIFs they were met with this. Save video greyed out.

As it turns out RedGIFs moved to obfuscated m3u streams in the form of blobs to prevent downloading.

And from RedGIFs themselves:

Hi there! Thanks for reaching out. Per our copyright policy and to ensure the protection of our content creators and their content, we do not support nor implement any downloading feature with RedGIFs. Any downloading function is not any function we support on the site, and therefore, we cannot further advise. Thank you!

And so, it is confirmed.

There’s a lot of convoluted ways users can still download them, though none of which are convenient. VLC, third party sites, extensions…

Ultimately their move is anti-user and has become out of touch and disconnected from their purpose as it’s been since they were sold from gfycat (then sold again to these bozos). Its purpose has always been for sharing gifs (videos tbh), and a key part of that is for the end user being able to save it. Many artists have also used them for years for sharing videos for download. Well, that’s no longer an option.

It seems to me the only way they’ll get the hint that it’s not okay is if subs start blacklisting them en masse. And if they don’t get the idea maybe a strong replacement will emerge and see popular use.