I used to do this with a combination of yt-dlp and scraping the media links + wget, but it was quite the hassle. It's much easier to just torrent it.
Then you can setup a plex or jellyfin server to organise the torrents and ditch those unreliable free streaming sites for good.
Personally I don't bother with streaming them, I just have a sonarr instance for anime with qbittorrent with network restricted to VPN, and jellyfin for playback. Automatically grabs, so no having to do any manual setup aside from adding the series to the list, and auto-upgrade to the quality you want.
You may be able to use yt-dlp depending on the site though.
How does one use this yt-dlp I've heard about?
Because my assumption immediately was it was for YouTube, but I quickly searched it to find it can support 'thousands' of websites.
There are GUI tools, but I use the CLI.
https://www.ytdlp.org/ will give you the full docs, but the simplest and easiest command is just to download at the highest quality with:
yt-dlp "https://whateveryouwanttodownload.com/streamingurl"
Whether it works with whatever streaming site you're using I couldnt say, but its a great tool.
It's not working for Miruro or AnimeKai.
Sorry but I don't know what requirements may exist for each site, if it can work with a specific config, or even what those sites are, I just don't do streaming.
I mainly use yt-dlp for the odd video I want to archive thats only on YouTube or a random video I come across elsewhere. For anime, the only approach I use is sonarr + qbittorrent (connected to a VPN) + bazaar (subtitles) + prowlarr (indexer management), to mention the stack. Then Jellyfin to watch it.
As others said, there are some good GUI if the command line is a bit too hard for you as it was for me. I use Parabolic and so far it's working like a charm (i only do officials video sites though, don't know for streaming services)
The stream detector addon often makes it easy to grab the media.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hls-stream-detector/
Unfortunately, doesn't work with s.to and Voe(?) streaming.
Why not just torrent them
I'm not a fan of torrenting and haven't bothered with them in like, geez, I think 16 some odd years. I like DDLs and I like more convenient options. I don't want to bother being an easy target, I don't want to mess with protocols, timing and any other hassle just to torrent. I am done with those days.
I feel the exact opposite. Going back to torrents made everything so much easier. Especially for anime which has a very active torrent community.
I start the VPN, I start the torrent client, I go on the anime-cat website and a few minutes later I can watch the episode(s). And not even using any of the *arr tools.
The biggest hurdle is really just the VPN, because it costs money (but might even be optional depending on your jurisdiction).
Yeah, like I can almost understand the “torrenting is too hard” argument if you’re just going to pay for the official streams but once you want to download them just grab one of the copies that someone already did (and potentially improved)
being an easy target, I don't want to mess with protocols, timing and any other hassle
I've never heard of these issues in my years of torrenting. I just find whatever I need and download. Do you mind helping me understand those issues?
Just use nyaa. Download then stop seeding, if it's new-ish airing show it's probably have decent peers already.
If your ISP blocked the port then yeah understandable not wanting to mess with anything.
But if it doesn't, torrent is miles ahead more convenient these days compared to DDL.
Those streaming sites have dreadful image quality, sometimes even audio is fucked. They are useful to check bits of the first episode before you commit to download from a high quality source.
I mean, you do you, but anime is a much more pleasant experience if you download a decent encode.
I'm not even saying to download SubsPlease or Erai-Raws, just Judas, EMBER, ASW, Cloe, etc. Look pretty good and only take about 200 to 300 MB per episode.
I understand that you don't want to torrent, but, you're ruining your experience. Besides torrenting easier than what you're trying to do.
https://github.com/sdaqo/anipy-cli https://pypi.org/project/fastanime
I've used similar tools in the past. I use the arr stack now but I understand the difficulty of the initial learning curve.
Start watching, turn on this extension, let it buffer the video, then save it.
Personally I recommend an Arr setup as well, then yt-dlp. If come across an anime streaming site that had a download button recently thqt actually seemed to work when I clicked on it forthelolz, I thight i was hianime, I can try to find it again, if you're interested.
Theres also
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