YouTube will be going offline in the coming few weeks, allowing users to save videos, said company executive Ceaser Sengupta at the Android One launch event in Gurgaon today.

According to Sengupta, YouTube offline will allow users on data network to watch the same videos over and over again withough having to bother about data charges. “Within the coming few weeks, much of YouTube will be available offline in India. This is huge, and our users will really, really like this. You can download a video once, save it to your phone, and watch it again and again,” said Sengupta.

There was some news in the recent past, about YouTube going the Rdio, Spotify and Beats Music way, offering a music subscription service called YouTube Music Key priced at $9.99/month. Sengupta didn’t mention about the offline YouTube being a subscription model, but the offline service will not be restricted to music videos only.  No details were given out on the advertising model for offline videos.

Google is preparing to kill popular music streaming services such as Spotify, Rdio and Beats Music with yet another subscription service: YouTube Music Key. While rumours about YouTube’s paid subscription service have been doing rounds for almost a year now, Android Police‘s post brings us more concrete information than ever before.

According to the blog post, YouTube Music Key will offer offline audio and video playback and ad-free audio playback. There’s an ‘Audio-only mode’, which allows users to listen to music off-screen or listen in the background while using other apps. It’s uncertain if and how YouTube plans to play offline videos with ads. New users can get a 30-day free trial, thereafter there’s a subscription fee of $9.99 per month. This is the same fee associated with popular music subscription services including Google’s existing Google Play Music All Access service.


Android Police says that the YouTube subscription service will offer a free 30-day trial period and after that it will cost $9.99/month, which is similar to Spotify's $9.99 monthly premium service. No information is given on the international pricing or the launch date of the service.

Other than offline videos, one of the major advantages of YouTube Music Key is that it will offer access not only to full artist catalogues, but concert footage and remixes as well. If that’s not enough, YouTube Music Key’s platform will apparently make it easier to add content and discover users. Luckily for Google Play Music subscribers, Google will allow automatic access to YouTube Music Key while rebranding the existing service to Google Music Key. However, there might be a discounted fee involved for accessing YouTube Music Key features.Availability also remains a key issue in making Music Key more widespread. As of now, Google Play Music is available only in 34 countries, while Spotify reaches out to over 60 countries, though neither are present in India.

Those cute little cat video you just watched could cost you millions. And it’s not just about cat videos – innocent videos on YouTube can be used to infect computers with dangerous malware, as revealed in the latest report by Morgan Marquis-Boire, a hacker-turned-researcher. In the report created for Citizen Lab, he described how a simple network injection tool can be used to infiltrate home computers.Such video attacks that use network injections have their own strengths and weaknesses. Other attacks like watering hole and phishing need the user to do something ‘wrong’, like clicking on an infected file or link. Network injections don’t need that. Any simple browser behavior, such as watching a funny cat video, can trigger such attacks. There is a limit, however – once the user’s computer has been infected, the infection is confined to the browser. And such network injection tools aren’t even difficult to find; they can be easily procured from companies like FinFisher and Hacking Team.

These tools, or rather appliances, are physical devices that can be stored inside ISP servers all over the world. To execute an attack, the malicious code is injected into the everyday browsing traffic. One simple way to do this is by using YouTube streams that are unencrypted. The hacker can target a user and then wait for them to watch a YouTube video. They can then intercept the traffic and replace it with their own code. This would give them complete control over the user’s device.

This method can be used for any unencrypted website that offers targeted traffic, but since YouTube is one of the most commonly visited websites, it can be an easy target for hackers. Another website that can be exploited in this way is login.live.com of Microsoft. Google and Microsoft have taken a note of this vulnerability and have encrypted all targeted traffic. This has made most videos safe; however, there are other vulnerabilities that devices from FinFisher and Hacking Team can exploit.

This can turn into a high-level problem, and companies have to take action to make sure that the Internet experience can become safe for an average user. Meanwhile, users can encrypt their files to make sure that no data can be stolen from their computers. This is not the only hacking tool that is easily available. Tools that could perform man-in-the-middle attacks have been openly available for many years. For example, the Ettercap open source tool allows the hackers to intercept and manipulate traffic on LANs. This tool was developed by Marco Valleri and Alberto Ornaghi in 2001. These two guys are the founders of Hacking Team, the same company that creates network injector devices that can infect YouTube videos.

The only thing that could prevent such attacks is encryption. With the rising number of hacking cases, there is a need for an encrypted Internet that can protect an average user from malware. Web developers need to make sure that their websites are encrypted and safe to use. Until then, users need to be wary of their online activities, including watching cat videos on YouTube.