Craving Explorer

2006 – present Active

59

Free Japanese browser by T-Craft made for saving video and audio in one click: a download button appears on YouTube, Niconico, radiko, TikTok or X, with conversion to MP3/M4A. Based on Internet Explorer at first, it became a tabbed browser in 2012 and then switched to Chromium in 2018. Vector Award 2010 grand prize.

Facts

Developer

T-Craft

Website

www.crav-ing.com

Current engines

Blink

Former engines

Trident

Derived from

Chromium

Platforms

Windows

Details

v1 (IE, 2006–2020); tabbed v2 alpha (Nov. 2012), v2 beta on Chromium (Apr. 2018); officially Windows 11 only since Sept. 2025; v2.11.38 (Nov. 2026)

Popularity

59/100 — Estimate: Vector Award 2010 grand prize, #1 in the Vector rankings according to Nikkei (2010), still maintained; ≈1M users at peak

Key versions

1. Oct. 22, 2006
   0.0.1 αTridentFirst alpha: YouTube video downloader with a built-in browser.
2. May 20, 2007
   0.16.0 αNiconico video downloading.
3. Oct. 16, 2008
   1.0.0 RC1First release candidate.
4. Nov. 1, 2012
   2.0.0 alpha 0.0Version 2 alpha, designed as a tabbed browser.
5. Apr. 24, 2018
   2.0.0 βBlinkVersion 2 switches from Internet Explorer to Chromium.
6. July 10, 2018
   2.0.3 βFirst 64-bit build.
7. Aug. 4, 2020
   2.3.0First version 2 release without the beta label.
8. Sept. 30, 2020
   —End of operation and development of the IE-based version 1.
9. Sept. 2, 2025
   2.11.4End of official Windows 10 support and of 32-bit builds.
10. Oct. 27, 2026
    2.11.37Latest known version, based on Chromium 156.

Version sources: Craving Explorer (Wikipedia ja)

Sources

1. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craving_Explorer
2. https://www.crav-ing.com/
3. https://forest.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/570084.html