Techniques provided herein implement systems and methods that can improve access to content items, from an online content source, by a client device. According to some embodiments, an intermediate content streaming system is implemented on a client device for caching digital content locally at the client device as the content is streamed to the client device from an online content source (e.g., content server) over a network. Additionally, according to some embodiments, a priority-based content downloading system is implemented on a client device to facilitate priority-based pre-downloading of content items to the client device before a user at the client device is presented with access to the content items, such as through a social networking news feed.