New trick to preload YouTube videos

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ONE WEIRD TRICK. Verizon HATES this.

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Dang, I was hoping it was an account-wide setting. But it looks like itā€™s browser specific, since you need to install a plug-in. Bummer.

A manual alternative to this is youtube-dl, a Python script that makes a complete copy of a video on your computer. Itā€™s not as immediate since you generally download it in a terminal window then go back and watch it later with another viewer, but it works great if that process doesnā€™t bother you.

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There is also the excellent Firefox addon ā€˜DownloadHelperā€™, but if you donā€™t want a local copy of the video, this Youtube Center extension is the easiest of all to use, once youā€™ve turned that ā€˜featureā€™ off.

I had a lot of problems with youtube playback and they mostly disappeared with google DNS. You can set it in a router and clear up the problem for the whole household.

I bet Verizon hates this one weird trick!

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Gah blzthfoihwdvwouhe !

Video DownloadHelper: addon for Firefox that allows you download any media that is streamed as files over a flash player (like youtube) and convert to whatever format you want. File still comes from the same youtube cdn but unencumbered by DASH.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-downloadhelper/

Also people, if your ISP is shaping your bandwidth on sites like youtube then vote with your wallet and get a better one! Thats how you bring an end to shitty ISP practices: donā€™t support shitty ISPs.

Beats me where youā€™re from, but here in the USA shitty ISPā€™s are the norm. Often, what you have available is one ISP. If you actually have ā€˜choiceā€™ ā€¦ well, simply expect another shitty ISP. Capitalism in this case just sucks.

To update: Iā€™m in Austin and I canā€™t wait to see how Google shakes this whole situation up.

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Bless you, sir. Itā€™s very odd state of affairs when you have a clean, 3MB/sec connection yet low-res youtube videos are, for unknown reasons, jerky. No longer.

Right now Google is implementing new experimental protocol on YouTube ā€“ QUICā€¦ Iā€™ve had some problems with it being enabled by default in one of the beta-versions of Opera 16ā€¦ Itā€™s something like SPDY/HTTP over UDPā€¦ YouTube is using QUIC if the browser reports support for itā€¦ AFAIC, Chrome/Chromium 29+ and Opera 15+ has an option for it on the ā€œflagsā€ pageā€¦

Nice one. Seems to work as advertised. Normal playback for me was already just fine, but I appreciate the ability to jump back and forth when I want to.

The irony is that I donā€™t use my FiOS connection to watch Youtube videos because it constantly stalls even on low quality SD streams, but instead I use my Verizon phone to watch the same videos in HD, which is much worse for Verizon because it burns up the much more limited cell spectrum. It also insures that I use up my bandwidth allotment every month, instead of underutilizing it like they really want me to.

Of course, in MANY markets there is really only one feasible ISP choice. And in markets where there ARE multiple options, ALL of the feasible options are doing it.

Yeah, me too. I have my ipad on the desk, mostly just to watch YouTube!

man, I was wondering what was up with youtube here lately. this is a godsendā€”thank you!

Very helpful, thanks a lot!

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