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YouTube no longer user friendly

Bob_Firth
Newbie
Posts: 4
Registered: ‎13-12-2016

YouTube no longer user friendly

Has anyone noticed that YouTube is rapidly going "Down The Tubes"?

(1) Almost continual buffering makes online watching nearly impossible.

(2) Strange change to right-clicking picture - no longer possible to easily pick up URL.

(3) Endless pop-up adverts.

(4) The Pause/Play button no longer works reliably.

(5) "Error - Click to Learn More" errors terminate the play.

(6) When buffering interrupts play, many frames are dropped just to keep the sound/play progress going.

At first sign of the buffering problem I assumed that it was PlusNet choking the feed just to reduce overall traffic from YouTube users.  Never bothered asking them because of course they'd deny it wouldn't they?  But then I heard that there were issues with the configuration of certain YouTube servers, and that by blocking certain particular IP addresses it was possible to circumvent the two particularly slow ones.  This did appear to work for me, for a time....

But now I am convinced the problem is with the (new version of the?) player running on the browser.  Reason?  When I download a YouTube video to a local MP4 file using an offline downloader, it completes the whole download incredibly much faster than watching it online with the YouTube player....

So now I just download everything before watching (hence the importance of problem (2) above, and the workaround).

Cheers, Bob

6 REPLIES 6
chenks76
All Star
Posts: 3,274
Thanks: 338
Fixes: 12
Registered: ‎24-10-2013

Re: YouTube no longer user friendly

1) no buffering issues for me
2) never noticed, but then i don't right click on anything in youtube
3) no adverts for me, by ad blocker blocks all ads in youtube, and even then youtube doesn't use "Pop up" ads.
4) works fine for me
5) never seen this
6) never buffers for me, thus never see such an issue
SpendLessTime
Hero
Posts: 3,000
Thanks: 928
Fixes: 86
Registered: ‎21-09-2009

Re: YouTube no longer user friendly

@Bob_Firth

I agree with Chenks, I feel that you may have an issue with your browser. Might be worth downloading some anti spyware/malware software such as Malwarebytes https://www.malwarebytes.com/ or Spybot. https://www.safer-networking.org/

Ex - Plusnet Customer (2009 - 2023) now with BT
Bob_Firth
Newbie
Posts: 4
Registered: ‎13-12-2016

Re: YouTube no longer user friendly

Many thanks for the helpful comments and constructive suggestions.  I'm SURE I'll have it all fixed in a jiffy now....

twocvbloke
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 6,399
Thanks: 1,782
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎06-11-2014

Re: YouTube no longer user friendly

1 - Not experiencing that myself, though have noticed Youtube's re-enabled the download-as-you-play thing which can screw over playback on a slower connection...

2 - That'll be the HTML5 player, as Flash is being dropped across the board for media streaming as Flash is not secure enough and is a resource hog, that and it's partly an attempt t reduce video theft (which is pretty tough for them to avoid)...

3 - Use an adblocker...

4 - Play/Pause works fine for everyone else, so, must be a local issue (I.E. your browser, underpowered computer, etc.)

5 - Yeah, when an error occurs, it'll terminate playback, because an error occurred, pretty normal NSS stuff from google...

6 - This definitely sounds like an issue with your computer, if it's not capable f playing back streamed 1080p or 4k video then it'll do as you describe, my laptop is that way, but set to 720p manually it plays back fine, so you may wish to try the 720p or 480p options, and think about upgrades for the computer itself (more RAM and better graphics for one, because software developers have absolutely no concept of keeping their programming within reasonable end-user resource limits!!)...

Bob_Firth
Newbie
Posts: 4
Registered: ‎13-12-2016

Re: YouTube no longer user friendly

Okay, this is good stuff.  I failed to mention my current default browser is Opera which has very definite deficiencies in other respects not mentioned.  And just tried running the same YouTube video on another computer in the house under Google Chrome, and this is definitely a better experience.  Will also try you Malware detection suggestion - many thanks. 

Bob_Firth
Newbie
Posts: 4
Registered: ‎13-12-2016

Re: YouTube no longer user friendly

Disturbing thought about malware & spyware, which I will follow up on thanks.  Also will compare in a more systematic way between Opera (my default browser) and I.E. (which I keep in reserve for those sites which Opera doesn't like!)

Cheers, Bob