With shockingly prohibitive comments, extremely annoying video ads, videos automatically playing (loudly, sometimes), and videos constantly reloading in HD when you go full screen, YouTube’s a site of many, many issues. Keep in mind that it’s not very easy to address all of the issues experienced at YouTube, a site that I consider one of the most annoying on Earth despite its utter necessity.
There are ways, though, to get rid of some of its annoying aspects in a way that makes the site more tolerable, at least to the point that you no longer have to squeeze a stress ball just to get through five minutes.
Hide Prepubescent, Annoying, Immature, And Lame Comments
One of the most annoying things about YouTube is having to go through all the garbage comments to get to the commenters you can actually hold a discussion with. The number of trashy and horrid comments is overwhelming and drives almost anyone away the second they start reading.
If you use Google Chrome, though, there’s an extension, called YouTube Comment Snob, that filters all the trash for you. Use it to your delight. You won’t filter all the comments you don’t want to see, but at least the list gets much narrower, at least until the commenters learn how to spell.
Stop YouTube From Automatically Playing Videos
Every time you visit a YouTube video, it just starts playing. If you set your browser to re-open the pages you visited when you last closed it, you might have more than one video tab loaded. When that happens, a whole symphony of tooth-grinding noise starts up out of nowhere until you have a chance to stop each individual video.
If you don’t like this (I’d be interested in hearing from someone who actually does like it), then you can use Flashblock, an extension for both Firefox and Chrome. Keep in mind that you end up blocking all Flash content this way until you click on it, so this isn’t an ideal extension for those of you who constantly visit sites with Flash stuff.
Block YouTube Video Ads
YouTube has to make money somehow, and it does this through advertising. Although the system is rather cute, there aren’t a whole lot of people who appreciate the whole “ad in my video” thing. Sure, you can click the little close button, but once in a while, you’ll end up clicking the ad by accident, taking you to a completely different page. If you have Firefox, you can forget about video ads by using AdBlock Video. At this moment, AdBlock Video is available exclusively for Firefox. Who knows? Maybe they’ll manage to implement this in Chrome one day.
Play YouTube Videos In HD Automatically
All YouTube videos start out in 360p or 240p resolution. Once you go full screen or configure it within the video, you get into HD world. It’s annoying to have to do this to each video, though. If you want all your videos to play in HD automatically, there are two ways to do this.
For Firefox, you can use the YouTube High Definition extension. This extension automatically switches to the highest resolution available when you play a video. It’s not so convenient because it doesn’t let you select what definition you want by default if available, but you’ll have to make do with this or just configure videos the rest of your life.
For Chrome, there’s a much cuter extension: AutoHD for YouTube. This one works much like the above-mentioned Firefox extension, but it lets you select a maximum resolution for your videos, so you don’t have to go through excessive buffering times when you’re on a lower-bandwidth connection.
And That’s It! Let’s hear what your favorite workaround was! Don’t hesitate to add something if you’d like.
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