YouTube offers several customization options, with customization tools you can further deepen the streaming service – for better sound and video quality and reduced stuttering. We present the best (uploader) tools for the platform.
YouTube’s motto used to be “Broadcast Yourself” – but that invitation to go live is now gone. Nevertheless, private users still post entertaining videos as a hobby. In addition, professionalism is on the rise: TV channels publish content, and famous YouTubers sometimes have high-quality photo equipment. There is so much new material on YouTube in a short period of time that even with several human lives, only a fraction of it can be viewed.
Whether it’s amateur or professional video: with some browser add-ons and tools for Windows, things get even more fun. These allow you to search for clips, maximize playback quality, activate dark mode and download content.
How does YouTube work?
YouTube was founded in 2005 and has been owned by Google since 2006. The service used to use Adobe Flash to play videos, but now uses HTML5. If you have a modern browser such as Firefox, Chrome or Opera, you can play videos uploaded there, as well as watch live or premier videos posted by YouTube users. Ai Lookup also has a YouTube channel where you can regularly find new videos, mostly on technology topics such as laptop tests.
You don’t need a YouTube account just to watch the many clips, but you do need an account to comment and rate the videos, as well as subscribe to the channels (however, you can also subscribe to channels without your own account, which requires software). in the photo gallery above included). The benefits of a YouTube subscription are that it’s free, and you can watch new videos from all your favorite channels on one central page. Beyond entertainment, the focus on YouTube is on making money: YouTube users often advertise, solicit financial support through social payment provider Patreon, and ask viewers for donations in their posts or live broadcasts.
Clients for viewing YouTube
YouTube’s website has a search box at the top, and the results list (filterable) presents matches for your queries. Would you like to browse the platform without Firefox, Chrome & Co. and play clips without a browser? YouTube Song Downloader 2023 tools from Abelssoft is a good solution for that. The program also saves YouTube content on your hard drive or SSD in audio or video format.
Special feature: you even download the audio and (!) video file of the same clip at one time. In addition to the audio and video upload button, there is a third save button for this purpose.
ClipGrab
ClipGrab is slim and functionally similar to some parts of. If you want, enter a search query to display the thumbnails. By clicking on one of the thumbnails, you take the URL of the corresponding video to download or add the YouTube address from your browser (copy and paste) and download the content. Convenient automatic: ClipGrab is invisibly active with background protection and detects when you copy a YouTube URL to the clipboard; If necessary, the tool informs you by displaying a Windows clock nearby and allows you to display the program window and start downloading with a single click.
By the way, YouTube videos can also be downloaded using VLC Media Player. However, it’s not convenient, so it’s better to use specialized Youtube tools. If you want to try it, copy the YouTube URL to the clipboard of your web browser. Then, in VLC, press Ctrl-V.
A dialog box will appear where the video address should already be entered. Confirm by clicking on “Play.” Now go to “Tools > Media Info” and open a new window. There, in the “Location” section, copy the full web address, which contains more characters than are displayed in the box. Paste the URL into your web browser and press Enter, once you press Ctrl-S, the clip will start downloading.
Subscribe to your YouTube channel without a Google account
Subscribing to YouTube channels requires an account created and registered with the platform operator. A small tool called FreeTube allows you to subscribe without necessarily having an account: you can use it to search for videos and channels on YouTube. For the latter, there’s a “Subscribe” button that you use to subscribe to them; these channels appear in a list at the bottom left.
Clicking on one of these entries will bring up an overview of the (latest) videos of the corresponding channel. You can get an overview of recent works from your subscriptions when you launch the program or if you switch to “Subscriptions” in the upper left corner of FreeTube (the program’s startup view). The advantage of FreeTube is that you get privacy without a mandatory YouTube/Google account.
Download YouTube videos as MP3
YouTube to MP3 Converter speaks for itself: with its help, you can easily pump audio tracks of videos on platforms like YouTube, Soundcloud and Vimeo.
Whether it’s a PC or a mobile device: if you want to watch YouTube videos offline, upload them. If you can do without the video image, it is recommended that you upload it in an audio format such as MP3 – this will save you some storage space compared to a file containing both the audio and video components of the image. In the above paragraph of the article “Clients for viewing YouTube” you will find some recommendations for archiving video content, another tip is YouTube tools to MP3 converter . The application is far superior to the program from DVDVideoSoft with almost the same name.
Another installation tip – Easy YouTube Video Downloader Express for Firefox : after installation, a download button appears below the YouTube videos you play – click it and save the content as a file in the selected video format on your computer.
By the way: the YouTube-DLG was a handy download tool that saved time and mass downloaded YouTube videos to your PC. The URLs of the clips you wanted to download were compiled into a list. One click carried the video URLs from the top to the bottom area of the program, after the next click, the program would process the list and save the contents – either as audio or video files. The software no longer works. It’s better to use another tool.
One more tip about YouTube songs and MP3 format: if you only need the acoustics of a clip, but you have already uploaded it as a video file and not an audio file, you can upload it again and this time extract the MP3 audio using the correct settings. Alternatively, for example, use a converter such as XMedia Recode to convert from MP4 to MP3.
What to do when YouTube videos stutter
If online videos slow down when playing, a few measures can help – not just on YouTube, but on video services in general: check the speed of your Internet connection and, if necessary, book a higher bandwidth line with your ISP. If your connection is already fast or you don’t want to spend money, pause the video you want to play; this causes the browser to buffer a little more content – this buffering means that further playback works at least a little bit without interruption. However, the most effective free method against dropouts is to download the desired (YouTube) video. Then play it locally as a file in a media player program ( Windows Media Player, VLC Media Player, …), no interference from browser and internet connection – because the playback is offline.
In the past, forums advised updating Flash Player – since YouTube has not required or used the Adobe plug-in for years, this step is no longer required when troubleshooting. Since regular browsers play YouTube clips via HTML5, updating the browser is more efficient. Previously, SpeedBit Video Accelerator was used to accelerate videos and is no longer relevant.
YouTube tools: force HD and optimize sound
You can control and change the resolution used by the video – for each clip individually in the video image in the bottom right corner in the menu. Higher resolutions require a faster internet connection; feel free to experiment until you find a pixel count that is clear enough and still performs. Browser extensions don’t need to manually change the resolution, they do it for you automatically: for example, YouTube in HD for Firefox and YouTube High Definition for Firefox . For example, you can view clips in 4K if they were uploaded at that quality level. You can tweak the sound a bit with Sound Enhancement for Chrome – it adds an equalizer with sliders.
Watch YouTube videos without distraction
Free YouTube tools allow you to fully focus on consuming your video. With Window Expander for YouTube (extension for Chrome), you can stretch your playing video to the largest possible size with a single click.
You might like Turn Off the Lights, which lets you dim page elements outside of a playing YouTube video. Clicking the add-on icon next to the address bar turns off the lights, clicking again turns on the normal display.
YouTube Alternatives
There are hardly any good free alternatives to YouTube – at least as far as YouTube’s core video business is concerned. The two most important classic video alternatives are MyVideo and Clipfish.. Above all, Dailymotion has remained among the veterans as a free alternative. The range on YouTube tools is huge, and paid streaming services are especially equal. These include Amazon Prime, Joyn, Nexflix, and (for linear TV) Zattoo.
Typically, these services offer free memberships and then there are paid ones. In terms of live streaming, a better alternative might be Twitch, owned by Amazon Universe. You can also broadcast your face live on the internet on YouTube, for which the software “OBS Studio” is useful . Despite some (mostly free) alternatives : In everyday life, it’s hard to get past YouTube – the offer is just too good.
As a YouTube video producer, please respect copyright: published live broadcasts and videos should not contain protected images or music. Simply viewing such content is usually not a problem. Downloading videos from YouTube is considered legally harmless – just in case, cautious people should respect copyright. If downloading a YouTube video doesn’t work, try a different clip – you may only have problems with a particular video.
If the uploader you’re using is on strike, find out about a software update; install it, the problems may be fixed. Alternatively, switch to a different downloader or use a cloud downloader (sometimes, though, the latest browser services require additional software to be installed on your PC).
