Using the Ubiquitous YouTube

Experienced Firefox users will undoubtedly have heard of Greasemonkey. It's a very powerful FF add-on that allows users of the browser to add their own scripts to certain sites. In our HCI context, it's a tool specifically made to enhance user experience. This post is about a specific Greasemonkey script called YouTube HD Ultimate.

Here are my main issues with using YouTube:

• Autoplay. My typical method of browsing involves scrolling down the page on reddit and opening all the links that interest me in new tabs. I then go through them chronologically with the first clicked link first. If one of the tabs I open is a YT video, it disrupts my tab browsing as well as any music I may have playing in the background.
• Automatically using the highest resolution available. There's a setting for this in the user preferences for YT, but I've never had any consistent success with it, and that of course requires one to be logged in.
• Annotations. Again, there's a setting for this, but it's never really worked for me. I understand the reason for adding these, but it's led to so much abuse that most of the time I won't even watch a highly annotated video.

These are all annoyances that can really detract from something that should be much easier and more convenient to use. Fortunately, YouTube HD Ultimate has the fixes. With this script I can now:

• Autobuffer. When I open a YT link in a new tab, the video begins buffering, but doesn't play until I hit the button for that.
• Automatically use the highest resolution. It'll even blow up the player size to properly fit the aspect ratio.
• Turn off all annotations. No question now, they're all gone.
• Save the video in multiple formats including .mp4 and high quality .flv.

This script has vastly improved my experience with YouTube and it only makes me wish the developer folks at YT had thought of it first.