Make YouTube Videos Load Faster

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If it seems like YouTube videos are slow to load on your computer, you aren't alone. Even if your internet connection is lightning fast, you might have issues with YouTube videos buffering for a long time and halting every few seconds. Read on for a few strategies you can try to get your videos loading faster.

Steps

Trying Quick Fixes to Your Connection

  1. See if the problem is the wifi signal. Move closer to your wifi -- like, move right next to it -- and see if that fixes the problem.
    • If the wifi signal is the problem, you may want to move your wifi router to somewhere else in your house that is more centrally located.
    • Check if there is something that could be interfering with your wifi. If there is a baby monitor, microwave oven, remote control etc next to the wifi, you may do better moving it.
  2. Find out if anyone else in your house or office is a bandwidth hog.
    • If you have two other people in your house downloading massive files or gaming using the same connection as you, see what happens if you ask them to turn off their device for a moment.
    • You also may find someone outside your home or office is using your wireless signal.
  3. If you are using a laptop or desktop, try plugging your computer directly into the router with an ethernet cord. Direct connection should be 20-30% faster than wifi.
  4. See how fast your internet is today. There are free services like speedtest.net which will tell you what speed you are getting today, and you can see if you are getting what your ISP has told you you are getting.
    • Be careful not to click on any ads on services like speedtest, they often have expensive unproven methods.

Trying Quick Fixes to Your Computer

  1. Try downloading an update of your browser. Sometimes all it takes to speed up YouTube videos is a simple browser update. Take steps to update Google Chrome, Firefox, or Internet Explorer and see if that improves things.
  2. Update your graphics driver. This can greatly affect the quality of videos. You'll need to find the driver on your computer, install any updates you find, and restart your computer.
  3. Try a different web browser.
    • Google Chrome, Firefox and Opera are all modern browsers that work well with YouTube.
  4. Watch videos at lower quality. If it's not so important to see the videos clearly, you can try loading them at a lower quality, like 360p instead of 720p. The higher the video quality, the longer it takes to load on many browsers.
    • You might also try using a smaller image size when you're watching videos. Things might speed up if you don't use fullscreen mode.

Blocking Certain IP Address Ranges

  1. Block IP addresses used by Content Distribution Networks (CDNs) on Windows.[1] When you watch a YouTube video, you're actually watching cached video served by a CDN, rather than watching the video directly from YouTube. The connection speed is different with CDNs, so that's why the videos load more slowly. You can watch the videos directly from YouTube, getting a faster loading time, by blocking the IP address ranges used by CDNs. Follow these steps:
    • Open the Command Prompt.
    • Copy and paste this command into the window: netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name=”YouTubeTweak” dir=in action=block remoteip=173.194.55.0/24,206.111.0.0/16 enable=yes
    • Hit "Enter" to add the rule.
    • Close Command Prompt.
  2. Block IP addresses used by CDNs on Mac OS X. The same basic idea can be used to make YouTube videos load faster if you're using Mac OS X. Follow these steps:
    • Open Terminal.
    • Enter the following command: sudo ipfw add reject src-ip 173.194.55.0/24 in
    • Hit "Enter."
    • Input your admin password.
    • Enter this command: sudo ipfw add reject src-ip 206.111.0.0/16 in
    • Hit "Enter."
    • Close Terminal.
  3. Block IP addresses used by CNDs on Linux. Follow these steps to make YouTube videos load faster:
    • Open Terminal.
    • Enter this command: sudo iptables add reject src-ip 173.194.55.0/24 in
    • Hit "Enter."
    • Enter your admin password.
    • Enter this command: sudo iptables add reject src-ip 206.111.0.0/16 in
    • Close Terminal.

Using Youtube Beta Feather

  1. Go to the YouTube Beta Feather site. This site describes an opt-in for YouTube that allows you to view the site with no frills, limiting the features and thus reducing the the total amount of bytes downloaded and speeding up the buffering and loading.
    • This is still in the beta stage, so it may not work perfectly and it won't work for every video.
  2. Click "Join the Feather Beta."
  3. Watch videos. They should load faster now.

Video

Tips

  • Try playing around with the settings of your browser and some harmless machine settings as well.

Warnings

  • Do some research on the changes you are making while experimenting especially w.r.t security settings like anti-virus or firewall.
  • Not all the videos may load using feather beta.

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://dottech.org/103278/how-to-make-youtube-videos-load-faster-on-windows-mac-os-x-linux-guide/
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