There are a lot of video streaming websites out there, and YouTube is without a doubt the most used video website on this planet. But recently I started having issues with YouTube buffering. I have a pretty decent connection, but still, the YouTube was running slow and the videos taking forever to buffer. This can be frustrating when you are trying to watch something really important. Except for YouTube, all the other streaming sites worked just fine – for example, Metacafe, Vimeo, etc. So I decided to do some troubleshooting to see if I could resolve this problem and improve YouTube buffering, performance and speed.
Improve YouTube Buffering, Performance, Speed
I found that like myself, there were thousands of people having this issue even with fast internet connections, and were looking for ways to improve YouTube Buffering and Speed. So I started researching possible ways to speed up the buffering speed of YouTube. I found a few fixes that improved the buffering speed to an extent where it’s acceptable. The fixes I found is from various websites which some claim it works, and some claim otherwise so it’s more like a hit and miss.
Firewall Exceptions Trick:
I came across this website mitchribar.com where he has found out that certain ISP tends to throttle bandwidth from the server that caches videos which caused performance issues. So he found the relevant IP range and managed to block them with Windows Firewall, and in return improve the performance because then it doesn’t cache – but directly streams the video from the YouTube server. Personally, I didn’t notice any difference but seems like it helped a lot of users. This is how you can do it:
- Go to Start Menu and type in CMD
- Then Right click and click on Run as administrator
- Then copy and paste the following command
netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="TWCYouTubeFIX" dir=in action=block remoteip=173.194.55.0/24,206.111.0.0/16 enable=yes
Now reboot the system and try to access YouTube and see if it works better. Remember it might take a little more time than usual to start the video because of IP blocking. But once it starts, it might be faster. If you want to remove this rule, just type the following and hit Enter:
netsh advfirewall firewall delete rule name="TWCYouTubeFIX”
Activate Hidden Services on YouTube
There are few services that may help with YouTube buffering. I’ll list like two of the most popular ones that may help you with buffering issues.
YouTube Feather Service
I was surprised to learn that YouTube has a hidden opt-in project called YouTube Feather.
This project is a lightweight YouTube version. It removes all the unnecessary things like Sharing options, Likes & Dislikes, etc. and just give you the player alone. Without these unnecessary things, it promises to deliver better performance. The description also says it uses some advanced web technologies that reduce the number of bytes used.
To join this project just click on Join the “Feather” Beta, and you’re done. Now check YouTube again, you’ll find the difference! If you’re not happy with the setup just go back to the same page and leave the beta.
YouTube HTML Based Player
Some of you may already be aware of the HTML 5 based YouTube player.
The YouTube HTML 5 based player make use of the latest HTML5 based technology to play videos. This means that instead of Flash Player, it uses it uses HTML5. In theory, it may not make much difference, but I noticed a few improvements. But not all videos will work with it, and there might be still a few videos that need to use a Flash-based player. Most of the popular players do support HTML5 based browser engines like Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Firefox, etc. to name a few.
Disable DASH Playback on YouTube
This tip is for those who have low internet speed and want to buffer the full video first, and then watch it. YouTube uses something called Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH). DASH enables high-quality streaming of media content over the Internet, delivered from conventional HTTP web servers. It works by breaking the content into a sequence of small HTTP-based file segments, each segment containing a short interval of playback time of the content. So you may notice that YouTube won’t buffer the video when you pause it. It will just buffer that file segment alone and not the entire video. On YouTube, DASH playback is enabled by default.
To bypass this method, I discovered a plugin called YouTube Center. There are a lot of features in this plugin. It also offers the option to disable DASH playback. This plugin works on most of the popular browser. Remember – use this plugin at your own risk. On the home page of YouTube Center, you’ll find the list of features, downloads and a Wiki on how to use the plugin.
Read: Fix YouTube slow loading.
Final Words
There are a few other tips out there like using custom DNS servers, and so on. But most of these techniques are hit and miss, and only a very few users reported that it works, so I haven’t included them in this article. You must check your Internet Speed first, through some sites like speedtest.net also visit pingtest.net and take the Ping test to make sure you have a good connection because most of the tips are for those who have a good connection, and still having issues buffering YouTube.
I hope you find this article helpful. If you know of any way to improve the buffering speed do tell us under the comments section.
Go here if you are looking for some Browser extensions to improve YouTube Streaming.
Only thing which works to increase youtube performance is to upgrade to a faster ISP 😛 or connection plan..
On my 64 bit Win7SP1HomePrem dual core, I too find YouTube buffering can be a delaying, choppy drag; I use another firewalling and not native OS one, so I don’t know if I can do too much about YouTube on my IE11 other than make changes you suggest at YouTube; but I regularly use a Chrome browser which allows a certain extension which sets YouTube buffering settings, and using it now a few months I find it has at least kept videos from repeatedly stopping to buffer as they play. I use high-speed unlimited broadband, and don’t have issues with other video services.
A space is required after netsh otherwise the command does not work. This should be fixed.
Thanks for the tips. I tried to use YouTube Center today. Chrome says the app is installed, but when I launch it I’m directed to a web page for another suspicious crippleware application called Internet Download Manager.
To increase the performance and speed, I did the following task:
Eliminate needless programs
Did a virus and spyware scan
Defrag the hard drive
Remove unwanted addons and extensions
Changed my wireless device to different channel.
Usually I used to solve this problem with the above remedy but sometimes when I can’t be able to resolve the issues, I used to call on the online computer repair services of AskPCTechies.
After optimizing the DNS also, I couldn’t be able to solve out this problem. Then I followed the above steps by which I could be able to resolve the issue completely.
do you know how to increase internet speed of evo 3g that works properly
yeah you are right i also done this but it not work