[TIP] Disable YouTube's HTML5 player and 'fix' ClickToPlugin on 10.10

[pickaxe]

Google recently began forcing Chrome users to use the HTML5 player on YouTube. Google has also began doing this on Safari, starting with Safari 8. This also has the side-effect of interfering with ClickToPlugin's scripts.

To switch back to a Flash player, go to Preferences -> Advanced -> enable "Show develop menu...".

Now go to Develop -> User Agent -> Safari 7.1.

You should now be getting the Flash player. If you're still getting the HTML5 player, go here and request the Flash player.

 

[827538]

Why would anyone choose Flash over HTML5? This is a good thing that Google/YouTube are doing and I hope they continue to roll out HTML5 everywhere.

 

[benthewraith]

Why would anyone choose Flash over HTML5? This is a good thing that Google/YouTube are doing and I hope they continue to roll out HTML5 everywhere.

That's actually not what he was saying at all. He posted how to get the click to play plugin to work, which required "re-enabling" flash. Such an extension allows saving of youtube videos to one's hard drive and the like.

 

[pickaxe]

Why would anyone choose Flash over HTML5? This is a good thing that Google/YouTube are doing and I hope they continue to roll out HTML5 everywhere.

YouTube's HTML5 player is pretty bad. It's slower at buffering, insists on pausing the video when you seek and (especially in Safari 8) tends to stop playing videos completely if you seek too much.

Also, HTML5 in general is not the be-all-end-all nor is it the savior of the web that people keep touting it as. It's not quite ready, standards-wise. This "flash bad html5 good" viewpoint is often misguided.

But again, this is about ClickToPlugin.

 

[827538]

YouTube's HTML5 player is pretty bad. It's slower at buffering, insists on pausing the video when you seek and (especially in Safari 8) tends to stop playing videos completely if you seek too much.

Also, HTML5 in general is not the be-all-end-all nor is it the savior of the web that people keep touting it as. It's not quite ready, standards-wise. This "flash bad html5 good" viewpoint is often misguided.

But again, this is about ClickToPlugin.

It's not the usability of Flash that's the problem. Infact I agree with you that Youtube's HTML5 player isn't great. But there's no reason for that short of a lack of commitment - it could well be great.
The problem with Flash lies in three things; It's a separate plug in that most don't want that routinely has huge security holes that need patched, it takes up a disproportionate amount of CPU resources and lastly it absolutely kills battery life. HTML5 is just about there, all it takes is that final push and I could easily live without having to ever use Flash again. Just look at how nice it is to use Netflix now on Safari. It was horrible to use Silverlight which is similar to Flash, now it's more responsive, far more efficient and I don't need some 3rd party add on.

 

[zunairryk]

Thanks for that. 4K youtube videos play perfectly fine using flash player but skip frames from time to time on HTML5.

I generally don't like flash player. But on youtube.com it's actually not that bad, especially when using the safari browser. The laptop doesn't heat up and i am able to get 8+ hours of video playback on my rMBP.

I did a test on an older macbook pro from 2009 to test CPU usage and believe it or not, the CPU usage was quite a bit lower when using flash compared to HTML5.

The HTML5 player is awesome on other websites such as Netflix, but on youtube i still prefer to use flash.

 

[The19th]

So far, ClickToFlash in Safari DP5 seems to be more consistent than in DP1-DP4/PB1. I don't haven't had to force the User Agent for a while.

 

[Oberhorst]

And how can you set this to standard? Right now, it changes back to Safari 8 with every new tab.

 

[Fofer]

ClickToFlash was just updated to version 2.9.9:

"Updated YouTube killer for Safari 8 (remove it from the list to use YouTube’s HTML5 player)"

Looks like the a great solution to satisfy everyone. Users can choose to get YouTube's HTML5 by removing the YouTube killer from CtF, or leave it there and continue to get the QuickTime window. Discussion of the fix is here: https://github.com/hoyois/clicktoplugin/issues/78

 

[Siannath]

ClickToFlash was just updated to version 2.9.9:

"Updated YouTube killer for Safari 8 (remove it from the list to use YouTube’s HTML5 player)"

Looks like the a great solution to satisfy everyone. Users can choose to get YouTube's HTML5 by removing the YouTube killer from CtF, or leave it there and continue to get the QuickTime window. Discussion of the fix is here: https://github.com/hoyois/clicktoplugin/issues/78

I have ClickToPlugin 2.9.9 and I cannot play Youtube videos at all when ClickToPlugin is enabled. I must disable the extension to play HTLM5 Youtube videos. Any help?

It says: get the latest Flash Player version or get the latest Quicktime version.

 

[Tourgott]

I have the same problem. I had no issue since yesterday.
What's wrong?

 

[jozeppy26]

I got youtube's default html5 web player by deleting the kill script and listing youtube in the list of exceptions in the clicktoplugin settings. Sucks I gotta do this, but with clicktoplugin and clicktoflash only having a max 720p resolution option due to google changing it's streaming methods at higher resolutions, I feel I had no choice. Oh well.