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Author Topic: Take back control of YouTube and STOP it downloading.  (Read 10586 times)

IainB

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Take back control of YouTube and STOP it downloading.
« on: July 22, 2013, 06:16 AM »
I was unimpressed when Google unilaterally made a mandatory change to YouTube so that the user could not control it and stop it downloading.
Good news via Instant Fundas:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)
Add the ‘Stop Download’ Option Back to YouTube
Posted on Monday, July 22, 2013 by Kaushik | No comments

About a month ago, Google removed the ‘Stop Download’ option from YouTube that allowed users to instantly stop download and buffering of a video. This option was available in the context menu when a user right-clicked over the YouTube video player. You may have noticed it or you may have not, depending on whether you used that option. Many did, and it was sorely missed.

Google removed it in favor of the Pause button that is already present in the video player. When you pause a video, it buffers partially and then stops buffering until you play the video again. This is different from the ‘stop download’ option that used to stop video buffering instantly. With the pause button, video buffering will continue for some time after you have clicked the button. This is a problem for those users with slow internet connection, when more important downloads are in progress.

The workaround to the missing ‘stop download’ feature will be to close the page entirely to prevent the video player from sucking on valuable bandwidth. However, you may not want to close the page because you want to watch the video later.

Now a userscript has been created that beings back the removed feature.
How to Stop Downloading YouTube Video

Method 1 – Using a Bookmarklet. This is the easiest way because the bookmarklet works with all browsers. To use it, simply drag and drop the linked bookmarklet to your Bookmarks toolbar. To stop a YouTube video while watching, just click on the bookmarklet and your video will stop right there.

Method 2 – Using a Userscript. The userscript adds a Stop Video button on the YouTube interface. Unlike the original ‘stop download’ button on the right-click menu, the ‘Stop Video’ button appears next to the Subscribe button under the video player. Clicking on it stops the video from downloading.

stop-youtube-video

Firefox users, install the Greasemonkey add-on and then install the userscript.

Chrome users, install the TamperMonkey extension and then install the userscript. TamperMonkey improves Chrome's userscript compatibility allowing you to use Greasemonkey userscripts on Chrome.

Opera users, install ViolentMonkey extension and then the userscript. ViolentMonkey improves Greasemonkey scripts compatibility in the browser allowing users install scripts from UserScripts.org using the install button.

via Webtrickz

So far as I have tested it, the script seems to work just fine in Firefox and Chromium.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2013, 06:33 AM by IainB, Reason: Minor corrections. »

vlastimil

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Re: Take back control of YouTube and STOP it downloading.
« Reply #1 on: July 22, 2013, 03:22 PM »
Well, I noticed that change too. It was not the only technical change related to streaming. Youtube now also automatically switches quality of the video depending you you screen size and connection speed. In my opinion, both these changes are good. Buffering and quality are technical details that are best kept hidden. The computer can make better choices than 99% of users.

Also, the scenario described in the article is a non issue. If the user has a more important task, why did he open the youtube page and started the video? Plus there is the watch later button...

Tinman57

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Re: Take back control of YouTube and STOP it downloading.
« Reply #2 on: July 22, 2013, 06:42 PM »
I was unimpressed when Google unilaterally made a mandatory change to YouTube so that the user could not control it and stop it downloading.

  DUDE!  I was just about to go to a help site to find out what was going on with this.  Thanks for the post.....

IainB

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Re: Take back control of YouTube and STOP it downloading.
« Reply #3 on: July 22, 2013, 08:59 PM »
...The computer can make better choices than 99% of users....
Well, that may be true, I don't know, but in this case it is not so much the computer that is making the choices, but Google's algorithms.
"Google knows what's best for you."
Yeah, right.

Forgive my skepticism.    ;)

Edvard

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Re: Take back control of YouTube and STOP it downloading.
« Reply #4 on: July 25, 2013, 01:25 AM »
If you're using Chrome or Opera, try Youtube Options, and check out the "disable auto-play" options.
 :Thmbsup:

IainB

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Re: Take back control of YouTube and STOP it downloading.
« Reply #5 on: July 25, 2013, 09:31 PM »
If you're using Chrome or Opera, try Youtube Options, and check out the "disable auto-play" options.

 :up:  Yes, that is a good recommendation - I have that set on all browsers (that or "click to start player"). It avoids unnecessary utilisation/waste of bandwidth and other resources.
However, as I understand it, the thing about the above userscript (adds a Stop Video button) is that once you started to view a video and then paused/stopped it, YouTube continued to feed it down into the browser's cache in the background, thus consuming bandwidth.
There was a facility for the user to be able to right-click the video and select the option to STOP that background download, but now YouTube has removed that option and forced it's own algorithm on you that makes the decision as to how much more it will continue to feed a background download to the cache before pausing the download and awaiting your further playing.

If a user wishes to maintain control over the extent to which the PC system consumes limited resources (e.g., bandwidth, disk storage), then the above userscript (adds a Stop Video button) restores the rather useful control function that Google had removed.
There are probably many PC users - myself included - who would strongly resist the efforts of a third party (a commercial advertising company) that was attempting to wrest that control from the user.
There is a principle involved here in terms of the ownership of the PC's domain. Once you allow another entity access to and control over parts of that domain - an entity with interests that may be hegemonic and quite at odds with your interests - then you may be unable to prevent that entity from taking over completely, leaving you forced into the role of a passive subject of the domain. Indeed, that may even be the objective. The Russian occupation of East Berlin and the Berlin Wall is probably a classic example of this.
This is arguably what Google's proprietary Chromebook could be attempting. In any event, Google have screwed about enough with my PC's domain already, with Google Desktop, and I for one have no intention of allowing them to encroach further into my life or my PC's domain. I have enough trouble keeping Microsoft away as it is.