In another episode of "The YouTube experience is worse than an earache", we have found a new solution in the form of FastStream, a player that completely replaces the official solution and expands it on multiple levels. If you are tired of struggling with buffering, want to optimize the audio of your favorite videos during playback, or need to capture a specific frame, this will definitely be useful.
I recently talked about FreeTube, an essential tool for watching YouTube with more privacy and eliminating several platform problems from the root. Using a dedicated application has multiple advantages, but it also drags some limitations, such as the obligation to export and load subscriptions manually.
In other words, many users are not convinced to follow that route and prefer something "closer" to the original experience, say, an extension. That's how we arrive at FastStream, which focuses on replacing YouTube's player directly in the browser and enabling several secondary functions.
FastStream: Alternative YouTube Player
Once the extension is installed, FastStream welcomes us and explains some of its basic functions: In Chrome we don't need to do anything beyond learning the new keyboard shortcuts for the player, but Firefox requested confirmation of an additional permission (this may happen in other Chromium flavors). The next step is to confirm that the extension is enabled by clicking on its icon (the legend "On" will appear), and if necessary, reload the tab on YouTube for the player to activate.
By far, the most important function of FastStream is buffering. If possible, the player will try to download all the video content using 'chunks', whose number we can adjust using the + and - keys. Personally, I have noticed that this alternative buffering usually presents better results in Firefox, but anything that optimizes YouTube's buffer in Chrome/Chromium is welcome anyway.
As for the rest of its tools, we find a mini browser to switch sources in a video, a hybrid between equalizer, compressor and audio mixer, subtitles, quality and speed control, screenshot, picture-in-picture, and fullscreen. The brightness-contrast-saturation controls are in its settings. The Firefox version of FastStream includes "offline playback", but it is absent in Chrome (Mountain View has anxiety).
Finally, FastStream should work with other sites besides YouTube, but it will ignore anything with DRM. Some resources also disappear, such as theatre mode or "stats for nerds", and I would like to see the buffer loading state use another color instead of gray, but these are minor details that will probably be adjusted in the future. Link below!
Official site and downloads: Click here
