Browsers are a fundamental resource for playing audio and video online, but there are certain limitations that we cannot escape without help. For example, if the plan is to keep the video in the foreground while we do something else, installing a second monitor becomes very attractive. However, there is an alternative in the form of uView Player Lite, a combination of local player and extension that offers Picture in Picture support in a large number of streaming services.
One of the most interesting features I've discovered in recent Firefox builds is the Picture in Picture support. A right-click on the video, choose the function, and the video will accompany you (almost) everywhere, regardless of the selected tab or window. But what about the different flavors of Chromium?
Unfortunately, native Picture in Picture is not available (for now), and as if that weren't enough, some streaming services don't like the idea too much. Furthermore, systems with limited resources can suffer the impact of playing video in a browser while we try to do something in parallel, such as running a game. That's when uView Player Lite steps in.
uView Player Lite: Picture in Picture for Streaming Everywhere
The first step is to install the player, with a download of 25.5 megabytes. Once finished, uView Player offers two paths: Paste the video URL into its interface, or install the extension for Picture in Picture, compatible with Chrome/Chromium and Firefox. In practice, the extension is much more convenient for the user. All you need to do is right-click on the video and choose the option Open in uView Player from the context menu.
The main advantage of uView Player Lite is its efficiency. While the average browser devours half a gigabyte of RAM (or more) in a basic session, I've never seen uView Player Lite exceed 300 megabytes playing 1080p videos on YouTube. I imagine that this memory consumption depends on additional factors, but in general terms, it's not bad at all.
Another positive aspect of uView Player Lite is that it is not limited to online content, and allows us to load any local video for PiP playback. This software works on Windows from version Windows 7, but requires .NET Framework 4.6.2. Its page also recommends using Edge Chromium Canary, however, our tests with the official build were excellent.
Official site and download: Click here
