Apparently I have not documented the process of downloading videos with YouTube5 well enough, because questions about how to do so are extremely common. Well, I finally broke down and made a video tutorial about how to do it, see below.
I have just released a new version of YouTube5, which I’ve had in a half-completed state for several months now but never had time to polish up and release. The biggest change in this version is that the player is no longer embedded in an iFrame, so it lives directly in the top level page. The main advantages of this change are simplicity and reliability. Previously there were issues with videos on YouTube channel pages continuing to play in the background after a new video was loaded, probably because Safari did not properly garbage collect the contents of the iFrame once it was no longer part of the page.
Technical details aside, this update should improve compatibility with several sites and other extensions. In particular, YouTube5 now properly integrates with clea.nr (formerly A Cleaner YouTube). It should also cooperate with videos in lightboxes and popups better. I’ve also discovered that it fixes videos in private browsing mode.
However, moving the player directly into the page has one downside: it is now affected by the site’s CSS styling. I have tried to minimize any problems that could result from this by using a reset stylesheet on all the elements inside the player, but there may still be problems with some websites. If you encounter any, please let me know and I will try to fix them.
The only other change in this version is the addition of an overlay that displays the video title and author before it is played, similar to what the default YouTube and Vimeo players already do.
I apologize to everyone for the recent delay on updating YouTube5 after changes made by YouTube broke it last Wednesday. I learned of the issue late Wednesday night, but was unable to fix it before I left Thursday to be out of town for several days without a computer. I’m back now however, and thanks to a fix submitted by vinnyrose, YouTube5 is fully functional again! Please let me know if there are any issues with the new version.
Update: It looks like I spoke too soon. The original fix broke support for embedded videos; I have now released version 2.2.7 which should get everything working again.
This is the first major update in quite some time, and it holds several new features that will hopefully make YouTube5 even more useful.
First off, Vimeo had made some changes to their system recently that rendered YouTube5 unusable. This update restores full support for Vimeo, and also makes it possible to view videos that are only available as Flash videos (provided you have the proper codec). Support for Facebook video is also restored once again.
The most useful new feature added in this release is the “Use original player” link, visible while a video is loading and when the info overlay is active. Clicking this link will replace the YouTube5 player with the Flash player it originally replaced. This way, whenever you run into a video that just won’t load in YouTube5, rather than having to disable YouTube5 in Safari’s preferences and reload the page, you can just click a link to get back to the original player.
There are a few small usability enhancements in this release as well. First, clicking on the video will now play or pause it, similar to the functionality of most Flash video players. Second, volume level is now persisted between videos, so you won’t have to keep turning it down if you’re using headphones.
Finally, I have enabled the 240p FLV size of YouTube videos. For this to work, you must have Perian installed, as it provides a Flash video codec to Quicktime. If you do not have Perian installed, you will have to utilize the “Use original player” link to use the YouTube flash player to view this size.
YouTube5 has become far more popular than I ever imagined it would! I’d like to say a general thank you to everyone who has commented to make suggestions or just express appreciation for this extension, its a great encouragement to know it has been useful to so many people.
Several months ago I had hinted that I was in the process of developing a new version of this extension, and I’m excited to announce that it is finally ready! This version is an almost complete rewrite, and includes many improvements over the first, including:
You can see the new player in all its glory below:
And with the new overlay activated:
To download a video to your computer, right click on any of the format names and click “Download linked file”. Unfortunately, this only works on YouTube and Facebook, Vimeo is a bit smarter about blocking downloads, so you’ll simply get an “Access denied” error.
This version also uses a different method for replacing flash videos with their HTML5 equivalent, which is much more reliable and also works on dynamically loaded videos, such as videos posted to a Facebook profile.
The extension should update automatically to the new version. New users can download YouTube5 here.
Please note that this is my personal and business PayPal account, hence the name “HomeSchoolDebate.net”.
2.1.0: Added option to disable autoplay of videos on YouTube.com, along with a system for displaying video errors.
2.1.1: Updating support for YouTube after changes to their internal URLs. Thanks to gugod for the fix!
2.1.2: Fixing YouTube channel pages after URL changes.
2.2.0: Fixed Vimeo and Facebook support again, added revert to original player link, made clicking on the video play or pause, added persistent volume level, and enabled 240p FLV option for YouTube. Note: For FLV video to work you must have Perian installed.
2.2.1: Minor update to make the new “use original player” link display when an error occurs.
2.2.2: Fixed Vimeo support and enabled HTTPS on YouTube.
2.2.3: Fixed Facebook support, and added a hack to make videos on Facebook work even with flash uninstalled.
2.2.4: Hacks to enable on Facebook and YouTube with flash disabled.
2.2.5: Fixing YouTube support.
2.2.6: Fixed YouTube support after their update on 8/3/2011 broke YouTube5. Thanks to vinnyrose for the fix!
2.2.7: Supplemental update to fix an issue preventing embedded YouTube videos from loading.
2.3.0: Moved player out of an iFrame, which fixes issues with YouTube channel pages and several other sites. Added system to display the video title and author before it is played.
2.3.1: Minor bugfix for player size detection that affected compatibility with the YouTubeWide extension.
Q: What videos will work with flash completely disabled/uninstalled?
A: At present, only videos on www.youtube.com and simple embedded videos will play if you do not have flash. This is because many websites (including Facebook) detect whether you have flash available before they even attempt to display the video. This makes it impossible for YouTube5 to intercept the video and replace it. I hope to find a solution to this issue, but for the now you will need to have flash installed for these videos to work.
Q: Why is there no 480p resolution option for YouTube?
A: The 480p resolution is encoded with flash, not H.264. For the HTML5 video player to play these videos, you would need to have a special codec installed for Quicktime.
Q: How do I download a video with this extension?
A: Right click on the name of the format you want in the info screen and click “Download linked file”. Or see the video below:
The first update to YouTube5 has just been released! It includes several new features and bugfixes. First of all, the extension will now work on YouTube videos embedded anywhere, not just on YouTube.com.
Also, the occasional issue that would cause a video not to load has been fixed, and a graphical indicator is now shown instead of just a black rectangle while the video is loading.
Hopefully the extension will update itself automatically for most users, but if it doesn’t you can download the updated extension manually.
Update 1.2.5 The issue with the new YouTube video URLs has been fixed.
This information is outdated, please see the post on YouTube5 Version 2.
Update 1.2.5 The issue with video’s not loading due to the change in the YouTube video URL has been fixed.
This extension removes the need to use flash on YouTube by converting all videos to their HTML5 video tag equivalents. It also has the added benefits of decreased CPU usage compared to flash, and the removal of in-video ads.
Before installing, be sure to enable extensions. Download the extension
Update: A few of you have asked why this is better than the YouTube HTML5 beta, and the reason is very simple: YouTube will only display an HTML5 player for videos without advertising in them, so videos from Vevo or many other popular sources will still use flash. As a side note, this extension will not function if you are a member of the HTML5 beta, as the page formats are completely different.
Also, many people have been asking about viewing HD video with this extension, and I’m happy to announce that this is already possible, I just failed to mention it before. Simply go to Preferences -> Extensions -> YouTube5 and you will be able to select your desired video format (360p, 720p, or 1080p). If your selected format is not available, the next largest will be used.
I have stopped maintaining this plugin as Facebook made some changes to their page layouts that made it very difficult to remove the advertising. I recommend AdBlock for Safari or Facebook Cleaner instead.
For quite some time, the most popular post on this site has been my user stylesheet for blocking facebook ads. With the release of Safari 5 yesterday, I finally have a more elegant way of implementing this blocking system, extension. Introducing:
FaceBlock will remove the sidebar ads on the Facebook homepage, as well as the ads on user profiles.
To install, you will first need to enable extensions, since for some reason they are disabled by default.
Goodbye ads!
Update 1.1: I’ve added rules to block ads in several other areas of the site. Hopefully Safari’s automatic update system actually works since I haven’t been able to test it. If anyone could let me know if the update shows up automatically I’d appreciate it!
Yesterday I posted some fractals that I’d generated to Facebook, and I thought I should probably elaborate more. These fractals were generated using a special algorithm for the Mandelbrot set called Buddhabrot (thus named because when rotated, the fractals supposedly look like Buddha sitting). The explanation on the wikipedia page for buddhabrot is better than any I could give, so give it a read, I at least think its rather fascinating.
I stumbled across this type rendering on Sunday, and then attempted to get a program for generating them (aptly named buddha) compiled so I could try rendering these fractals myself. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get it compile, so I followed the typical programmer paradigm: If it doesn’t work, rewrite it yourself. So yesterday (when I should have been doing homework) I wrote my own program in C for generating these fractals. I’m still not entirely certain I’m doing it correctly, my images tend to be rather dark and have to be auto-leveled in photoshop before they look very good. Nevertheless, I’m pretty happy with some of the results so far.
This next render was performed at super high resolution (4800×3600). It took about a half hour to complete, and the full image is 10mb to download, but its totally worth it.
At full zoom, you begin to see patterns like thousands of snow flakes near the center of the fractal, and at the edges it resembles nebulae and fledgling stars.
I can’t look at these images without my mind being drawn towards God. That something so stunningly beautiful could be generated from such a simple mathematical algorithm is awe inspiring. I have to remind myself that math doesn’t have to work this way, and that Someone had to design it with the intention that we would someday discover this incredible phenomenon, and be stopped dead in wonder.
