YouTube offers variety of entertaining videos for all of us. In fact, it is the most popular platform for watching, sharing commenting or liking videos. However, sometimes YouTube can significantly load slowly, becoming very frustrating for users. Fortunately, if you are using Google Chrome, there are various ways of fixing the slow YouTube issue.
Related: How to picture in picture mode in Chrome?
6 Ways to Fix Slow YouTube
- Clear browsing data
- Change video URL
- Update Chrome
- Close open tabs
- Remove malware
- Use VPN
- Adjust video quality
- Check your network speed
- Check URL for playback error
1. Clearing Browser Data
Your Chrome browser saves information about every new site you visit to speed up the loading the next time you visit the web. However, with time you will have too much temporary data stored in the cache, which can slow web services such as YouTube. Deleting these temporary files will free up more RAM, enhancing your YouTube streaming speed.
To clear browser data in Chrome:
- Click the Chrome Menu icon located at the upper-left corner of the browser.
- Float the mouse over “More tools” to expand the options and select “clear browsing data…”.
- On the resulting pop-up window, tick the three checkboxes for deleting history, cookies and cached files.
- Then click the blue “Clear data” button at the bottom of the options.
- Refresh the YouTube page and see whether there are some improvements.
2. Changing the YouTube URL
A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) references a web page and is entered in the Chrome’s address bar. For example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGsurrcVIYU. Modifying the video URL can be a solution to slow YouTube.
- Open the YouTube video page using Google Chrome, on the address bar, replace the “www” part of the URL with “ca”, and press Enter on your keyboard.
In most cases, this helped to enhance the YouTube experience for many users.
3. Updating Your Google Chrome
Google Chrome developers keep updating the browser aimed at fixing bugs and adding more features to user experience and performance. An out of date browser can slow down YouTube and many other compatibility issues. To update the Chrome browser;
- Expand the Chrome menu by clicking the three vertical dots on the top left corner of the browser.
- Hover the mouse of the “Help” menu and select “About Google Chrome”.
- This will open a tab displaying the browser version and automatically checks for and installs new updates.
- After installing the updates, click the “Relaunch” button to restart the browser.
4. Close Some Open Tabs
Opening too many tabs on Google Chrome can overwhelm your computer and negatively affect the loading speeds for YouTube service.
- You can close the tabs one at a time by clicking the “X” at the left of every tab.
- Alternatively, you can right-click the active tab and select either “Close other tabs” to close all the other tabs, or “Close tabs on the right” to close all the tabs to its right.
5. Find and Remove Malware and other Harmful Software
Malware introduces processes that run in the background utilizing computer resources and can result in slower internet connections. To find and remove such software in Chrome;
- Type “chrome://settings/cleanup” in the address bar.
- Click the “find” button and wait as Chrome looks for and removes harmful software from your system.
6. Use VPN Extensions
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) can help you to access the internet safely and faster. Fortunately, there are many free VPN extensions for Chrome that can improve YouTube loading speed.
- Visit the Chrome Web Store and find a free VPN service for the browser.
- Add the extension to Chrome browser, and activate it to start enjoying faster video streaming.
- If your budget allows, you can go for the premium VPN plans like ExpressVPN or VyprVPN to get more advanced features.
7. Adjust Quality Video
When watching a video, YouTube automatically adjusts the quality of the video depending on your internet connection speeds. However, you can manually adjust these settings. If YouTube is slower than normal:
- Adjust the quality to a setting lower than the current.
- To do, open the video and click the settings button at the bottom of the video display (gear icon).
- Select the “Quality” settings.
- Choose a lower quality. You can try all the lower options to identify the one that works best for you.
- A lower quality reduces the bandwidth thus increasing the loading speeds.
8. Experiencing Slow Connection
YouTube will show a pop-up message whenever the video streaming is slower than normal speed. Most of the time you can see the video quality is bad though it continue to play. This is a clear indication that you have problem in internet connection. Check you internet connection is working fine by accessing other websites. If not, consult with your internet service provider to fix the connection.
Though VPN apps can help to overcome the blocking issues, it can cause the speed problem. So, disconnect the VPN in case if you use VPN and check the connection is stable.
9. YouTube Playback Error
This is another popular error shown with black YouTube video with the message “An error occurred. Please try again later. Playback ID xxxxxx)“.
In order to fix this playback error, try out the solutions like clearing your browser’s cache and closing other open tabs. In addition, the spaces at the end of the URL can cause this play error. If you have embedded the YouTube video on your own site, ensure to check the URL has no additional spaces at the end.
Conclusion
Watching videos on YouTube is a great online entertainment choice. However, even with a stable internet connection, you may experience slow YouTube loading speed, negatively affecting your online experience. If you are using Chrome browser, you can try one of the above solutions to enhance video streaming speeds on the service.
Leave a Reply
Your email is safe with us.