YouTube Keeps Freezing Chrome

Has Google Chrome started hanging up a lot while you’re browsing YouTube recently?

There are several techniques for a faster YouTube experience. Let’s discuss them in this article.

 

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Disable Unwanted Extensions

An extension is a component added to enhance functionalities of your browser. YouTube freezing occurs when you’ve installed a whole lot of extensions.

1. Click Settings | More Tools.
2. Select Extensions.
3. All extensions will be populated and presented as a list in the subsequent page.
4. Uncheck the Enabled box ahead of each extension you intend to disable.
5. Alternatively, you can click the Trash icon to remove an extension.

Clean Browser History

Browser History, which consists of recently loaded web pages, occasionally gets corrupted. Use the Clear Browsing Data option to delete it as outlined below:

1. Click Settings | More Tools | Clear browsing data.
2. In the next dialog, select the beginning of time under the Obliterate the following items from drop down box.
3. Check all the boxes except the Hosted app data and Content licenses.
4. Click Clear Browsing Data.

Use YouTube Buffer Trick

YouTube buffer trick is used to bypass ISP throttling, a restriction that certain Internet Service Providers (ISP) impose so that the users can only download cached video content from video sharing sites like YouTube. Such restrictions typically help them to save network bandwidth, amount of data transmitted along a channel. Here is how you can bypass such a restriction by executing the following command:

1. Press Windows Key + X; choose Command Prompt (Admin).
2. Click Yes in the User Account Control prompt.
3. Execute the following command:
   • netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name=”YoutubeBufferTrick” dir=in action=block remoteip=173.194.55.0/24,206.111.0.0/16 enable=yes

Compromise Video Quality

YouTube buffering takes much longer when the video quality is set to be on the higher side. Set a lower quality using this tweak.

1. Click the Settings icon on bottom right of the screen.
2. Click Quality option.
3. Select a lower video quality. Example: 144p

Clear Watch Later List

The Watch Later feature in YouTube, whose icon is located at the upper-right corner of a video when you hover your mouse cursor, adds set of videos to a playlist. Your computer might be silently downloading these videos (temporarily) while you’re watching some other videos. To avoid YouTube freezing issue on Google Chrome, clear the Watch Later list.

1. Log-in to your YouTube account: https://www.youtube.com
2. Click the Watch Later option on the left hand side panel.
3. Click Remove Watched to automatically clear watched videos.
4. To remove remaining items, hover your mouse cursor at the extreme right corner of a video item and click Remove icon [X].