Firefox Extension Spotlight: Enhancer for YouTube
“I wanted to offer a useful extension people can trust,” explains Maxime RF, creator of Enhancer for YouTube, a browser extension providing a broad assortment of customization options so you can choose to tweak YouTube to taste. “Most of its features were suggested by users. It would not be used by so many people if it only offered the features I personally need.”
Enhancer for YouTube is indeed loaded with ways to radically alter your YouTube experience — everything from the way the site looks to how it behaves. Once you have the extension installed on Firefox, a handy menu bar will automatically appear on all YouTube pages. From these simple controls you can access all manner of customization.
Video player personalization
One of the extension’s most popular features is cinema mode. For those who want an immersive viewing experience, Enhancer for YouTube makes it easy to access cinema mode with the click of a button, or set it as your default. The level of customization runs deep. You can even select the color and opacity level of the cinema player’s border.
Other interesting video features include a pop-out player (so you can detach a small screen version of your video and continue watching while you navigate away from the page), automatic looping, volume boosters, playback speed and video quality control (this is nice if your network is slow and you need to save bandwidth). In addition to the extension’s menu bar, many of these controls can be accessed by keyboard shortcuts or simple mouse gestures.
Give YouTube a new look
Enhancer for YouTube offers 18 dark themes as alternatives to the site’s default white. It’s remarkable how much a theme change impacts the mood of a site. You can even set a custom color for Enhancer’s menu bar, as well as choose which buttons you want on the bar.
For those with a bit of coding skill, Enhancer for YouTube allows you to add your own themes.
YouTube your way
You may find the thing you love most about Enhancer for YouTube isn’t some major change it makes (like blocking video ads and annotations), but a subtle feature, like setting it so the newest user comments always display at the top of the page, or that video descriptions are expanded by default, or the ability to “pin” the video player to the corner of the screen so you can scroll the page while watching. This extension has a lot to offer. If you’re looking to spice up your relationship with YouTube, try out Enhancer for YouTube for Firefox.
Enhancer for YouTube is part of Firefox’s Recommended Extensions program.
Originally published at The Firefox Frontier.