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Optimizing Video Playback in Firefox

  • 1 reply
  • 4 have this problem
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  • Last reply by user633449

FireFoxFan1
FireFoxFan1
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I'm having very choppy and lagging playback on videos in general, and in youtube in particular. I'm running an old Dell Inspiron, but not so old that I should have be having such hard time watching basic Youtube videos, and I've got a pretty stable cable connection.

To optimize and speed up regular viewing of Youtube vids, does anyone have any tips on which add-ons should be running in my browser and which ones may slow down and conflict with others? Currently, the only add-ons I'm running are Status-4-Evar extension, and Shockwave Flash plugin, but I've had a lot of stuff that has already automatically downloaded, but that I keep disabled out of fear that it'll use up too much memory.

So, again, any tips of increasing video speed?

I'm having very choppy and lagging playback on videos in general, and in youtube in particular. I'm running an old Dell Inspiron, but not so old that I should have be having such hard time watching basic Youtube videos, and I've got a pretty stable cable connection. To optimize and speed up regular viewing of Youtube vids, does anyone have any tips on which add-ons should be running in my browser and which ones may slow down and conflict with others? Currently, the only add-ons I'm running are Status-4-Evar extension, and Shockwave Flash plugin, but I've had a lot of stuff that has already automatically downloaded, but that I keep disabled out of fear that it'll use up too much memory. So, again, any tips of increasing video speed?

All Replies (1)

user633449
user633449
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Well, I'm going to have you run through a few basic troubleshooting steps to try to help eliminate variables. Unfortunately this may be a Flash issue and not a Firefox one. but we'll try here :)

Try to start Firefox in Safe mode. This mode disables all extensions, user customizations, hardware acceleration, etc. temporarily for diagnostic and troubleshooting. If Firefox works fine in Safe Mode, then this is likely an add-on issue. Restart Firefox in normal mode, then type "About:addons" (without the quotes) in the address bar. Disable your extensions one by one, restarting Firefox between each one, until you find the trouble maker. Once you do, you can disable that add-on and report the issue to that add-on's developer.

A few other basic trouble shooting things you can try is this: Run all Windows Updates, install all needed service packs, etc.

Update your graphics driver (Firefox uses your graphics card for some rendering, and an out of date graphics card driver can cause problems. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-upgrade-my-graphics-drivers.

Update all your plugins (Flash, Java, etc.): http://www.mozilla.org/plugincheck/.

Download and Install MalwareBytes Anti-Malware, run a full Scan. http://www.malwarebytes.org/. This helps check that there are no viruses on your computer causing issues. You can uninstall this program after you clean off any infections.