--- title: "An old Mac and YouTube" date: "2016-07-14" author: Pixelated Thinker tags: [Apple,Archive,Fixing Technology,YouTube,] categories: [] --- > This is an imported post of mine from an older blog for historical purposes. [**Note:** While this article does still contain an accurate solution, I have updated my solution [here](/post/revisiting-youtube-and-an-old-mac).] As computers get older they start becoming slower and slower due to the fact that newer software just needs more power to run or technologies get better. This especially includes the web. More and more what I see taxing older computers isn't native software, but newer web technologies that the older CPUs just can't handle. (I'm not talking "slower" in the sense that you installed to much garbage on your computer and now it barely even boots. That's a whole other topic to be discussed.) And it's not that all older computers are bad either. Just the other day someone mentioned they had a Windows 98 computer that worked great for creating bulletins, typing documents and such at an old church office. Of course it helped that it wasn't connected to the internet. The new technologies of today have hit me again though with my 2007 iMac. For those that didn't read my post on [excessive tinkering with personal tech](/post/the-case-against-excessive-tinkering-on-personal-tech) and why the iMac still works for my needs, my iMac specs are as follows: Model number MA876LL. Core 2 Duo T7300 2GHz, 4GB RAM, Radeon HD 2400 XT 128MB VRAM. ** ****The issue:** YouTube is great. YouTube 720p 60fps, not so much on my iMac, and that's the only option YouTube now offers for 720p video. While it will play it perfectly fine, it plays it using all CPU power and stutters for a good 10-15 seconds after maximizing the video in YouTube. This leaves me with the inability to do anything else once I'm watching a video and miss the action every time it stutters in the beginning. I can't even quickly tab over to send a message and tab back because now the video will stutter again. Ironically if I chose to use flash player on YouTube it would work better since it would only play at 30fps, but that's not a road I want to go down. ** ****The solution:** Luckily, the solution is (mostly) the same today as it was back in the day of my eMac when I had a similar issue; only then I was trying to go from 360p to 480p! All you need is the application [YouView](https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1777718555909084681/693774469471445946#) that was written by the wonderful [Mr. Gecko](https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1777718555909084681/693774469471445946#). Once you have downloaded it and moved it to your Applications folder, open it up. (The first time you open it, you will need to right click or command click it and select "Open" and "Open" in the dialog box that pops up.) First go the the preferences in "YouView > Preferences" and select the video quality you want and any other options you want to change from default. ![](../../resources/images/youview-preferences.png) Then, under the "YouView" menu you will see the options to install a plugin for Safari, Firefox, and Chrome, and an option to install a Safari extension. Since I use Safari, I installed the Safari extension. I don't gurantee that the plugins for the other browsers will work, so if you use Firefox or Chrome you will just have to try it out and see. ![](../../resources/images/youview-menu.png) Now everytime I open a video in YouTube, it will automatically open YouView and play it in there. Once the video is done, just close the YouView window. The best part is CPU usage is much lower now and I can do something else in case I need to quickly tab out of the video I'm watching. A couple of caveats: **1\. **The default search window can't be closed in YouView, so you can either ignore it or hide YouView when your aren't using it. **2. **The video in the YouTube browser window will still start to play automatically. I set the video quality to 144p to combat this. YouTube videos will use the last setting you selected for the next video. **3.** 720p video and higher will only play at 30fps. This is actually a good thing to save some CPU power on older computers, but I put it here so you are aware. [**Note:** While this article does still contain an accurate solution, I have updated my solution [here](https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1777718555909084681/693774469471445946#).]