HTML5 is usually better than Flash (particularly security wise), just Youtube's implementation uses Media Source Extensions, which is available in Firefox but disabled by default currently (EDIT: in recent Firefox this should no longer be a issue (since version 44) - IF you have the appropiate codecs installed on your system):
To fix it, basically go to about:config
and:
- ignore the warranty dragons
- set the
media.mediasource.enabled
& media.mediasource.webm.enabled
entries to true
The YouTube HTML5 player enabling page should look at minimum like this:
The more blue things the merrier
Then sit back and enjoy 1080p playback (if it doesn't need to buffer for half a hour due to broadband bandwidth like mine does :)
If you need to enable MSE & H264, you should be able to do so using the method suggested here in about:config
:
- Create a new boolean key called
media.mediasource.ignore_codecs
and set it to 'True' - it may now work so check https://www.youtube.com/html5
- If it does not work yet, do the following:
- Set
media.mediasource.mp4.enabled
to 'True'
- Set to 'True' all the things begining with
media.fragmented-mp4
- except for media.fragmented-mp4.use-blank-decoder
which needs to be set to 'False':
All should then work (does for me with Firefox Beta AND ffmpeg available... for ffmpeg on 14.* releases try this question):
EDIT: In Firefox 43 at least, doing the above may break the HTML5 player. There seems to be other issues (atleast with Firefox's useragent), but anyway if it breaks try setting media.fragmented-mp4.gmp.enabled
to false
(source)
EDIT: again in Firefox 44 (with the default FF useragent) some issues may occur, though for me it shows a error about HTML5 videos when actually becuase videos have been blocked for other reasons (e.g. copyright). I am now forcing HTML5 with this addon
Another edit: now doesn't seem necessary on fresh profiles, possibly due to https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/44.0/releasenotes/#new