YouTube videos and live streaming television can be great fun to watch, but having to pause and wait for the video your friend sent you to buffer can be very frustrating.
I can’t stand it when I have to wait to watch an online video. Honestly, I usually attempt to watch one, until I can’t stand how long it takes — I close out the video, and then I forget to look at it later.
Here’s one of the big secrets that a lot of people don’t even realize: internet buffering speeds can be increased! When you actively stream a video, it’s being downloaded and played at the same time.
The more detailed the video the more resources you will need. Internet buffering is your computer actually downloading the video faster than it plays.
By using these simple tricks, it’s guaranteed that YouTube buffering will be faster for you, and you may even be able to completely eliminate the need to ever have to wait for a video to buffer again!
#1 – Update your Adobe Flash Player
One of the reasons that your video may buffer slowly is because your version of Adobe Flash may be outdated. YouTube videos run on Flash, so it’s essential to make sure that your Adobe Flash Player is up to date with the latest version.
I’m guilty of always “clicking the X” to shut down alerts on my laptop. Since I have a new laptop and it started slowing a lot when downloading and streaming videos, I decided to pay more attention to pop-us and that has helped!
Check which version you have and to see if you need to update it. Notifications may pop up on our screen whenever a new update is available.
Here’s how to tell if Flash is installed on your device.
#2 – Optimize your connection
The main reason that YouTube buffering can be so slow is the speed of your internet connection. Your current connection can be optimized to work more quickly using a free application called TCP Optimizer.
If you don’t understand what all of the options mean, simply select the bubble that says “optimize” then save the changes and restart your computer.
Your connection speed will now run a bit faster!
#3 – Lower the video quality/pausing
As a last resort, you should lower the quality of the videos you’re trying to stream or pause them before you begin to watch. This isn’t recommended, because you probably don’t like to sacrifice quality for time.
It typically depends on the type of video I’m trying to watch that will determine if I lower the quality of the video or not — but it does help!
To lower the quality of a YouTube video, select the box under the video that says 240p, 360p, or 480p, and change it to a lower number.
#4 – Avoid videos at popular times
The more videos being watched online at the same time will always affect your internet buffering speed.
The ideal time to watch YouTube videos if you have a slow buffering speed is when other people aren’t online.
Most of us spend 1/3 of our time online watching videos. You might want to consider watching very late in the evening or first thing in the morning to avoid heavy watch times.
#5 – Reduce the bandwidth usage
Your internet connection splits its speed between all applications using it.
Close any downloads, music streaming websites, online games, and anything else that streams video or music content, and your buffering speed will increase.
It may also help to close applications on your computer — such as media players, instant messenger applications, or any other processes — that may be slowing down your speed.
Here’s how to see which web services are running automatically.
#6 – Use a download accelerator
You can also use download accelerators to increase the buffering speed of your videos. One of the most popular and preferred download accelerators is SpeedBit Video Accelerator. Check it out!
This program is free and may dramatically reduce or even eliminate internet buffering times. I prefer to use this as a way to reduce the choppiness that HD videos seem to produce.
Increase the speed of videos you watch on Youtube or other video streaming websites. If you follow these tricks, your internet buffering speed will most definitely increase!
