Tired of dealing with stuttering YouTube videos, high CPU usage, decreased battery life, or a hot laptop? Look no further than the h264ify Chrome extension. This powerful tool has been praised by users for its ability to optimize video playback and enhance the overall viewing experience.
What is h264ify?
h264ify is a Chrome extension designed to improve video playback on YouTube. By default, YouTube streams videos in VP8/VP9 encoding, which can cause performance issues on less powerful machines. The h264ify extension solves this problem by forcing YouTube to stream videos in H.264 format, which is hardware accelerated by GPUs.
Why Choose h264ify?
There are several reasons why h264ify is a top choice for optimizing video playback:
-
Improved Performance: With h264ify, you can enjoy smoother video playback and reduced stuttering, even on low-end hardware.
-
Reduced CPU Usage: By leveraging hardware acceleration capabilities, h264ify offloads video decoding from your CPU, resulting in lower CPU usage and improved overall performance.
-
Cooler Laptop: Decreased CPU usage also means less heat generated by your laptop, keeping it cooler during extended video viewing sessions.
What Users Have to Say
h264ify has received rave reviews from users who have experienced its benefits firsthand:
"h264ify is essential for a smooth YouTube video experience. It's particularly useful for blocking lower quality videos when the 60FPS option is blocked due to the transition to AV1 and WEBM encoding." - Graphite GB
"I love h264ify! It greatly improves video playback, but I wish it had the option to select higher quality above 1080p." - Alex
"This extension is a game-changer for low-end hardware. It allows older laptops to play videos at a reasonable quality and resolution." - Lee Jones
"I was pleasantly surprised by how much h264ify reduced CPU usage and improved performance. It's a must-have tool for smoother video playback." - Shaurya Shukla
These testimonials highlight the effectiveness of h264ify in enhancing the video playback experience across a range of systems.
Unlock the Full Potential of Your Hardware
Don't let technology limitations hinder your video watching experience. Install the h264ify Chrome extension from the Chrome Web Store today and enjoy smoother video playback, reduced CPU strain, and a cooler laptop. Take control of your YouTube experience and elevate your video playback to the next level.
14 Reviews For This Extension
This 100% cured my buffering issues. I am running a somewhat low performance arm based ChromeBook and it could not handle any video over 480p without buffering every 5 seconds, but now I can easily stream full 1080p on YouTube with VERY FEW dropped frames, to the point where you cannot tell. (~1 in 900 frames) this extension is very effective and I highly recommend it.
Does not work. 360p 100% CPU Athlon X2 5200+ The extension probably only works on hardware released no later than 5 years ago. It's a shame that YouTube doesn't use compression that doesn't require much processing power. Any video downloaded to my computer runs perfectly in 1080p in the media player. Why can't this be done in a web browser?
Bring it to Safari please, desperately needed!
thanks, it really help for high cpu usage on youtube
Installed this after a little birdy told me that the ramping up of my CPU when viewing YT on my browser may be caused by the VP Codecs YT uses by default. Low and behold, after installing, no more excessive CPU usage when the player overlay is active and when previewing videos (mini-player).
YouTube's been lagging my laptop to hell and back recently. Saw this app mentioned in a Reddit thread and decided to give it a try. INSTANT RESULTS. My laptop can actually run other tabs with YouTube open now. The extension is easy to use as well, it's just three checkboxes!
Amazing. Drastically reduces CPU usage
Amazing. Drastically reduces CPU usage
A must have if you have a weak CPU but strong GPU. (it shifts the workload to GPU). You can see this in Task Manager when playing a Youtube video.
Makes old MacBooks excellent YouTube machines again!
Makes the Raspberry Pi 4B actually usable as a super basic desktop. Allows me to watch videos up to 1080p30 without stutter or lag. The HEVC drivers still aren't great so being able to fall back on good ol' h.264 allows this little guy to actually retain some performance.
was having problems with youtube making my computer in 95 degrees by just enabling the extension it dropped to 75 degrees, it works :)
if you use the block 60FPS option youtube will force lower resolutions now as they are no longer converting 1080p 60FPS uploads to 30FPS H264 as they move on with AV1 and WEBM... the block 60FPS mode will drop the resolutions as there is no 30 FPS conversion made above 720p any more if the file is uploaded at 60FPS... H264 4K and 1080P 60 frame rate conversions are not being done on youtubes end any more. turn off block 60FPS and youll get 1080 uploads that were created at 60FPS...
I like this extension a lot. Unfortunately it prevents you from selecting any quality above 1080p. This is fine for my low end hardware but not so good for my other devices. Since chrome extensions are synchronised across devices if you are logged in to the browser I always need to enable/disable the extension depending on the device I'm currently using. It would be better if it doesn't block the higher qualities even if it doesn't work for them... Maybe you could just display a little "h" icon next to the supported qualities instead of blocking the unsupported ones?