How to fix YouTube slowness in Microsoft Edge browser

If you are using Microsoft Edge or Firefox browser you might have noticed that Youtube loads much slower than in Google Chrome.

At first you might think it’s the browser’s fault, but actually, it is not. The reason for this slowness lies in the new YouTube’s Polymer redesign which depends on the deprecated Shadow Document Object Model (DOM) 0 API which is only implemented in Google Chrome.

Ironically, YouTube still hasn’t been updated with the new refreshed Polymer. And while Google is still using outdated API’s, the rest of the web browsers have adopted new/modern standards. Considering this is encoded in YouTube’s page coding it is causing issues for modern browsers.

Here’s how to fix this problem for Firefox and Edge browsers:

Firefox

Please download and install YouTube Classic add-on that will fix this problem.

Microsoft Edge

Open any video on YouTube.com website.
From the Edge Menu, click on the Developer Tools.
Select Debugger
Expand Cookies and Select Watch
Replace PREF value with: al=en&f5=30030&f6=8

Open YouTube again and Videos should load faster now.
Please have in mind that if you delete the cookie you’ll have to repeat the process. With this action, you will revert YouTube to pre-Polymer design so it will look different.

If you don’t like offering solutions you can still use MyTube! desktop app that will provide you with the best YouTube experience on a Windows machine. Good things don’t come for free, therefore myTube! costs only $0.99 but also contains in-app purchases.

Or you can just wait for Google to update the page coding for YouTube.