YouTube Link Title, Play Linked YouTube Videos Directly

Martin Brinkmann
Oct 23, 2011
Updated • Mar 31, 2014
Firefox, Google Chrome, userscripts, Youtube
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YouTube videos can be posted as links or as embedded media contents on websites. It depends largely on the technology powering the website if it is possible to embed videos directly. If you look at sites like Facebook or Google Plus for instance, you will notice that they convert YouTube links directly to embedded videos. That's however not always the case on forums or other large sites such as Twitter.

Probably the biggest issue with linked YouTube videos is the fact that users do not see any information about the video. They see a cryptic url http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co8IaSS0Z08 and do not know if it is worth watching the video or if it is another rickroll video.

The free userscript YouTube Link Title has two core features. It looks up YouTube video urls automatically and replaces the original link text (which is the video url) with the video title. See the following two screenshots for a demonstration (first the standard display on Twitter, then the YouTube links with YouTube Link Title installed)

twitter youtube link titles

While that does not make it impossible to get rick rolled it certainly aids users in determining whether the video sounds interesting enough to click through or not.

The second feature puts an end to pranks and rill rolls though. You can hover your mouse over YouTube links to see a still of the YouTube video. Even better, a left-click on that video link loads the full video right on the third party web page so that it can be played right away without having to visit the YouTube video portal to do so.

YouTube Link Title is a handy userscript for Internet users who encounter direct links to YouTube videos regularly. NoScript users need to enable scripts for the root domain to make the extension work on sites.

I have tested the userscript both in Firefox and Google Chrome, and it worked identical in both. Firefox users need to install Scriptish or Greasemonkey to install the script, Chrome users can install it right away.

The script runs on all websites by default. If you do not like that, you can modify the script source to only include domains such as twitter.com where you want the script to run on.

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Comments

  1. Brook said on December 30, 2012 at 11:31 pm
    Reply

    Hmm is anyone else encountering problems with the pictures on this blog loading?

    I’m trying to figure out if its a problem on my end or if it’s
    the blog. Any feed-back would be greatly appreciated.

  2. trading said on December 29, 2012 at 9:35 pm
    Reply

    I usually do not drop a ton of remarks, but i did some searching and wound up here YouTube
    Link Title, Play Linked YouTube Videos Directly -. And I actually do have a couple of questions for you
    if you tend not to mind. Is it only me or does it look as if like a few of these
    comments come across as if they are left by brain dead people?
    :-P And, if you are writing on other places, I’d like to keep up with anything new you have to post. Would you make a list of every one of all your communal sites like your Facebook page, twitter feed, or linkedin profile?

  3. Magda said on December 11, 2012 at 8:35 am
    Reply

    Thank you for another great article. Where else could

    anyone get that type of information in such a perfect way of
    writing? I’ve a

    presentation next week, and I’m on the look for such info.

  4. Isabelle said on October 29, 2012 at 10:46 pm
    Reply

    It’s really very difficult in this busy life to listen news on Television, thus I simply use the web for that purpose, and take the most recent news.

  5. Ned said on September 28, 2012 at 6:55 pm
    Reply

    What i don’t understood is actually how you are not actually much more neatly-favored than you may be right now. You’re so intelligent.
    You realize therefore considerably relating to this subject, made me individually believe it from so many various angles.
    Its like men and women aren’t fascinated except it’s one thing to do with
    Girl gaga! Your own stuffs great. All the time care for it up!

  6. Lucas said on December 20, 2011 at 8:30 pm
    Reply

    How to embed a video hosted on Photoshop.com on a Google Plus page?

  7. ódio said on November 8, 2011 at 1:14 am
    Reply

    im coming back to say that im using this and it works great!

  8. odio said on October 24, 2011 at 12:25 pm
    Reply

    Looks great. Gonna try later.

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on October 24, 2011 at 12:41 pm
      Reply

      It is really handy if you visit web pages regularly where YouTube videos are linked on instead of embedded.

  9. Robert Palmar said on October 23, 2011 at 5:31 pm
    Reply

    You had me wondering there for a while, Martin.
    I had to investigate what “rick rolled” meant.
    After I found out the meaning I of course
    knew I had been rick rolled before :)

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