YouTube Anywhere Player lets you play linked videos directly
Websites can make available video contents in two different ways. Videos can either be embedded directly on the website, or they can be linked to instead. If you take YouTube as an example, you will notice that both methods are being used on the site. Individual videos are embedded on their unique profile pages on the site, while search results and categories link to videos instead.
If you prefer a direct approach to videos, so that you do not have to click through to watch a video, then you may be interested in the Firefox add-on YouTube Anywhere Player. The name suggests that it is only working for YouTube videos, but that is actually not the case. The add-on is compatible with YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion and Veoh videos.
It has been inspired by Gmail's embedded YouTube player that opens up when you click on links in emails that point to YouTube. What happens on Gmail is that the video is opening up "on top" of the current tab so that it can be viewed directly on the page without having to leave the page or open a new tab to do so.
YouTube Anywhere Player brings this feature to all websites that link to videos on supported sites. A good place to test the functionality is Reddit's video group where links to videos get posted regularly.
When you click on a link without the extension installed, you are taken to the video profile page. The video is loaded in the same tab by default which means that you have to use the back button to go back to Reddit. Or, you could open the video in a new tab with a middle-click, but would have to close the video tab after watching the video to go back.
With the extension installed, the video opens up in the same tab with the rest of the page being darkened at the same time. You get all the controls that embedded videos offer. For YouTube videos, this includes changing the resolution, switching to full screen, changing the playback position, pausing or changing the volume.
A click next to the video closes it again which takes you back directly to the page you have been on before.
The extension's options provide you with a lot of preferences that may be useful to some users:
- Use HTML5 video instead of Flash
- Show or disable annotations
- Show related videos
- Enabled on site (on the actual video hosting site, so that you can for instance watch videos on YouTube in the same way without leaving a category or search results listing)
- Context Search
- Catch or skip nested links
- Add icons to identify video links
- Apply CSS styles to video links
YouTube Anywhere Player is an excellent extension for Firefox users who regularly follow video links to watch them.
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thanks you saved my 1000 tabs :)
Fantastic! Thank you! This worked like a charm. Had exactly the same issue in Firefox on a PC and this fixed it.
Thank you for sharing this! Like you, I’d noticed that disabling/re-enabling the extension would work for that browser session, but I hadn’t tried anything yet to force a fix. I’m SO glad it was this easy!
I sure hope the OneTab team issues an official fix ASAP, though. Now that it’s been a few days, they’re starting to get bad reviews, which is unfortunate.
Yes! I also tried the workaround. I also reported this bug to OneTab team on the first day I faced this issue.
Thanks, Ashwin for the fix!
I was nearing desperation when I found your direction. It worked.
Thank you so much.
Hi, OneTab developer here. Sorry for this – it’s not clear why this bug is suddenly happening for some people, but we’re urgently investigating this with the Mozilla/Firefox team and will be providing a fix very shortly.
Thank you so much for sharing this fix! You saved my tabs. The only note/point I would like to add is for Step 2.
Perhaps put a note stating they should copy Step 3 and forward of your tutorial to Word. Once we close Firefox, we lose visibility to your tutorial. For me, I know I would not be able to remember the .bkp.
Again, thank you!
Easy temporary fix: To make OneTab work again, type “about:addons” in your Firefox address bar. Then find OneTab in the list of extensions, and click the blue toggle button twice. This will disable and then re-enable OneTab, and cause it to work again.
We’re working with Mozilla for a permanent fix. Sorry for the inconvenience, this is a very strange issue that is only affecting the Firefox version of OneTab.
I have found by disabling and then re-enable in the add on menu I get my tab back. Short term fix. Will try yours.
Thank you. I thought I had lost a month of digging. I’ll be a little more attentive about exporting the urls from the extension list now. It’s a great tool but Firefox doesn’t always play nice with its extensions.
Good news – I’ve been working with Mozilla all morning to resolve this. Mozilla have confirmed it was due to a bug in Firefox (related to extension permissions downgrades).
To fix OneTab, just go to “about:addons” in your Firefox address bar, click the ‘cog’ icon in the top right, and click ‘Check for updates’. This will upgrade you to OneTab v1.39, which fixes the issue.
Darn, I tried everything here and I still can’t get my tabs back. I even did a full system restore to a point last week hoping that my saved tabs would be in the old .xpi file, but no luck.
I’m pretty disappointed :(
Probably I should’ve been more patient, but now I don’t know how to feel about this. I lost about 900 tabs in the recovery process (I reinstalled OneTab), which, incredible as it sounds, weren’t all just a messy dump I’m never going back to, but actually important stuff (yeah, I have a peculiar workflow).
Trying to suppress the anger and reflecting on what happened, it seems I should blame myself for not having a backup. But surely I couldn’t back it up manually every time I save a tab, it would defy all purpose of having this addon in the first place. A couple of years ago data was stored at “~/.mozilla/firefox/%PROFILE%/jetpack/[email protected]/simple-storage”, and you could back it up with simple crontab. This is no longer the case, this folder is just empty. And since OneTab is closed-source black box, I couldn’t have done anything else as well.
So the only reasonable lesson to be learned is that I actually must stop relying on OneTab, since sooner or later it will let me down again. Fuck it.
I just disable and re-enable. No tabs lost!
I switched from OneTab to Tab Stash (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-stash/) months ago and haven’t looked back. I had never experienced any data loss with OneTab, although I was a bit concerned by some reports of data loss I read about. My main issue was with OneTabs performance, it’s a hog. I had been looking for a replacement and testing out a ton of addons for a couple of months when I finally discovered Tab Stash, and am damn glad I did. I really can’t recommend it strongly enough…
Thanks, bsdaddict. Never tried it, looks nice, but I’m a bit concerned by small number of stashed tabs on these screenshots, not sure if it’d be usable when stashing a lot of tabs. How many tabs do you usually have stashed?
Tab Stash is is a great alternative to One Tab, y’all… I made the switch months ago and am very happy with it.
>DO THIS FIRST: Before trying the following fix, I recommend disabling OneTab and re-enabling it from the about:addons page, to access and regain your tabs.
Worked for me! Many, many thanks!
I know it’s late but ist there an option for chrome on android tablets aswell? My wife hates it that the search bar and Tab list will just come Up again when she Scrolls up
You are truly a hero and a scholar, sir or madam. I salute you!