Video Speed Controller for Firefox

Martin Brinkmann
Apr 15, 2018
Updated • Oct 26, 2020
Firefox, Firefox add-ons
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6

Video Speed Controller is a Firefox add-on that adds shortcuts to the web browser that you may activate to control the playback speed of HTML5 videos on sites like YouTube and others.

Sometimes, you may want to slow down or speed up a video playing in the browser. Increasing the speed of a video may be useful if you watch a presentation, tutorial or other content that is slow-paced, and decreasing the speed may be useful if you want to look at a scene or video in detail.

Some sites and browsers give you control over the playback speed of videos. YouTube, for example, hides speed options under the preferences icon on video pages.

Update: Firefox supports the functionality natively, but it may not work if the site in question uses a custom video player. Just right-click on the video and select Play Speed to change it. The feature does not work on YouTube. End

Video Speed Controller

video speed controller

The Firefox add-on requires access to data for all websites as it provides functionality for HTML5 video content which may be embedded on all sites and not just select sites such as YouTube.

The extension adds the following shortcuts to the browser after successful installation:

  • Decrease the video playback speed: S
  • Increase the video playback speed: D
  • Reset the playback speed: R
  • Rewind the video: Z
  • Advance the video: X
  • Set the playback speed to the preferred value: G
  • Show/hide Controller: V

Usage is simple: just hit the shortcut when HTML5 videos play to use the mapped functionality. Tap on D to increase the playback speed or S to slow it down, or on R to reset it.

change video playback speed

Video Speed Controller displays the current level in the video interface whenever it is changed. You can hide the display in the extension settings.

Click on the extension icon in the Firefox toolbar and select Settings to open the list of shortcuts and other options.

You can remap any shortcut used by the extension and change defaults. The following defaults may be changed:

  • Change the rewind and advance time in seconds (default 10s).
  • Change the speed change step (default 0.10)
  • Set a preferred speed (default 1.8)

Check "remember playback speed" to record custom video speeds to use the same speed in the future as well.

The extension supports a blacklist that you may add sites to that don't work properly when the extension is enabled. The blacklist contains four default entries: Instagram, Twitter, Vine and Imgur.

Closing Words

I tested the extension on sites like YouTube and Twitch, and it worked fine on them. It felt kinda strange to decrease or increase the playback speed on live streams on Twitch, and it worked just fine.

Now You: Do you watch videos on the Internet? On which (safe for work) sites?

Summary
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Software Name
Video Speed Controller
Software Category
Browser
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Comments

  1. Bewc said on October 26, 2020 at 2:42 pm
    Reply

    This is built into Firefox now. Right click on a video.
    No extension needed.

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on October 26, 2020 at 3:33 pm
      Reply

      True, but it does not work on some sites, including YouTube.

      1. Anonymous said on September 25, 2021 at 1:12 am
        Reply

        you can double right click on YT videos and it will show the original right click menu and you can indeed adjust playback speed

  2. FixWhats BrokenFirst said on April 16, 2018 at 6:56 pm
    Reply

    What I need from Firefox is On-Demand media playback, a way/setting to stop media players from following my scrolling down the page, and finally, a media player Stop/Stop-Download button so I can stop these players from saturating my poor DSL connection’s bandwidth.

    Do what’s important first, then add all the other, marginal features such as this one.

  3. Benja said on April 15, 2018 at 4:48 pm
    Reply

    Nice useful extension!

    Although, it seems like it’s vulnerable to that Firefox add-on UUID leak bug ( https://www.ghacks.net/2017/08/30/firefox-webextensions-may-identify-you-on-the-internet/ ) since it adds a CSS import to the page which contains a “moz-extension” URL.

  4. Richard Allen said on April 15, 2018 at 3:22 pm
    Reply

    I like it, thanks for the heads up Martin!

    It’s working well in Nightly but I did have to disable “Search for text when you start typing” in the “General” preferences page of Nightly.

    I watch a lot of embedded video, some examples would be on mmafighting.com, bleacherreport.com, jalopnik.com, news sites and many others. A few podcasts like Joe Rogan, Luke Thomas, and the MMA Hour. Being able to speed up the vid will be very useful, I think that’s something I will end up using a lot. Sweet!

    Because most of the videos I watch are YT embeds I’ll probably not use the extension to jump forward and back in time. I have the YT keyboard shortcuts memorized, so I’ll continue to use those and the work well, even on embedded videos. All that said, I’m looking forward to speeding up and slowing down video playback!

    YouTube Keyboard Shortcuts, some require the video player to have the focus in the page:

    M – mute.
    F – full-screen.
    J – rewind 10 seconds.
    K – pause.
    L – fast-forward 10 seconds.
    Left arrow key – rewind 5 seconds.
    Right arrow key – fast-forward 5 seconds.
    Zero (0) key – start video at beginning.
    1 through 9 – jump to different parts of the video.

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