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Recently, YouTube has started limiting resolution on Firefox on XP systems. If we try to watch a video, it is only available in 360p, and there is a "Missing Options?" choice. Clicking this button brings up a screen that says we can get resolutions higher than 360p by using Chrome or by using Firefox on version 7 or later of Windows.

Because high quality worked just fine on YouTube a few weeks ago, the change wouldn't seem to be a technology issue. I tried changing the User Agent string to indicate Windows 8, but that had no effect. So YouTube seems to be basing the limitation on some other way to determine the operating system.

I also tried using the Firefox Add-On "HD", and while some features of this add-on worked, it did not increase the resolution.

How can I get YouTube to play HD video on my XP box again?

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  • Try viewtube Jan 11, 2017 at 4:55
  • Why don't you just use Chrome, it's better anyway. 😁
    – Trae Abell
    Jan 11, 2017 at 5:06
  • 3
    You should have gotten rid of XP many years ago, but the videos not playing in HD is a technical decision, not a political decision. Jan 11, 2017 at 6:25
  • 2
    Its also worth considering you're probably on flash, which eventually is on its way out
    – Journeyman Geek
    Jan 11, 2017 at 6:40
  • Last version of chrome that works is 49. Picked up a portable version to test (cause bob asked nicely) and it seems to work out of the box
    – Journeyman Geek
    Jan 30, 2017 at 7:32

3 Answers 3

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Amusingly enough, there's an unsupported plugin that works from adobe that works with a few about:config tweaks.

Here it is on my disposable XP VM

![enter image description here

I'm running the latest build of firefox - 50.1.0, and as per the instructions here I enabled the primetime CDM - which while its supposed to be a DRM related plugin, enabled h264 and lets you view youtube videos. I do not have flash on this system

These settings on about:config work - if they don't exist, set them as boolean

media.gmp-eme-adobe.enabled true
media.gmp-eme-adobe.forceSupported true
media.gmp-eme-adobe.visible true
media.gmp.decoder.enabled true

Along with a short wait for the plugin to install.

So, Its not a conscious choice - my guess is something isn't supported (flash?) and its a fallback resolution.

Just because you can though, dosen't mean this will work in future or reliably, but its a decent, functional, short term workaround for an older machine.


As of early feb 2017, firefox 52 is the last version of firefox that'll run on XP. No idea how much longer plugin support will go on for. Future versions will also drop NPAPI support - which may break other things.

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I doubt this is a political decision by Google but is probably a perfect storm of obsolescence issues that have all finally just come together now.

It is quite possible either that Flash or Firefox expect a DXVA2 capable display device in order to use hardware acceleration for video. This would limit them to Windows Vista and above. XP came out in 2005 and has, I believe, been end-of-life since 2013 and it is not surprising than companies would prefer to use current technologies over unsupported ones.

From what I can gather from the Wikipedia DXVA page there is the suggestion that there is a fundamental difference in the way DXVA (XP) and DXVA2 (Vista and above) works. It is entirely reasonable for companies to slowly deprecate and then remove old untested and unreliable code, especially when that older code makes programming more difficult and is holding back the overall improvement of the program.

Due to the high CPU demand of h.264 video it is also quite likely that they chose not to enable CPU decoding above certain resolutions because a lot of the systems that have XP will be those that have old and slow processors that simply cannot decode it without assistance.

It is entirely possible that Chrome has chosen to continue to support for video acceleration through their own Flash plugin as it does not substantially impede development within the main browser, it is an external plugin after all. Firefox is dependent on Adobe for their Flash plugin and they are already looking to ditch the NPAPI needed for flash to work, so it is possible that they are slowly cordoning off related old code.

Largely this means you need to upgrade your operating system, buy a new computer or use Chrome. Getting rid of XP would be my preference.

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  • This is the correct answer, it's what I wanted to say but you said it 10 kabillion times better than I could have ever articulated it 😎. Touche, sir.
    – Trae Abell
    Jan 11, 2017 at 10:51
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    @TraeAbell We've both said similar things but come at it from different angles and I wouldn't say definitively that my answer is better, you've actually given a potential solution in farming the work out to VLC which could be a good way to go. I've just looked at it from the direction of why this kind of thing happens and what to do going forward while you are more pragmatic and saying what you can do now.
    – Mokubai
    Jan 11, 2017 at 11:09
  • If Chrome can run HD video, I do not see why Firefox cannot. Jan 12, 2017 at 15:18
  • @TylerDurden Because Chrome and Firefox are different programs, developed by different groups and have different priorities. Firefox is perfectly capable if you yourself are willing to maintain the code to keep it working. It is an open source program and presumably the code for doing this was abandoned as developers moved to new machines with newer operating systems. Supporting features on an abandoned operating system requires a lot of work and if your project has decided to abandon that system too then there is no reason to keep programming methods that only work on that system.
    – Mokubai
    Jan 12, 2017 at 15:47
  • @TylerDurden the only way to restore those features will be to downgrade your versions of Firefox and Flash to earlier versions and disable their updaters. This is a massive security risk. I would not trust any machine running Flash in general, let alone an old version with known exploitable bugs. Sometime clinging to the past is a Very Bad Thing (TM) and can cause much more pain than the alternative, especially in the current climate of malware on the internet.
    – Mokubai
    Jan 12, 2017 at 15:57
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OK, instead of unleashing on Google, you can redirect your anger toward your Adobe Flash Player (and your low CPU speed). This is why YouTube wants you to use Chrome, their Flash implementation is superior to the Firefox version you must use because of your old computer. (If your computer was newer then your Firefox would be a newer version that implements flash better).

Workaround: This add-on can be used to open links with another program, I would suggest VLC media player. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/open-with

To set the default quality in VLC: Tools -> Preferences ->Show All -> Menu Input/Codecs -> Track Settings -> Preferred Video Resolution -> Select Quality Save and restart VLC

Import YouTube Playlists to VLC: http://addons.videolan.org/content/show.php/+Youtube+playlist?content=149909

Best Workaround: Download Chrome / New Computer

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  • Uh. I believe you have it backwards. Chrome no longer supports XP. Firefox still does (in its current version) for another half-year. Also, Mozilla/Firefox doesn't implement Flash - it relies on the Adobe Flash plugin, notably implemented by Adobe and accessed via NPAPI.
    – Bob
    Jan 30, 2017 at 7:01
  • "implementation" used loosely. Chrome has it built in, Firefox requires a plugin.
    – Trae Abell
    Mar 9, 2017 at 5:42

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