Top 7 free extensions for working with YouTube

According to the data of June 2017, YouTube’s monthly audience amounts to 1. 5 billion people. This is approximately 44 % of all internet users worldwide.

Comparison of the popular social networks and messengers’ audiences

One has to spend a lot of time on youtube.com to promote their business, to edit and distribute the content, to study, and have fun. Needless to say, the website’s usability is important for everyone. Of course, Google is constantly improving the design and usability, but this isn’t always sufficient.

We’ve selected 7 browser extensions for YouTube for bloggers, agencies, brands, and media networks made by EpicStars team,  which will help facilitate working with the video hosting service.

YouTube plugins with a small number of functions

Ratings Preview

Supported browsers: Chrome | Firefox

Interface language: EN

What it can do: it shows the likes and dislikes without going to the video.

This is the entire list of the RatingsPreview plugin’s functions. The settings are as simple as possible: you can change the style, thickness, transparency, and position of the panel. There is also the possibility of enabling highlighting of videos with the greatest number of likes, and showing the RP score (the popularity score of the videos).

This is how RatingPreview works

Probably the only practical use for the plugin is to perform audience loyalty estimation for the blogger who you are considering for cooperation. If you make your own videos, the extension will help you have a peek at your competitors’ or colleagues’ fresh ideas for your channel.

A similar plugin: Like/ DislikeViewer (only for Chrome).

Floating for YouTube

Supported browsers: Chrome (Apps + Extension)

Interface language: EN

What it can do: it opens the video in a separate floating window. It cannot do anything if embedding is not allowed by the user.

This is what the Floating extension window looks like

Floating for YouTube functions as a stand alone application: to run it, you will have to go to the Chrome Web Store and press the green button. Of course it is much easier to call up the window directly on the page containing the video. For this purpose, you will also have to install the Floating  for YouTube Extension.

You can do anything with the floating window: stretch it, move, set it on top of all the other windows.

The extension is a must-have for those who have to watch videos / listen to audios simultaneously with doing something else, for example searching for information on the net. The main thing is to disable the YouTube Ads function: let the bloggers earn money on their content.

Smart Pause on YouTube

Supported browsers: Chrome

Interface language: EN

The extension automatically stops playing a video when you switch to another browser tab. If you return to youtube.com, SmartPause will turn on the video again.

There is nothing in particular to set up: you can only change the shortcut keys that are responsible for enabling / disabling the function.

If you have to divert your attention all the time but you don’t want to miss a single frame of the video, – SmartPause is right for you.

Multifunctional extensions / videocombines for YouTube

VidIQVision

Supported browsers: Chrome

Interface language: EN

VidIQVision gathers open statistics about any video being played. The extension can monitor:

• The popularity, number of views and reposts for the video.
• The number of back references and mentions.
• The dynamics of subscriptions and views on the channel, etc.

An example of statistics for a video from VidIQVision

And there’s more. After you have installed the extension, there will be a drop-down list under the video next to the comments. It allows for filtering them by presence of questions / answers, negative / positive attitudes, and particular phrases.

The button located to the right of the views counter will open the advanced embedding window. It can be used to generate a code for websites. You can change the resolution, quality, and view mode, remove the YouTube logo, and turn off displaying of similar videos.

The AdvancedEmbed window

Next to the search bar, you will see the toolbar with the statistics. To see the charts reflecting the dynamics of views and subscriptions for your channel, just move the cursor to it.

VidIQVision: statistics for the channel owner

If it seems to you that all these elements overload the website, remove the unnecessary elements in the settings.

The AdvancedEmbed function will be useful for those who post videos to their own websites or partners’ websites. The statistical tools are important for those bloggers who monitor their competitors, and for those entrepreneurs who look for bloggers to promote their businesses.

The VidIQ plugin also has a paid subscription with extended information about the videos. In can be useful for media networks.

TubeBuddy

Supported browsers:Chrome | Firefox

Interface language: EN

What it can do: manage the channel, gather statistics, optimize videos. The project’s mission is to make the YouTube Community happier and more productive. It can offer the following possibilities:

• Bulk editing of videos and metadata.
• Detailed analysis of competitors.
• Generation of extended embed code for websites and so on.

Unfortunately the majority of interesting functions, such as A / B tests or brand monitoring, are not available with the Free tariff. What you can do for free is, for example, searching for relevant tags, selecting topics of interest, and estimating the optimal publication time.

This is how the Best Time to Publish tool works

You cannot change the extension’s parameters: all the features are enabled / disabled only on the website. The extended version of the product can be purchased there as well.

It’s a pity but TubeBuddy hasn’t yet got in with the social network’s new design, and refuses to provide statistics on Russian-language videos. For now, the plugin will probably be more suitable for beginning authors.

MagicActions for YouTube

Supported browsers: Chrome | Opera | Firefox

Interface language: EN

MagicActions sets up the appearance of YouTube and complements its functionality. Here’s what the plugin can do:

• Hide unnecessary elements – go into the movie mode.

The movie mode from MagicActions

• Change the sound reacting to the mouse wheel.
• Loop the video.
• Change the website’s color scheme in 1 click.
• Apply filters.
• Enhance video buffering, etc.

The control buttons are located right under the video, the switch to Nighttheme is in the upper left corner. Also, you will find dozens of settings on the website allowing you to adapt YouTube to your liking.

The extension is suitable for everyone who cannot live without upgrades, mods, firmwares, and customizing.

YouClever

Supported browsers: Chrome | Opera | Firefox

Interface language: RU

The videocombine is capable of doing a lot of things. Here is what you can do with the aid of the extension:

• Add unwanted channels to the black list and block videos by particular tags.
• Disable automatic playing (for example, to save traffic).

Create GIF pictures and screenshots.

The tool for creating GIF animation in YouClever

• Format text of comments.
• Insert time code without extra trouble.
• Preset the specified quality of videos.
• Set up automatic transition into full-screen mode.

Watch a video simultaneously with reading the comments.

This is how YouClever displays the window with the video next to the comments

It’s quite easy to set up YouClever: there is a short guide to every function. You only have to move the cursor to the checkbox in the menu in order to read the required help – the More button will appear.

A fragment of the YouClever menu

Anyone, from a common user to a video marketing agency owner, will find something helpful in YouClever.

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If you have a slow computer and you do not need so many functions, you should opt for small plugins. Videocombines have a lot of useful features, but they can make your operating system hang up.

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We deliberately have not included plugins for blocking and uploading videos in the list as we respect the video bloggers’ work and the law.

We have also removed those extensions from the article that can work only with Firefox because the new version, Quantum, does not support them.

If we forgot about something useful, please share it with us in the comments.

And thank you in advance for your reposts.