YouTube Feather mode panders to netbook crowd

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 4 Dec 2009 at 08:58

YouTube has launched a stripped-down version of the site designed to run on netbooks.

While YouTube claims to have done some tinkering behind the scenes to improve performance on low-powered machines, the principal changes to "feather mode" are most evident on the simplified display.

YouTube has dispatched the majority of YouTube's screen clutter, ridding the site of sharing and embedding options, related videos and video replies. Displayed comments are capped at ten, there's no auto-suggest feature and video quality has been reduced to standard.

The ads, of course, remain.

"A consequence of rolling out higher quality video, HD and, more recently, 1080p, is that playbacks might suffer if bandwidth or computer processing power is low," says YouTube on its blog.

"There are also a few countries where bandwidth is at a premium and videos can take several seconds to start playing. If we see adoption go up along with improvements in latency, we'll look to roll this out of TestTube and make it more widely available," the blog concludes.

To try out Feather mode you'll need a YouTube account to sign up to the beta.