YouTube Throttling bothering you?

So for the last few months I have experienced ultra slow, or non existent buffering on videos played on YouTube on all devices connected to my home network. I typically don't watch videos in 1080p. I have it set to auto and it usually connects at either 720p or 480p. At it's worst it won't even buffer or play at 240p. The fact that it effects all devices caused me to overrule the possibility of a full cache or a missing plugin/outdated flash (or HTML5) player., but I still checked these possibilities a while ago. So after researching the issue I discovered that either ISP or YouTube (or both) have made an attempt to limit viewers by choking buffering capabilities (probably partly because of all the people who watch cat videos while on the clock). Well that conspiracy aside there was a fix suggested that has you limit 2 different IP spectrums (173.194.55.0/24 and 206.111.0.0/16) in your firewall's filter settings in an attempt to bypass the slow caches. This did seem to work for a bit (at least for me) but it was like killing an ant with a sledgehammer. It blocked way more IP addresses than necessary, and then videos began to lag again recently.

So I looked for another fix and this seems to work beautifully. I deleted the filtering options and instead changed my DNS address from my ISP defaults (Verizon Fios 50/25 MBps) to Google's Public DNS addresses (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4). So if any of you are experiencing problems with YouTube videos this works great. It doesn't seem to have an adverse effect on my internet speed or reliability. YouTube videos and other streamed content simply buffer as they should now.

 

I've always thought about hoping on Google DNS or OpenDNS servers, but have been worried about slower response times.

Have you seen any noticeable slow down in your browsing speed? Do you have any issues browsing to 'new' sites or sites you haven't been to in a while?

 

Can you elaborate on this process. I'm having trouble figuring out what/ how to do your described process.

 

No, but it has only been a few days. I noticed that in some instances it is faster, especially during peak hours. I delete my cache fairly often, so the majority of the sites I visit are new. So far so good!

Elaborate? Sure, you must go into either your router settings by going to your router home page address in your browser, or go into your OS network and sharing center and go to change adapter settings. The ladder will only effect your computer while changing the settings in your router will effect all devices.

Every router is different, so google your router brand. Once there go into advanced settings and select use specific DNS address. There enter 8.8.8.8 and in the secondary address enter 8.8.4.4.

For your computer go into change adapter settings. Select either Local Area Connection or Wireless Network Connection (which ever you use more) and right click and select properties. Select the networking tab and click on TCP/IPv4 and click properties again. Select advanced and select the DNS tab. There select use the following DNS addresses and enter the ones above. Make sure to write down the existing addresses if there are any. You can do the same for TCP/IPv6 but they are different addresses, and IMO it isn't necessary.