News & Reviews:   YouTube

Previously, we reported that YouTube was testing out locking videos in 4K resolution only for Premium subscribers, which understandably caused a lot of backlash from the community. Now, YouTube confirmed that the test has ended, though it is still unclear whether the company would be implementing such a restriction in the future.

All YouTube users will soon be getting a new way of identifying themselves, which may be new to the platform, but not something entirely foreign in the social media landscape. Announced via a blog post today, YouTube is introducing @name handles across the platform.

As many YouTube users continue to dodge YouTube Premium, Google seems to give them more reasons to do so. This is not confirmed yet, but some users have been experiencing a new test pilot that restricts 4K video resolution for YouTube Premium users only. 

The motive behind clicking on the 'dislike' or 'not interested' buttons on YouTube is hoping the platform will help you filter out unwanted content. However, new research claims that those buttons might not be much of a help doing that, as YouTube would still bring up similar videos.

Just when you thought YouTube is done with two unskippable ads for the video platform, it seems that the company is bumping up to five for a foreseeable future. Do note that nothing is final as YouTube just recently started testing five unskippable ads before the video starts playing.

YouTube is introducing a slew of new products that cater for education and learning on the platform which includes a new ad-free video player as well as tools specific for educational content creators. In a blog post yesterday, YouTube announced the YouTube Player for Education, a new embedded player that shows content on commonly used education apps without ads, external links or recommendations.

Facebook will officially shut down its Gaming app on 28 October 2022 after failing to compete with Amazon’s Twitch in the live game streaming market. In case you’re not familiar, the Facebook Gaming app lets users watch and play video games on demand.

If you regularly watch YouTube and don’t have an ad-blocker turned on, then it’s very likely that you’ve been bombarded with annoying ads by a company called OctaFX offering investment and financial services. Well, as it turns out, OctaFX's aforementioned services and operation were never authorised or approved by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM).

Zoom in on YouTube videos will soon not be a complicated process anymore. The platform has introduced a feature called 'Pinch to zoom' for its Premium users, which allows you to zoom into the videos and pan around to look at different parts of them, both in portrait or full-screen landscape view.

Many people love to watch videos online, and short-form video is probably the most popular format these days. Besides the highly popular TikTok, YouTube Shorts has also gained a substantial userbase of about 1.5 billion users. As such, it makes sense to add a new feature to help make Shorts.