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YouTube is testing Material Design on the web and here’s how to enable it [Gallery]

youtube-material-header

Most, if not all, of Google’s Android apps have received a Material redesign. With the Chrome OS update rolling out, YouTube on the web is the next and one of the last major products to get Material Design. Google appears to be A/B testing (via Android Police) the update with a small set of users, but it is quite easy for anyone to enable. Here’s how to do it…

A new toolbar featuring a search box is now present across all YouTube pages. To the right is an upload icon and an overflow menu with options to change the language and country, access help, turn on/off restricted mode, send feedback, and restore the “classic” interface. There is a hamburger menu to the left that slides out with links to Home, Trending, History, and other categories.

The bulk of the changes are in the channel page with the upper half completely redesigned. Channel icons are now rounded with name, subscriber count, and the subscribe button prominently displayed under a header image that stretches the full width of the screen. As is typical in Material Design, the top half of the page adopts a background color automatically picked out from the header image. Underneath are tabs for Home, Videos, Playlist, and more that have a cool Material animation when you move between them.

The home page, which was revamped for mobile last week, sees a more minor update with larger video previews and an overall flatter look. Google will likely add the same neural network-backed recommendations to the web, as suggested channels now load endlessly as you scroll down.

The video player interface remains unchanged from the current one, but the info and buttons below are reorganized. Video title and play count is more prominent and the buttons for liking/disliking, sharing, and adding to a playlist are cleaner. The share tab is now just a greatly simplified popup box. When watching a video in theater mode, the toolbar turns black for a more focused experience.

Anyone using Chrome can experience the Material Design by following these instructions from Reddit user giorgiomarinel:

1) go to https:www.youtube.com/?gl=US

2) open the developer tools (ctrl + shift + i)

3) go to the `Resources´ tab and delete the VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE cookie for the youtube domain

4) go to the console and define the VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE cookie using the following command:

document.cookie=”VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=Qa1hUZu3gtk;path=/;domain=.youtube.com”;

5) reload the page

(Note: The new design will only show up if you are not logged into your Google account.)

Overall, this is a great redesign. The various Material Design animations are a particular joy and YouTube looks much cleaner and more modern.

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