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For the last month or so I've had a dark YouTube player

enter image description here

It doesn't appear for all my computers/locations, and I haven't been able to find any news or announcements about it. I like the new skin, and I'm interested to know more about it:

  • Why move to black instead of white?
  • Can I enable/disable different skins?
  • Is anyone else getting to use this new player?
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migrated from superuser.com Jul 6 '11 at 18:25


Google do have a habit of rolling things out to small test groups without telling anybody, and the black UI would match their new header bar, so could be. –  Phoshi Jul 6 '11 at 18:16
you're not the only one who is getting the new YT skin –  Sathya Jul 6 '11 at 18:28
Needed pruning to less of the "what does everyone else think?" "Why is Google doing this?" which would have made your question off topic. Edited it to be more of the applicable question for this site. –  Eight Days of Malaise Jul 6 '11 at 18:30
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3 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

The redesign is called "Cosmic Panda". To enable/disable it go here: http://www.youtube.com/cosmicpanda

If it's not yet enabled, you have the option to do so:

enter image description here

If it's enabled, you have the option to disable it:

enter image description here

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To add to this: make sure you're not in the HTML5 trial, otherwise you wont get to see the cosmic panda layout (it's flash only). Hopefully they'll make an HTML5 version of this too. –  zzzzBov Jul 7 '11 at 22:25
Mine works even after entering the trial. I also tried enabling the HTML5 trial after Panda and it worked. –  Alex Jul 7 '11 at 22:35
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Google is testing their new designs to a small group of users first. There is no possibility to decide whether you want to be in the test group or not. What works however sometimes is deleting your cookies and trying to visit YouTube again. Nothing is guaranteed though.

You can try not using YouTube anymore or not interacting as much as before, if enough people do then Google might decide to rollback the design, of course this is not a real solution.

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I haven't seen that ever since they had the power saving day, where you could turn the whole page black, "turning off the lights".

I really liked it too, but they removed it...

It's also possible that they selected your account for some testing, without you knowing it. Facebook does this as well.

EDIT: Apparently, they are testing this new player

The black is probably to match the new google theme.

I don't think you will be able to turn this off.

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A black screen doesn't actually save power on modern LCDs –  neo Jul 6 '11 at 18:39
I know that ;) But they did it for "power saving day", don't know what the official name was. And also, it's easier on the eyes then white. –  Simon Verbeke Jul 6 '11 at 18:40
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