YouTube’s player design has seen us through some tough video times. It was probably sitting there on your first viewing of Friday; the inaugural playing of Gagnam Style, and countless dashcam videos since then. The player’s getting an update soon, but with a little browser trickery, you can take a look right now.
The new player design moves the desktop YouTube in line with the rest of the players, replacing the solid control bar with a gradient, simplifies icons across the board, and messes with the menus a little. There’s also a few new animations — the play/pause button morphs when clicked, adding a little visual flair.
The new design isn’t live for all users yet, but by editing the cookie that YouTube puts on your computer, you can get an advance preview. The easiest way to do it is to download an extension like EditThisCookie (if you’re using Chrome). Then, visit any YouTube page, find the field for “VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE”, and change the value to “Q06SngRDTGA”. (You also need to have your language set to US English.) [Android Police]