Google has been slowly overhauling all its products to the new Material Design style. Previously, we looked at the visual changes coming to Chrome, and now it seems the company is also bringing its Material Design UI to YouTube, and it looks pretty darn awesome.
Although, the new visual upgrade for the popular video site isn’t available to everyone, apparently Google is letting a small number of users to test the new changes. Perhaps to get feedback and fix any bug that may need to be smashed.
If you want to switch to the new design try it out for yourself before everyone else, you can do so by using the following instructions on Google Chrome, which are based on the steps mentioned on Reddit.
How to switch to the new Material Design UI for YouTube on the web
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Visit the Chrome Web Store and install the EditThisCookie extension.
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Head over to this YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/?gl=US.
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Sign-out of your YouTube account. (This is a very important step, if you don’t do this, you won’t see the changes, and there is a good chance that this trick may not work everywhere, but it does work in the United States.)
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Click EditThisCooking button next to the address bar.
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Click the VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE entry to open the cookie.
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Replace its content with the following value: Qa1hUZu3gtk.
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Click the green check mark button to save the changes.
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Refresh the page and voila! You’re on the new YouTube Material Design UI.
It’s worth pointing out that the above instructions are specific to Google Chrome, but you can follow the steps to try out the new YouTube on Firefox, as EditThisChookie is also available as an Add-on for Mozilla’s web browser.
The new Material Design UI for YouTube doesn’t significantly change the previous design, but the site features are more responsive, there is more white and red colors all around.
One of the biggest changes is happening on the video page, which now has a more minimalist design, and when you click the “Theater mode” view the video player stretches edge-to-edge, and the menu on the navigation bar turns to a black color.
YouTube Material Design gallery
In all the new YouTube web design matches the same UI you will see in Google+ and on mobile apps. The same is true for the channel pages that look exactly as the you will see a channel on the YouTube app for Android.
What do you think about the new YouTube? Let us know in the comments below.
Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 14 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 20 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me. Email him at [email protected].