8

I have to use YouTube with an HTTPS connection, because YouTube is banned here (I need it for watching some specific videos from Stanford University). But it seems it uses an HTTP connection for loading videos from the server, so I get this error when I play videos:

An error occurred, please try again later

Isn't there a way for using an HTTPS connection for loading videos too?

(I have no idea why it is banned in my country; it is banned because it is. I hope you understand me.)

ale
  • 52,972
  • 42
  • 165
  • 314
Mouliyan
  • 183
  • 1
  • 1
  • 5

4 Answers4

6

If you're on Firefox, you can try the Electronic Frontier Foundation's HTTPS Everywhere extension.

It uses a customizable list of URL matches to hijack the browser's page-loading process and redirect to equivalent HTTPS URLs before the network request goes out. YouTube is included and enabled by default.

Otherwise, you may be out of luck. Chrome doesn't allow extensions to do that sort of thing and apparently Google is rolling out SSL gradually, so YouTube doesn't yet seem to have an equivalent to GMail's "always use SSL" option.

Video-loading may or may not be available via SSL, but HTTPS Everywhere generally gives you as much SSL as is possible without breaking the site. If that doesn't work, you may have to either use a VPN service or ask a friend in another country to download the video for you using something like Video DownloadHelper.

ssokolow
  • 876
  • 4
  • 12
1

Use startpage.com as your home page or search engine. In the field search put 'youtube' and open the provided link. It will load in secure connection. I have never had any problems and it doesn't afect videos at all.

Paul
  • 11
  • 1
0

Try enabling the YouTube HTML5 trial. For videos which support HTML5, I have found that they usually stream through HTTPS. If you right click the video and the bottom of the menu says things about Flash, then that particular video doesn't support HTML5 playback. But if it is an HTML5 video, then click Show video info, and you can see if it's streaming through HTTP or HTTPS.

Ricket
  • 212
  • 2
  • 8
0

While loading with HTTPS is possible with EFF's HTTPS Everywhere ext (see ssokolow's answer below), if YouTube is blocked, the protocol used should/would not make a difference, since it is the IPs of the server (i.e. 208.65.153.238) or the FQDN (i.e. youtube.com) that is blocked at a ISP or country-wide-proxy level.

Michelfrancis Bustillos
  • 1,242
  • 8
  • 19