What's New in YouTube FF/RW

Your favorite browser extension just got better. Here's what's new.

LATEST - November 2nd, 2025

Version 4.3.1: Stability & Performance

We did it! 500 Users!

A huge thank you to everyone! We've officially passed 500 active users across Chrome & Firefox. Thank you for helping us reach this incredible milestone!

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4.3.1

Stability & Performance Update

Focused on stability, performance, and reliability improvements across all systems. Fixed major popup issues, optimized background performance, and refined error handling.

Major Changes:

  • Fixed critical popup loading issue that caused the menu to freeze or fail to appear
  • Improved extension stability with added checks for missing YouTube elements
  • Resolved race condition where background scripts continued running after disable
  • Corrected theme synchronization issue affecting background color updates
  • Unified all error handling under a single centralized system
  • Verified and confirmed correct saving and loading of custom preset values

Performance:

  • Reduced CPU usage by optimizing hold-to-seek and progress bar update logic
  • Adjusted “Progress Bar Update Delay” from 10ms to 150ms for smoother and more stable playback
  • Improved communication between popup and tabs to only target active YouTube videos
  • Reduced redundant update calls and unnecessary background activity

Interface & Experience:

  • Updated hold-to-seek icons with a redesigned triple-chevron layout for better clarity
  • Unified appearance and behavior of all indicators for consistent visual feedback

Code Quality:

  • Removed unused settings (“Action Delay” and “Seek Throttle”) to simplify configuration
  • Refactored internal logic and variable naming for improved maintainability
  • Enhanced defensive coding practices throughout for better fault tolerance

Future Goals

  • Let you customize the fast forward and rewind buttons to any design you want.
  • Create your own skip indicators for keyboard shortcuts, with several pre-made designs to choose from.

Known Issues

Large skips when Buffering Protection is off

Issue: If you turn off "Buffering Protection," the video might jump around weirdly when it's buffering. This happens because YouTube's player gets confused when it's loading.

Fix: Try lowering your video quality, or go to settings and increase "Seek Throttle (ms)" to 150-250ms. This gives YouTube more time to catch up.

Version 4.3.0

November 1, 2025

What's New

  • Full Support for New YouTube UI: The extension now works seamlessly with YouTube's updated player design that's rolling out to all users.
  • Better Button Icons: Replaced old PNG icons with crisp SVG graphics that look perfect at any size.
  • Improved Button Injection: Fixed several bugs where buttons wouldn't show up or would appear in the wrong place.
  • Smoother Animations: Button appearance and transitions are now more fluid and reliable.

Technical Improvements

  • Rewrote how buttons are created and placed on the page for better compatibility.
  • Fixed timing issues that could cause buttons to not appear right away.
  • Improved how the extension detects and responds to YouTube's player changes.

Version 4.2.8

August 27, 2025

Improvements

  • Button Click Feedback: All buttons now have a more dynamic and responsive press animation.
  • Smoother Button Loading: The fast-forward and rewind buttons now load with a consistently smooth animation.
  • Code Efficiency: Refined the code for better performance, especially in video player detection and settings validation.

Bug Fixes

  • Advanced Settings Panel: Fixed an issue that caused the advanced settings panel to close when its border or scrollbar was clicked.
  • Button Animation: Corrected an issue where the button loading animation would sometimes lag or appear inconsistent.

Version 4.2.7

August 19, 2025

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed CSS typo affecting light theme button hovers.
  • Fixed accessibility issue where hidden tooltips were read by screen readers.
  • Fixed skip indicator overlay blocking YouTube menus/captions.
  • Fixed duplicate button injection and leftover listeners.
  • Fixed keyboard shortcuts to reliably override YouTube defaults.
  • Fixed need to re-toggle keyboard shortcuts — they now persist correctly.
  • Fixed skip indicator sometimes staying after navigation.
  • Fixed popup sections not closing when switching panels or clicking outside.

Performance

  • Reduced DOM lookups by caching elements.
  • Cleaned up observers/listeners properly when navigating.
  • Throttled progress updates to prevent spam.
  • Debounced settings saves to reduce storage writes.
  • Lazy-loaded advanced settings listeners.
  • Improved animation smoothness.

Features

  • New Advanced Setting: Added a "Progress Bar Update Delay" setting for fine-tuning player UI responsiveness after seeking.
  • New Advanced Setting: Added a "Navigation Init Delay" setting to control script initialization timing, improving stability on slower connections.
  • Stats now sync across devices with Firefox Sync.
  • Updated advanced settings warning text.
  • Clearer descriptions for adjustable tweaks.
  • Added fade/slide animations to popup sections.
  • Added an easter egg.

Version 4.2.6

August 12, 2025

This update focuses on major behind-the-scenes improvements to make the extension more stable, reliable, and future-proof.

Key Improvements

  • Complete Backend Refactor: The extension's code has been rewritten for improved stability and efficiency, making it less likely to break when YouTube updates its site.
  • Smarter Error Handling: Improved error detection and recovery mean the extension can now handle unexpected issues more gracefully without crashing.

Bug Fixes

  • Continuous Seek Fix: Fixed a bug where holding a hotkey and switching tabs would cause the video to seek indefinitely.

Version 4.2.5

August 3, 2025
  • Readjusted the Action & Player Timing card for a more compact and clear layout.

Version 4.2.4

August 3, 2025

Advanced Settings Rework

  • Introduced a collapsible "More settings" panel for a cleaner interface.
  • Added a "Buffering Protection" toggle to give users more control over seeking behavior.
New settings UI

Version 4.2.3

July 27, 2025
  • Improved progress bar responsiveness and reliability.
  • Extended control visibility during seeking and improved cleanup.
  • Fixed memory leaks and optimized performance.

Version 4.2.2

July 7, 2025
  • Major Upgrade to Manifest V3: Improved security and performance.
  • Settings Saved: Fixed a major bug that reset user settings on update.

Version 4.2.1

July 7, 2025
  • New Icon: Changed the extension icon for better visibility in light mode.

Version 4.1.1

July 1, 2025
  • Fixed a critical bug causing progress bar stuttering during playback.

Version 4.1

July 1, 2025
  • Added option to position player buttons on the left or right.
  • Downscaled icon assets for a smaller extension size.

Version 4.0

June 21, 2025

Major Rework

  • Fully customizable hotkeys.
  • New advanced settings page with Action Delay control.
  • Redesigned UI with collapsible panels and improved controls.
  • Robust settings migration to preserve user preferences across updates.