# Why does YouTube flicker? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 15, 2020, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-youtube-flicker/846435 "2020-01-15T01:22:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-youtube-flicker/846435/1 "2020-01-15T01:22:50Z")
Not all the time, but eventually after a few minutes. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-youtube-flicker/846435/2 "2020-01-15T04:03:28Z")
It doesn’t, for me. Refresh rate too low on your monitor? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-youtube-flicker/846435/3 "2020-01-15T09:17:05Z")
It doesn’t for me either. Graphics card drivers? ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-youtube-flicker/846435/4 "2020-01-15T09:28:43Z")
Are you using Chrome? There is a known issue in Chrome that can cause flickering with things like YouTube. Go under your advanced settings. Somewhere there is a setting to enable hardware acceleration. Turn that setting off and see if that helps. Firefox can have a similar issue. There’s no easy checkbox to enable/disable, so you have to go to your about:config to change it. Set layers.acceleration.disabled to false. If it’s not your browser that’s borked, then video drivers (as already suggested) would be my second guess. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-youtube-flicker/846435/5 "2020-01-15T17:48:45Z")
Addendum to what ECG said: Before you shut off all hardware video acceleration, try turning off hardware video decoding. That way the rest of your browser is still accelerated. On Chrome: type chrome:flags into the address bar and press enter. Then type **decode** into the search box on top. Then click the Enabled button under “Hardware Accelerated Decoding” and select Disabled instead. On Firefox: Type about:config into the address bar and press enter. Then type **hardware** into the search box on top. Find the option “media.hardware-video-decoding.enabled” and click the toggle button (⇌) on the far right to change it “false.” ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-youtube-flicker/846435/6 "2020-01-15T20:58:07Z")
Are you guys (checking before I embarrass myslf; of course you’re all guys 😉 ) saying my $50 Kindle Fire 7, using the garbage browser it came with because it lacks useable internal memory, lacks horsepower? ---
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-youtube-flicker/846435/7 "2020-01-15T22:00:03Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Are you guys (checking before I embarrass myslf; of course you’re all guys 😉 ) saying my $50 Kindle Fire 7, using the garbage browser it came with because it lacks useable internal memory, lacks horsepower? That’s too bad, if so. But even a $200 tablet in the 7 to 8-inch screen size range can do YouTube just fine; it’s my go-to for videos. Maybe that’s the minimum spend for a YouTube viewer…? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2020, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-youtube-flicker/846435/8 "2020-01-16T03:14:33Z")
Maybe Amazon and Google’s war has gone to the street. I’ve been expecting this since I saw how many apps are incompatible.