# YouTube technical question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-technical-question/669041>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 17, 2013, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-technical-question/669041 "2013-09-17T12:23:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-technical-question/669041/1 "2013-09-17T12:23:59Z")

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Apparently YouTube has changed their software, so users can no longer turn off annotations. Anyone know if a way around this?

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**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-technical-question/669041/2 "2013-09-17T14:11:56Z")

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They just buried it. ☹ Click on the little “gear” icon and a menu pops up where you can turn the annotations off.

Leave it to Google to turn a one-click operation into three.

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**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-technical-question/669041/3 "2013-09-17T14:37:10Z")

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Same with changing the quality, now it’s 3 clicks and menu navigation versus 2 clicks.

Oh, and this might fix the annotations problem: [https://www.youtube.com/account\_playback](https://www.youtube.com/account_playback)

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**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-technical-question/669041/4 "2013-09-17T14:38:52Z")

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> [@control-z](#):
>
> Same with changing the quality, now it’s 3 clicks and menu navigation versus 2 clicks.

It’s actually 4 clicks because you have to click one more time to make the menu go away.

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**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-technical-question/669041/5 "2013-09-17T14:48:38Z")

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Thanks! Dope is helpful, as always. (Technical) ignorance fought!

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**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-technical-question/669041/6 "2013-09-17T15:29:58Z")

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> [@lawoot](#):
>
> Thanks! Dope is helpful, as always. (Technical) ignorance fought!

I hadn’t noticed that particular irritation yet but now I know how to fix it. So how stupid is it that you can’t easily turn annotations off or on while watching a video?