YouTube announced on their blog a new way to browse videos that will help with the loading time. Feather is an ultra watch page that can be tried out in TestTube. The player still features prominently in the browser, but till be kept to a minimum. Also, to keep loading time to a few mere second, many features are disable. Amongst these are the ability to comment and rate videos.

The reaction has been very mixed. One man said, “Here’s the news you don’t want to hear, YouTube: the slowness issue isn’t something that just suddenly happened ever since the rollout of 1080p. (…) It’s a server side problem, YT. That’s what you guys really need to understand. Not our fault. Your guys’ fault.”

Then there are those who are happy with the new feature, “I actaully really like the idea, but as said above the features missing a quite alot. However, for viewers who only watch videos like me, it works out quite good.” So is the ability to view videos faster worth the inability to comment and rate? Depends on what type of view you are.

Below is a screen shot of the new browser. You gotta love the second comment on the video.