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A Tip for Leopard WebKit Users (Streaming Video)

Altemose

Altemose

macrumors G3
Original poster
In light of the recent demise of MacTubes and YouView, I set off on the task of getting a solid fluid YouTube experience on my PowerBook G4. My system is a 1.67 GHz model with 1.25 GB of RAM and an SSD. Sadly, under HTML5, the PowerBook struggled to play YouTube under both Leopard WebKit and TenFourFox. Adobe Flash is such a insecure pig that I refuse to use it on my system, however the performance was marginally better.

The tool I found was ClickToFlash 3.1.6 by Marc Hoyois. You can download this extension directly from Apple by going to "Safari" --> Safari Extensions Gallery. Once installed, the preference panel should immediately open, but if not you can access it by going to "Safari" --> Preferences --> Extensions --> ClickToFlash.

@Dronecatcher also pointed out that Marc Hoyois also has an extension called ClickToPlugin. It's functionality is very similar but includes a few more features. You can download it off his site from here. I am adding it to the guide below but note that only a few settings are different. Hats off to @Dronecatcher for pointing this other tool out!

These settings work great for me and I strongly urge any Leopard WebKit user to give them a shot for both speed and security reasons.

"GENERAL"
​
  • Placeholder opacity: 50% (Default)
  • ✓ Show Flash source as tooltip
  • __Allow invisible Flash/Plugins (CTP) (this will kill all background Flash/plugin processes on a site for security reasons)
  • __Block Flash/plugins manually
  • sIFR text policy: "Show Text Only"
  • Flash to HTML5 conversion scripts: Use Defaults
  • __Load Flash/plug in if HTML5 conversion fails (due to the insecurity of Flash, we never want it to load regardless)
  • ✓ Use HTML5 media fallbacks (If QuickTime cannot be used, it will use the rather secure HTML5 instead)
  • __Use a download manager
"PLUG-INS (CTP ONLY)"
​
  • __Quartz Composer Plug-in (Enabling can use a lot of CPU in drawing Quartz compositions)
  • ✓ QuickTime Plug-In 7.7 (QuickTime can certainly load by default for streaming reasons)
  • ✓ QuickTime Plug-in 7.7 (Not sure of the difference from the other plugin)
  • __Shockwave Flash
  • __Switchable Java Plug-in for WebKit
  • __ Verified Download Plugin
"CONTROL LISTS"
​
Leave this tab completely at the default settings unless you have a specific reason to use Adobe Flash on a site. The final version of Flash for PowerPC is 10.1 and is notorious for security issues.

"MEDIA PLAYER"​

  • Default Media Player: QuickTime Player
  • __Load media player automatically (Leave unchecked to preserve CPU while site is loading)
  • ✓ Show Preview Image (Loads preview from YouTube search page)
  • Default Resolution: 360p (Higher End G5s and ridiculously built G4s maybe able to handle 720p 🙂😉)
  • Nonnative formats policy: Use only as a last resort
  • Initial Behavior: Autoplay
  • ✓ Instant Autoplay
  • ✓ Include Media Sources
  • ✓ Include Flash (this will make all Flash attempt to be played by QuickTime or HTML5 as a fallback)
  • ✓ Include plug-in (CTP ONLY, forces all plugins to try and use QuickTime or HTML5 as a fallback)
  • __Include the video's webpage
  • __Include QuickTime Player
  • __Include AirPlay
  • __Hide "Rewind" button
  • Sound Volume: 100% (Adjusting this may affect audio quality)

"SHORTCUT MENU"
​
  • __Always Allow
  • __Always Hide
  • __Load All Flash (Disabled for Security Reasons)
  • __Load Invisible Flash (Disabled for Security Reasons)
  • __View on Site (Would allow you to watch video in site rather than in QuickTime)
  • ✓ Download Video (Allows you to save copies of videos)
  • ✓ Open in QuickTime Player (Allows site to open in QuickTime if not done automatically)
  • __Send via AirPlay
  • ✓ ClickToFlash Preferences
  • __Enable/Disable ClickToFlash/ClickToPlugin
"KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS"
​
This tab is entirely up to user discretion on programming shortcuts.

DISCLAIMER: These settings work great for me and are a vast improvement over any other extension or tool that I have tried. That being said, I cannot guarantee that these settings will work great for everyone and am not responsible for anything possibly caused by them.
 
Last edited:
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Altemose said:
The tool I found was ClickToFlash 3.1.6 by Marc Hoyois.
Click to expand...
You might find ClickToPlugin is better - the developer recommends it over CTF. I've been using it for a year or so and even on my Powerbooks, setting it to play Youtube as 240P flv brings CPU use to around 50% - going to 360P mp4 is around 60%.

EDIT: FLV playback needs to be activated separately, details here:

http://sourceforge.net/p/leopard-webkit/tickets/45/
 
Last edited:
Dronecatcher said:
You might find ClickToPlugin is better - the developer recommends it over CTF. I've been using it for a year or so and even on my Powerbooks, setting it to play Youtube as 240P flv brings CPU use to around 50% - going to 360P mp4 is around 60%.
Click to expand...

I will check that out! The ClickToFlash extension is a lot better than the old ClickToFlash plugin.
 
eyoungren said:
Here is something you guys may want to check out. Kaiser is calling a very limited instance of Safari FROM T4Fx to perform an action (such as watching video).

SandboxSafari

Here's his overview from the blog: http://tenfourfox.blogspot.com/2015/09/sandboxin-safari-on-powerpc-because.html

Sounds to me like a merging of the best of both worlds here. Browsing with T4Fx and then calling a limited Safari window to view video.
Click to expand...

What a great idea! Only managed to get it to work on one website but it's still nice to have these options - plus watching flash video in a skeletal Webkit window is is easier on the CPU than the full browser.
 
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Dronecatcher said:
What a great idea! Only managed to get it to work on one website but it's still nice to have these options - plus watching flash video in a skeletal Webkit window is is easier on the CPU than the full browser.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I think that's the idea. Kaiser knows a lot of T4Fx users pull out a different browser for web video and that it's usually Safari.
 
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Sandbox Safari works sometimes and sometimes not. On the same page.
When it doesn't I got the message: "400 Bad Request. The plain HTTP request was sent to HTTPS port. nginx/1.8.0"
 
I will give this a try on my iMac G4 1.25ghz 20-Inch) when I get home from work. This only works in Safari? As of late I have been primarily using TenFourFox.
 
just.in.time said:
I will give this a try on my iMac G4 1.25ghz 20-Inch) when I get home from work. This only works in Safari? As of late I have been primarily using TenFourFox.
Click to expand...
You are misunderstanding.

This is a plugin for TenFourFox that redirects an URL to a single instance/window of Sandbox Safari, which is an extremely limited version of Safari designed specifically for this.
 
Sandbox Safari sounds like it is a great implementation for those sites not yet migrated to HTML 5 and requiring Flash.
 
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