Enable the hidden simplified fullscreen UI for YouTube in Chrome 47

Google Chrome

With Google Chrome 47, its developers have added a secret option which enables a new, simplified user interface for fullscreen video on YouTube. Here is how to enable it and how it looks.

Google Chrome is well known for always including a number of useful options which are experimental but which eventually make it into the stable version. Experimental features of the Chrome browser are hidden, have no user interface in the app's main settings and can only be enabled via the flags page.

The simplified fullscreen UI in Chrome 47 also needs to be enabled via the flags page. You need to follow the steps below to enable it.

  1. Open the Google Chrome browser and type the following text into the address bar:
    chrome://flags/#simplified-fullscreen-ui

    This will open the flags page directly with the relevant setting.

  2. The seting is called "Simplified fullscreen / mouse lock UI". Set the Enabled option from the drop down list for it. See the following screenshot:
  3. Restart Google Chrome by closing it manually. Or you can also use the Relaunch Now button which will appear at bottom of the page after you change the value:

That's it. After restarting Chrome, go to YouTube.com and watch any video fullscreen:

This will activate the special user interface. What is your opinion about this change? Do you like this new simplified UI or do you prefer the old one?

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

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