YouTube Widget

Although Yahoo! has dropped the support for widgets and closed the online gallery for quite some time now (on April 11th 2012), there still are a variety of such small applications out there that can come in handy for viewing frequently used information and accessing programs.

YouTube Widget is just one example and, as you can probably imagine, it is a handy widget that aims to provide you with a simple and comfortable method to search for videos on YouTube.

In order to be installed, the program requires the Yahoo! Widget Engine, a JavaScript runtime that allows widgets to be installed on Windows computers. Using the YouTube data API, it enables you to explore videos on YouTube right from your desktop.

Once installed, the widget displays a simple window, comprising a retractable search form and a playback screen. In order to start a new search, you must enter the desired keyword within the form, set the sorting options and press the 'Submit' button.

The search results are neatly displayed, enabling you to easily navigate to the one you want to watch. Videos can be sorted by relevance, last update date, number of views or rating.

Clicking on any of the generated results sends the video to the built-in player, enabling you to watch the video without accessing the YouTube website in your browser. Needless to say that the application requires Internet access in order to work properly.

While the Yahoo! Widget Engine is compatible with the latest versions of the Windows OS, we experienced some issues while testing the widget on Windows 8. However, everything worked fine on Windows 7 computers.

YouTube Widget offers an alternative to watching videos on YouTube with the help of a browser. Just place it anywhere on your desktop and search for online videos faster, whenever you want to.