YTWatcher

In the era when entertainment is only at a few mouse clicks away, it is a shame not to have a way to access it right from the desktop, without the need to use a web browser. Luckily, developers came with a lot of ideas, and one suitable example is YTWatcher, which aims to do just that.

One neat advantage is that you don’t have to go through the hustle and bustle of an installation process, because of it’s portability. This keeps your computer running smoothly, because system registries are not affected, making it just right to carry around on an USB Flash drive.

However, disappointment kicks in quite soon. To be clearer, the first impression left by the interface is rather poor, with no visuals of any kind, except a classic window border. This might not be as big of an issue if it wasn’t for the lack of possibility to resize the main window. On the other hand, there are a few controls in the status bar, such as a volume slider, play, and pause buttons.

What’s more, before you can actually reach YouTube and search for videos, you need to log into your Google account, so you need to create one if you haven’t done so already. One more thing, you need to have Flash installed on your computer, or nothing properly loads.

Truth be told, the set of features leaves a lot to be desired. Besides flaws in visuals and functionality issues, there’s no option to at least manage favorite videos, add any, not to mention downloading.

You do get a small set of Video options, but these are limited to playback controls, skip a video, sharing on Twitter or Facebook, and going fullscreen. Sadly, the last options fails to function as intended, delivering another blow to practicality.

All things considered, we come to the conclusion that YTWatcher doesn’t come with a new idea, even if it’s good, and it doesn’t even deliver it correctly. Sure enough you get to watch YouTube videos on your desktop, but with a lot of struggle, and managing to somehow overlook the various inconveniences.