Fast Forward videos on YouTube, Netflix and Facebook

Fast Forward is a new browser extension for the Google Chrome web browser that enables you to fast forward through videos on select video streaming websites such as YouTube or Netflix.

Fast forwarding or skipping is still somewhat of a problem with many streaming services and sites you find online.

While some allow you to speed up or slow down videos, YouTube provides that feature for instance to change the playback speed between 0.25 to 2 times the original speed, skipping often requires new buffering.

Fast Forward

MINI Fast Forward is a new browser extension for Google Chrome by the automobile company MINI. Yes, that is a rather strange connection and it looks as if the extension has been designed as part of the MINI Cooper S promotion.

Anyway, the extension has been designed to improve the fast forwarding of videos on YouTube, Netflix and Facebook.

The extension maps the S key to fast forward with the factor 8 which means that you will skim through a minute of video in 7.5 seconds if you use the feature.

Note that you will have to hold down the S-key the whole time, and that you will get the engine sound of the MINI Cooper S as a background sound when you accelerate a video.

The extension opens a promo page after installation, and the interface that it provides is more of a promo for the MINI Cooper S than something that you need to control the extension.

Still, you can use the interface to turn the fast forward feature on or off, or to turn off the engine sound when you use the fast forward functionality.

The extension installed fine in Vivaldi but it did not work correctly since Vivaldi uses the key for spatial navigation. The extension did install in Opera but appears broken in the web browser.

Closing Words

The option to skim through videos quickly using accelerated fast forward can be quite handy at times, especially if need to see what is going on and cannot just jump ahead to different positions of the video.

The extension covers three of the most popular video streaming services of today's Internet which is a good start.

It remains to be seen how frequently it will be updated though.

Now You: Do you find fast forward functionality useful for online videos?