14 DAY TRIAL // YouTube is moving forward with the new design and is testing it more widely. It's also making tweaks and adding new features as it gets closer to a broader release.
First came the gray background and some redesigned elements, but the new design didn't start coming into its own until the new, vastly updated homepage started testing.
Not all users that get the experimental, gray YouTube get the new homepage as well, but, thankfully, there's a way of tricking YouTube into serving you the experimental homepage anyway.
First, a quick rundown of what's new in the experimental YouTube design.
The white background is replaced by gray, many links are now buttons which look better and are easier to hit on tablets and the player has gotten a small revamp as well.
As for the homepage, that's the biggest change so far. You get a sidebar for your subscriptions, favorite channels as well as stuff that is popular on YouTube on the moment. You'll find more details here.
To trick YouTube into serving you the redesigned site and homepage, you have to edit one of the site's cookies. There are several ways of doing this, if you're using Google Chrome it's rather trivial, as the Google Operating System blog pointed out.
In Chrome, open up the JavaScript console, hit "Ctrl+Shift+J" or use Menu > Tools > JavaScript console. UPDATE: This works in Firefox too, just hit "Ctrl+Shift+K". There, paste and enter the following line of code:
In other browsers, you need to be able to edit cookies in order to use this. An add-on like Cookies Manager for Firefox should do the trick. Look for the VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE cookie associated with youtube.com, change its value to ST1Ti53r4fU and you're done.
If you find the new design appalling, you can go back by simply removing the VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE cookie. Of course, chances are you'll be seeing the new YouTube soon enough again once it starts rolling out to all users.
