YouTube Becomes Light As A 'Feather'

Not all Web connections are created equal. It's with that in mind that Google offered up YouTube Lite today, called "Feather." Its promise is to get those videos playing faster, even if you have a flaky Web connection.Right now, my web connection is reaching 14Mbps on the download and about 4.3Mbps on the up. That's more than enough bandwidth to watch pretty much any kind of video there is on the Internet. Earlier today, however, I wasn't so lucky. Free Wi-Fi at my auto dealership was moving along at a paltry ~500Kbps. In addition, there were five other people using the same connection. The connection was pokey at best.

In keeping with Google's lust for speeding things up, "Feather" is a new beta product that is now available in TestTube.

Google calls Feather "an ultra light watch page" that will load videos faster and make sure they playback as quickly as possible. Users who test out this beta feature will notice that videos will only load in standard definition (no 1080p here), and all of the extra junk -- such as comments, related videos and so on -- will be reduced as much as possible.

Google says it is going to monitor how Feather performs. If it sees latency improve even though adoption creeps upwards, it will consider rolling Feather out to a wider audience.

This announcement comes just weeks after Google began offering full 1080p high-definition videos.

Whether you're looking for the quick-and-dirty basics, or the full-blown real deal, Google -- and YouTube -- have your back.