How to stop YouTube sucking (Windows guide)

win-broken

My first blog post in three years has been a crazy ride. It blew up all over the web, and I’m humbled. A big thanks to everyone from HackerNews, Reddit, and most recently YouTube. Really glad this helped a lot of you guys.

The biggest question I’ve had so far is “how can I get this to work on Windiows?”, and I am back to answer that. I’ve written a guide how to block the CDN IP ranges from the command prompt on Windows, so it should work on all versions (Windows 7, Windows XP, and others). That said, I run a Mac as my primary computer and I welcome any feedback from the Windows gurus out there.

Just like yesterday’s post, you will have blazingly fast Youtube streaming (and Twitch.tv) by running a few commands to reject certain IP addresses. Also, remember that this will cause the stream to take 1-2 seconds to start because of the IP block handling, but then you are greeted with a silky smooth, ultra fast experience.

Enough talking. Here’s what you need to do:

  1. Click the Start button, type “cmd”, and right click the icon to ‘Run As Administrator’ (Screenshot 1)
  2. You will likely see a UAC prompt, hit “Yes” (Screenshot 2)
  3. The command prompt window will open, this is where you will type in the commands to set your firewall rules (Screenshot 3)
  4. Enter the following command and hit Enter. If it works, you should see a big “OK”.

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="MITCHRIBARYTUBE" dir=in action=block remoteip=173.194.55.0/24,206.111.0.0/16 enable=yes

Rules can be easily removed too. Just get back into the command prompt in the same way and run this command, hit Enter again:

netsh advfirewall firewall delete rule name="MITCHRIBARYTUBE"

Did this trick work for you? Let me know in the comments below, Windows users!

EDIT (Feb 27, 2013): I’ve updated the blog with a new add rule command that’s lets you use one line instead of two. Thanks to Darren for the tip!

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471 Comments How to stop YouTube sucking (Windows guide)

  1. Alan

    Thank you Mitch. Is this something permanent until removed or do I have to do this with every Windows reboot?

    As for a Tomato based router, where do I plug this in so that all computers at home will have smoother Youtube playback?

    Reply
  2. starkiller

    I guess time will tell, I haven’t been watching many Youtube videos lately because of the frustration level involved. I used to have 256KB, I could buffer the videos or run them through, muted, while I was reading something else and then watch even if it took 10 minutes to buffer or play a minute long video. I’ve gotten faster and faster internet, I have 6MB now and most youtube video has been unwatchable and unbufferable. I can and could watch the TV network’s streams with no problem at 1.5MB. Maximum available here is 10MB, SOHO and it would cost $60 more per month, I think my small ISP’s upstream provider is Verizon, it’s how we can get fiber and 4G LTE in the middle of nowhere from a dinky little company.
    I do wonder if the IPs I’ll need to block vary based on location or upstream provider. It’s a big country and I’m in flyover country, basically hundreds of miles from anything important.

    Reply
  3. Dimitris - Greece

    Yes ! It solved a long standing issue !
    After endless attempts to flushdns ipconfig /all reset /renew etc etc THIS WORKS LIKE A CHARM!
    ONE LINE 10 SECONDS SOLUTION !
    AMAZED !

    Reply
  4. rodtrevizan

    So I used this for a few months and my youtube really got faster. But now I subscribed to Google Play Music All Access and sometimes the music wouldn’t even load. I deleted the rule and got it working again. Thanks, anyway!

    Reply
  5. bobo

    I got it to work on xp and 7. But how do you get it to work with a router. And how do you test the blocked isp on wlan.

    Reply
      1. BOBO

        I had Norton on my second computer-the one which has XP. Norton did a good job of blocking TWC. However, I was too cheap to renew my subscription. I then installed ZoneAlarm free. It was not effective, because Youtube started sucking. I determined through Pcflank.com’s leak test that Zone Alarm leaked. I now have Comodo Internet Security w/ firewall free. Youtube sucked under this one, too. I am experimenting with Openxtra Commander and Ntop on my XP. All I can do is monitor traffic, all of them. But blocking TWC effectively, since dumping Norton, has been daunting.

        Reply
        1. BOBO

          I ran the IP’s 173.194.055.000/24 on ip-tracker.org and it came back as unregistered. I then went to network solutions.com and did a domain search for twcable.com. I found two domain servers: ns1.twcable.com, ns2.twcable.com. I also saw that the website is registered through company: Markmonitor.com at IP. 1.1.1.1.

          You know, I really hate how companies claim to be legit then they spend tens of hundreds and thousands of dollars to protect their privacy, meanwhile, our privacy means nothing.

          I need a hobby where I see results. I’m lonely, ya’all.

          Reply
    1. Dario

      It would depend on the model of your router but basically you need to block all traffic to and from the networks 173.194.55.0/24 (173.194.55.1 – 173.194.55.254) and 206.111.0.0/16 (206.111.0.1 – 206.111.255.254). For the second part I’m going to assume you want to test connectivity with said networks, maybe you can try a software like Angry Ip Scanner to ping those IP addresses. Be warned that a /16 network has more than 65,000 IPs and scanning that will take a long time.

      Reply
      1. BOBO

        Oy vey. I got the EA4500 from Linksys. Frys electronics supposedly replaced my Netgear N900 with a compatible device. Hardy har har. The only thing compatible was the price. The Linksys Smart Wi-Fi app is like driving an automatic transmission vehicle. The classic Linksys firmware is more like a manual transmission. I will be reverting to the classic firmware in a week or so. I used Netproofer and, still, certain websites, such as ads.doubleclick. net will get through, according to Ntop. I looked at ‘customizable’ DNS servers such as Umbrella from openDNS. However, I did a DNS benchmark, and OpenDNS was not recommended. I am currently looking at peerblock and pfsense, but these items have too much raw data and above my skill level. Norton was good for one thing-it effectively blocked at the computer only. I want to block at the router, to unbloat, reduce throttle speed, or increase my bandwidth when I stream to PS3 or my smart-tv.

        I understand what you are saying. Stick to the ip ranges and that should cover it.

        I have used Wireshark, netbrute, etc., but still, my literacy is subpar.

        I want a Netgear!!!

        Reply
    1. SQRLY

      Ken, this command will not work in XP because the command that Mitch referenced above uses Windows’ “Firewall with Advanced Security”, hence why the command calls the “advfirewall”. The advanced firewall was introduced with Windows Vista and all future versions. Users of Win XP will need to use the “netsh firewall” (note the lack of adv in front of firewall) command, which has been deprecated.

      Reply
  6. razahussain khan

    thanks a ton…. tried so many things was fed up….. thanks very much…. it helped .. now works awesom

    Reply
  7. John Mark S. Datingaling

    Please help. I need to know how block the IP in Comodo Firewall. I’m using Windows 7 Home Premium. Thanks. :)

    Reply

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