Mobile web video, actually usable. Control playback, volume, brightness and zoom with touch gestures instead of fumbling for buttons built for a mouse.
Same code, two ways to run it. Pick one — don't install both, or you get two overlays.
Needs Tampermonkey or Violentmonkey. Works on any mobile browser that supports extensions: Firefox, Cromite, Kiwi, Orion, Edge.
To turn it off for one site, use GlideVideo: Disable on <site> in your userscript manager's menu.
No userscript manager needed. Build it with bun run build:extension, then load dist-extension/ — permanently via about:addons → gear → Install Add-on From File, or for a quick try via about:debugging → Load Temporary Add-on → pick manifest.json.
To turn it off for one site, click the toolbar button; the page reloads without it. Click again to bring it back.
It asks for two permissions and no more: storage for your settings, and activeTab so the toolbar button can tell which site you're on. It collects nothing and talks to no server — everything stays in local storage on your device.
Four overlay themes, each answering the same question a different way — how do controls stay readable over footage you don't control? All four draw zero blurred layers, which is what actually costs frames on mobile: every backdrop-filter forces a readback of a video surface that repaints every frame.
Halo · default — nothing over the picture but the controls, each wearing a tight dark outline. It's the trick broadcast subtitles have used for decades, and it never tints the frame.
High Contrast — amber on near-opaque black; the only theme fully readable in direct sunlight or on a washed-out panel. · Frame — Halo's mechanism with a point of view: hairline corner brackets, a 1px scrub line with frame ticks, one red playhead. The brackets fade with the rest of the controls, so nothing sits on the picture while you watch.
Terminal — a VT console. Monospace, square corners, phosphor green with a soft bloom, scanlines above the scrub bar and a blinking block caret where the playhead would be. Nothing eases: transitions are stepped, so state changes land in discrete jumps the way a character cell does. The settings sheet reads as console output, keys uppercased under a > prompt.
The top bar holds the controls; the rest of the video is left clear for your thumbs.
| Gesture | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Double-tap | Left / right half | Skip back or forward. Keep tapping to stack — 10s, 20s, 30s |
| Swipe sideways | Anywhere | Scrub, with a live timestamp and offset |
| Swipe up / down | Right half | Volume |
| Swipe up / down | Left half | Brightness |
| Press and hold | Anywhere | 2× speed while held; release to restore |
| Pinch | Anywhere | Zoom, snapping to 50 / 100 / 125 / 150 / 200 / 300% |
In portrait, vertical swipes are handed back to the page so feeds still scroll. Gestures starting within 18px of a screen edge are ignored, so they don't collide with browser back-swipe.
| Speed | − / + steps by 0.10×, hold to fine-tune by 0.05×. Tap the number to play/pause, long-press to reset to 1.00× |
| Scrubber | Drag to seek. Shows buffered range and a timestamp preview |
| Aspect ratio | Tap cycles Fit → Fill → Stretch. Hold to rotate 90° at a time — turns a portrait clip to fill a landscape screen, scaled to fit rather than just tipped on its side |
| Lock | Blocks every gesture, so a stray palm does nothing |
| Picture-in-Picture | Where the browser supports it |
| Settings | Below |
Prefer something smaller? Minimal Speed FAB swaps the speed pill for a single circular badge that cycles 0.5× → 2.0× on tap.
| Theme | Halo, High Contrast, Frame, or Terminal |
| Rotate | 0° / 90° / 180° / 270°, also on a long-press of the aspect-ratio button |
| Default speed | Fallback speed for new videos |
| Skip duration | Seconds per double-tap skip, 5–300 |
| Speed FAB | Compact speed badge instead of the pill |
| Left hand | Mirrors controls and swaps volume/brightness rails for left thumb use |
| Progress bar | Show or hide the scrubber |
| Gestures | Master switch |
| Remember | Restores position and speed when you come back |
| Page scroll | Keeps vertical page scrolling in portrait |
| Reset all | Back to defaults |
Toggles sit two to a line, so the whole sheet fits without scrolling on a phone.
Speed and theme are remembered per domain. Playback position is remembered per video, for the last 100. Zoom and rotation are per-video and reset on the next one, so a stray 90° never follows you around.
If a site keeps overriding your speed, GlideVideo pushes back three times, then says so in a toast and lets the site win rather than fighting in a loop.
TypeScript, Vite and Bun. Both targets build from the same src/ — only the entry file differs. Architecture notes live in AGENT.md.
bun install
bun run dev # live-reloading userscript, installs into your manager
bun run build # both targets
bun run build:userscript # → dist/glidevideo.user.js
bun run build:extension # → dist-extension/ (Firefox MV3)
bun run tsc # type check
bun run test # vitest
bun run lint # biome
bun run lint:extension # web-ext, validates the built extensionThe extension is Manifest V3 with a background.scripts event page — Firefox does not run extension service workers. Its content script runs in an isolated world, which costs one thing the userscript has: videos inside closed shadow roots aren't reachable. Open shadow roots work in both.
MIT