YouTube receives harsh criticism.

YouTube is rolling out a new interface for its embedded video player on websites, featuring a transparent design and significantly altered button placement, which has drawn negative reactions from many users.

Users are criticizing YouTube's new interface. Photo: Android Authority .

YouTube rolled out a new interface for its video player starting March 26th. The new design adopts a transparent style similar to YouTube's main interface, which launched in October 2025, but is facing a wave of opposition from users.

The biggest change is the placement of the controls. In the old interface, all the buttons such as play/pause, volume, subtitles, and video quality were neatly arranged below the progress bar, a familiar layout that had been in use for decades.

The new interface completely breaks that structure. The play/pause button has been moved to the center of the screen. The volume, subtitle, and settings buttons have been pushed to the upper right corner. The copy link button appears in the lower left corner, where the play button used to be. The full-screen button now floats above the progress bar instead of being in the same row as the other buttons.

Additionally, two familiar features have been completely removed. Double-tapping to enter full-screen mode no longer works. The skip video button has also disappeared, replaced by a "Watch more videos" button located below the progress bar.

Reddit users quickly reacted to this change in numerous posts. They criticized the new button placement as less convenient, while the transparent interface made the buttons harder to see on a bright background. The share button's functionality was simplified, now only supporting copying the link.

This isn't the first time YouTube has faced negative feedback regarding its interface. When Google rolled out the transparent design for the main player in October 2025, the company described it as a "more visually pleasing interface while obscuring less content." However, many users felt the controls became harder to see and operate compared to the old interface.

Notably, the new embedded interface isn't entirely consistent with YouTube's main player. On the website, the play/pause button remains below the progress bar along with other buttons. Only the new embedded player has a scattered layout with the play button in the middle of the screen, creating an inconsistency between the two versions.

Google has not yet issued an official response to the wave of criticism. The rollout is happening in phases and has not yet been applied to all users.

Source: https://znews.vn/giao-dien-moi-cua-youtube-bi-che-toi-ta-post1638763.html