Starting a few weeks ago, whenever I would try to play a YouTube video, it would play maybe a quarter to a third of the video, and then stop. Clicking my browser’s Refresh button didn’t help, so I tried clearing the cache – the temporary files Web browsers store that often cause problems. That didn’t help either.

After some research, I learned that Web optimizers can conflict with YouTube and cause the videos to freeze in midstream. Sure enough, several weeks ago, I had installed DISH Optimizer – a program from DISH Network that’s supposed to improve the performance of my satellite Internet connection.

I ran Windows Control Panel and then used Add/Remove Programs to de-install DISH Optimizer. YouTube videos are running fine now. In fact, the overall speed of my Web surfing has seemed to improve.

Moral of the story: If you’re having trouble loading Web pages or playing video or other media through your browser, check to see whether you have any Web browser optimizing programs installed. If you do, try disabling them or uninstalling them to determine whether they were causing the problem.