the streaming option is preferable on an older machine like this, but youtube doesn't want you to do it (for obvious reasons.), so you have to play cat and mouse with them, and nothing's supported anymore.

i don't see any other conclusion to draw - the next time this happens, i'm going to have to move to linux.

for now, the esr version of firefox works, and i'm going to have to suffer through the scripting errors.

ok.

so, i'm going to eat and move on.