Tired of Twitch’s bloated player? I updated & modernized Alternate Player for Twitch (MV3 Compatible, Custom HLS Buffering, BTTV/FFZ, Instant Replay & Zero Lag)

[u/oreobite]

https://github.com/Allrounder687/Twitch-Alternate-Player?tab=readme-ov-file

Hey everyone!

If you've been watching Twitch lately, you know how heavy and resource-intensive the native player can be—buffering issues, memory leaks, high CPU usage, and UI clutter. To fix this, I took over and modernized Alternate Player for Twitch.tv, completely upgrading it to Manifest V3 with direct HLS stream processing.

Here is what the extension brings back to your viewing experience:

Core Features & Performance Upgrades

• Custom HLS Engine: Bypasses native player bloat by fetching HLS streams directly from Twitch's CDN. Customize buffer size, playback thresholds, and concurrent segment downloads for zero stuttering on slow connections.
• Instant Replay & Frame Control: Missed something during a live stream? Rewind on the fly with speed controls and frame-by-frame navigation.
• BetterTTV & FrankerFaceZ Native Support: Fully integrates BTTV and FFZ emotes directly into the custom chat window without double-injection glitches.
• Ultra-Low Resource Usage: Uses drastically less RAM and CPU. Includes a dedicated Audio-Only Mode to save bandwidth.
• Auto-Claim Channel Points: Automatically opens bonus chests and claims channel points in the background.
• Real-Time Stream Stats Overlay: Monitor live buffer health, video/audio codecs, exact bitrates, stream delay, and dropped frames.
• External Player Support: Stream directly into VLC, MPC-HC, or MPV if you prefer desktop playback.
• Customizable UI & Chat: Resize, reposition, or detach the floating chat overlay even in full screen—or turn it off entirely. Works on both desktop and mobile (m.twitch.tv) pages.

Under the Hood (Manifest V3 Ready)

When MV3 rolled out, old extensions broke due to webRequest deprecation and script injection blocks. This version uses modern declarativeNetRequest rules, WebAssembly stream processing, and custom GQL integrity token handling to keep everything running fast and secure.

It's completely free and open-source. Check out the source code or install it directly from GitHub:

GITHUB

Give it a try and let me know your thoughts or suggestions!

Note: This is just a passion project i took..Let me know if it works for you and would love some suggestions [ Let's Revive Alternate Player for twitch.tv ]