Helium App Reviews

I downloaded the 2.0 version and unfortunately, it does not work. I tried using several different video configurations, and there was no luck. Even the weblink access did not work. Too bad, seemed like a great app.

I am so glad that I found this application. I was using plug-ins for the browsers which I don’t normally trust the plug-ins and then I found Helium with the flexibility that I was looking for. I wished it would support multiple screens but I found a work around for that.

This developer knows exactly how to create an applicaiton that fills a need and it’s so straightforward. Thanks so much!

it just hasn’t been working for me. Hulu doesn’t resize with the Helium window, which makes it more or less impossible to watch anything. Attempting to play Netflix videos just keeps throwing the following error - Error Code: S7363-1266-00002E3F. Helium works just fine for playing local files, but I stream a significant amount of my content. Until it can iron out the kinks with Netflix and Hulu, I probably won’t be using this app.

If you are looking for a YouTube pop-out player, this is what you need.

Works very well with Netflix, not as great with Youtube, terribly with Hulu and HBO, but I think all of that has more to do with the design of their websites than this app. It doesn’t work at all with the “Open File” option to play movies saved to your hard drive. I’ve tried mov, mp4, avi, mp3, nothing works with this app. If anybody is reading these review, a really neat feature would be to be able to turn up the brightness of the Helium window itself, instead of having to turn up brightness of your whole screen. Movies tend to be really dark and to crank up the brightsness for the movie, it will blind you from the white Pages document or website you are working on. So isolated adjustments for the Helium window would be great. I don’t know if that is possible.

Love the idea and would love to see it further updated with support for Twitch. Keep up the good work.

Since El Capitan, I had formed a habit of using split-screen to watch vids & doing something else at the same time. But the website like youtube look really weird when it is squeezed into a thin slice. Now I start to use this app for vids and found it great. While using this app, I could gain more screen real estate and have a reasonably good resolution for vids. The app also worked right out of box. It would float above other widows, stay on every screen even on the screens taken by other apps’ fullscreen mode. There is also a nice opacity meter that can be enabled or disabled. I found it very useful when I just want to listen to some music videos without paying too much attention to the pictures.

This is a great app. I’m almost surprised that this is free. I’d pay for this. You might have to resize it (it can’t resize it always), which is perfectly fine.

This is one app I’d gladly pay for; but thank you for making it available for free!

Helium ACTUALLY saved my life. Here I am, a college freshman, interning at a small business over the break. Of course, being an intern, my job is to do all the boring things that no one else wants to do. I’m talking endless spreadsheets, mind-numbing data entry, that sort of stuff. So what am I to do for eight hours a day, stuck doing the most boring things known to man? Enter Helium. I was able to get all my work done without going insane from boredom by watching Netflix through Helium. It never got in the way of my work, could be resized, moved anywhere, even sometimes could change the opacity. Finally, I could be productive while entertaining myself and neither got in the way of the other. Helium, you saved my life from being overcome by even the most mind-numbingly boring work possible. Thank you!!!

It would be a knockout app if it just did a few more small things: -Make a menubar icon and a launch on login. -Set a homepage or list of favorite pages > netflix, hulu, youtube, etc. -Don’t do mouseover translucency when application is focused. Other than that I love it!

Hi, this is a very good app! But how to make ‘Open File’ work? I can only use ‘open web URL’. I have tried to open an .avi or .mp4 but still not working. Anyone can help? Thanks!

You have to click to get transparency, but it becomes opaque again after 1 second. This must be a bug, and I’m sure it’ll get fixed in the next release. I have OX 10.10.5. Can’t give 5 stars.

I am a frequent linux user, and the lack of floating windows in OSX is very annoying, especially on a laptop. Although this app is great, I really wish you could open quicktime videos in it.

This is absolutely amazing. Working aaaand watching tutorials/videos/media/collaborating at the same time? Sign me up please! This skyrocketed my productivity and improved my workflow in numerous ways! Wait no longer, just download it. You’ll thank yourself later!

Excellent App! Helium allows you to open a window and point directly to some local media files (I have not tested in whole) as well as URL based video content like YouTube, Netflix, and any video embedded on a web page and display it in a separate window. You can set the transparency of the window and it does not capture clicks when you are working in an app or moving your cursor around. You can resize the window and change videos by clicking on he app icon and using the menu. The resizing of the window and the fact that you can click on windows “underneath” it makes it an excellent choice for homework, basic study. and especially tutorials like for programming or video game walk through’s. Amazing app and more should be done to spread the word. Way better then opening a second instance of a browser and resizing plus you get the transparency options and click through so the video never gets in your way. Install it you will not regret it.

i like the minimalistic appearance but i dislike the fact that i cannot add favorite pages. there are applications that have more features- i would switch to Fluid Browser if it had the appearance this one does.

Thanks for such a great open source product! It works just perfect and has all that you need. nothing irrelevant!

Works great for watching longer videos on youtube while I work.