Firefox users are reporting an ‘artificial’ load time on YouTube videos. YouTube says it’s part of a plan to make people who use adblockers “experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using.”
i never experienced that delay in the first place…
lol, I take back the snark I gave in another thread the other day about Google doing this to fuck with people now. Egg on my face for giving them the benefit of the doubt.
They can’t honestly think this will have the desired effect. I also bet the poor sod that had to implement it “strongly advised not to do it”. But was over ruled by some know it all shit head MBA.
Little do these companies know that poor people know how to be patient and older people remember the days of free ad supported internet dialup via cds, so this is not new and people will continue where business models fail.
“They’re the same picture.”
Also, that does not explain why:
- Chrome users who use an adblocker don’t get the issue
- Firefox users who do not use an adblocker get the issue
- FIrefox users who use an adblocker, but change User Agent to Chrome, don’t get the issue
Now, if only we knew who made Chrome and YouTube… The mind boggles.
Also, that does not explain why:
Chrome users who use an adblocker don’t get the issue Firefox users who do not use an adblocker get the issue FIrefox users who use an adblocker, but change User Agent to Chrome, don’t get the issueI am a Firefox user who uses adblock and I don’t get the issue.
Same here. Firefox, ublock origin, privacy badger. Videos start playing in under 2 seconds. I’ve also never got the adblock warning.
Lucky I guess.
They just haven’t rolled it out to you yet.
I think uBlock might already be blocking that code.
Just turned it off. No difference.
YouTube rolls features out in waves
I was getting the delay early yesterday and then it went away. I guess they must have done something in uBO.
Supposedly Firefox users spoofing the Chrome user agent don’t get the issue because the script tries to execute the 5s delay in a way that works on Chrome but not on FF. Because the Chrome method doesn’t work on FF, it just gets skipped entirely. But I’m not sure if that’s entirely accurate, just read about it.
But then shouldn’t there be a delay when using actual Chrome?
There’s people reporting exactly that if they’re using certain ad-blocking tools.
My understanding is the method they can use on chrome is near instant, but the alternative they use on Firefox is slower, hence the delay. Is this BS? Yeah probably, but it does at least logically follow.
It could be as simple as for Chrome assuming there is a certain API, while for Firefox, give it a try and assume no if no response in 5sec
I did see Chrome users mention a delay (on lemmy) but I haven’t personally checked it out
Given that Google’s been talking about switching Chrome to a new plugin format that would limit the ability of adblockers to function on Chrome, and given that Google owns Youtube and profits from the ads Youtube displays…
Nope, I’m not connecting the dots. Not sure why Google would be wanting people switch from Firefox to Chrome at this time.
Just for clarity, they already switched protocols (Manifest v3), they just have continued to support the old format (v2) that allows unlock origin to work. They are discontinuing support for v2 next year.
What really pisses me off is that mv3 is becoming a standard that Vivaldi, Firefox, Opera, Edge, etc. will use.
Mind you that Firefox will adjust it to be able to fully support ad blocker.
It’s more obvious than that even; their SEC paperwork states that adblockers are a risk to their profits. That’s more than enough info to assume they’re going to go to war in the near future (now) with them.
They’ve always been at war with ad blockers. It’s just most major multinationals have matured or diversified to a point where they are functional monopolies, and no longer gain any value in competition or service improvement.
At this stage of the merger and consolidation phase of global capitalism, with captured governments that won’t dare break them up or fine them more than a meek virtue signal, the most cost effective way to satiate the infinite growth of capitalism is to increase the exploitation and value extraction of their existing user base as much as possible (aka enshittification).
their SEC paperwork states that adblockers are a risk to their profits.
Concluding implicitly: “… and therefore a threat to all your computers’ security” :-)
It’s more obvious than that even; their SEC paperwork states that adblockers are a risk to their profits.
Sounds like the single best reason to use one.
Dear God, won’t anyone think of the shareholders?
deleted by creator
(They’re being sarcastic)
C’mon man not everything needs a /S
I know several websites consider firefox’s built-in privacy settings an adblocker in certain configurations. I get notices on many sites and use no adblocker. Not sure if it’s the case here.
What do you mean by change user agent to chrome? Asking 4 a friend
For a specific how to, there’s a bunch of firefox addons that do it, but the mozilla recommended one is this
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-string-switcher/
It’s super easy to use, just open it and it gives a bunch of options.
This is my current (fake) user agent;
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
With two or three clicks, this is my new (fake) user agent;
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; CrOS x86_64 14541.0.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/114.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
A few more clicks;
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; HLK-AL00) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/104.0.5112.102 Mobile Safari/537.36 EdgA/104.0.1293.70
And finally;
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 10.0; Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_7_3; Trident/6.0)
Now, that last one is making it look like I’m using internet explorer… Youtube videos will not load with that last one active. Claims my browser is too old and not supported.
I don’t know why they all start with Mozilla/5.0 but the apparently a lot of websites will block your requests if you don’t have it (or a valid browser strings like it?)
I don’t know why they all start with Mozilla/5.0 but the apparently a lot of websites will block your requests if you don’t have it (or a valid browser strings like it?)
This is a good summary of this mess: https://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/
I personally like seeing Mozilla loud and proud in all the user agents.
It’s a mess, but also an echo of history.
Just a reminder to not use user agent switcher unless it’s absolutely necessary, and if you do, limit it only for certain sites that need it. If enough people change their user agent, website operators will be like “See, no one use Firefox anymore. We shouldn’t bother to support it anymore”.
Almost all user agent strings start with that Mozilla prefix because Mozilla made the first browser with “fancy” features, so in the early internet many websites checked for that string to determine if they should serve the nice website or the stripped down version. Later when other browsers added the features, that also had to add that to their user string so users would get the right site. Which just cemented the practice.
When you browse to a website, your browser passes info about itself to the server hosting that site. This info is intended to help the server provide the best rendering code for your browser. This is called your User Agent.
However, Google is using it here to identify Firefox users, and is apparently choosing to lump them all in a box called “adblock users” instead of trying to identify an ad blocker more accurately.
If you do change your user agent, I would use an extension that does it only on YouTube domains.
We want independent metrics to show rising Firefox use, not falling.
Yeah cool I’ll have a look. Any extensions spring to mind?
To add on
You can spoof this user agent to see if a website does something shady depending on which browser you’re using.
So if you keep all other variables the same, and just toggle the user agent value, YouTube behaves differently
How can we do that?
I haven’t tried it in a while, but I think there are browser extensions for it. Might need to ask someone else for how to do it these days
That’s because they may use code to detect as blockers that is not legal in the EU, so they might have thought that they’re super crafty and used markers such as user agent for their cool coercion delay code thingy
The last scenario is clearly a breach of anti-trust laws. It is time for alphabet to be broken up. Their monopoly is way worse than AT&T every was.
Alphabet’s monopoly is bad, make no mistake.
But they aren’t controlling all electronic means of communication for 90% of the continental United States, as AT&T did in the ma’ bell and pa’ bell days.
Adsense is literally 90% of the market. Let alone android…
But they aren’t controlling all electronic means of communication for 90% of the continental United States, as AT&T did in the ma’ bell and pa’ bell days.
Google controls over 90% of the search business in the US and that’s the way the vast majority of people begin their browsing. It’s why US v Google is currently in the courts
MS vs US back in the 90’s did not result in anything significant. This pretty much will happen again with Google. Some lobbyists will just do their thing, some minor slaps in the wrist and concessments between DoJ and Alohabet etc and Google will continue to Googling around.
I’m not trying to argue there’s appetite to break up Google among the people with the power to do it. I’m just arguing Google has a monopoly similar to Ma Bell.
Yeah I agree
Uh… Gmail, Ad sense, search?
They’ve got like a dozen duopolies going on, they have far more control and ability to leverage it than Bell ever did
Chrome sends every single website you visit to Google. You already pay with your privacy.
But wait, wouldn’t a 5 second pause on loading still be way better than sitting through minutes of adverts? :-D
Punishment my arse
If you’re on desktop and open several videos at once (such as getting home from work/school and opening all the new videos on your subscriptions tab) you really don’t notice.
What I do notice are the ads at the beginning, quarters, middle, and end of a video
Does this apply to Freetube, Invidious and other yt mirrors?
YouTube sucks now. Just constant ads.
piped does not support live streams at this time unfortunately
On Invidious, not all instances support live streams, so you have to click around until you find one that does. Maybe it’s the same for Piped.
laughs in “phoronix” without “adblocking”…
“People say breaking up Alphabet into heavily regulated entities is supposed to benefit the public, not investors”
It was happening for several days with me but it seems to be fixed now
“supposed to”
Oopsie whoopsy, we accidentally made competing browsers disadvantaged.
Deliberate, disguised as accidental. Disgusting.
Freetube on PCs, LibreTube on Android. Block that, fuck-o.
I’ll just blame it on my ISP being shit
This is hillarious! I didn’t even notice that. YT always delayed video loading a little. Is this really a change?
I haven’t noticed any delay in Firefox. I have noticed that the ui fails to load sometimes. Video works just fine, but there’s nothing else on the page. So hey, Google, if you could keep that up that’d be great.
from what i’ve understood, they are selectively pushing it out, like they did with the adblock blocking shit.
So not everyone is getting hit by it.
Yep. And using the page feedback button gets you off the list from what I can tell. No response from Google but removes the ad block shenanigans instantly.
Which, to me, screams that they want to make life miserable for the general masses who dont know any better, who will blame it on their browser or something else besides google.
While quickly removing it from the people who know how to complain about it, so they wont be invested/pissed off enough to go around explaining the technical aspects of what they are doing and bringing the blame back on google.
And it might work, cause remember…folks around placesl ike this tend to me more technical than the average person. So cant use the discussions around here pointing it out and dissecting its cause and shit as the norm.
Totally agree. My kids don’t understand why services like youtube suck so much at other people’s homes. My house is only FF with uBlock Origin and I’m looking at putting in a PiHole soon. It’s insane how bad the internet experience has become in the last decade.
I miss the mid 90s internet. When there wasnt even search engines. Just digital yellowpages and webrings, with no advertising or corporate exploitation.
Yeah it really just looked like the normal shitty youtube connection you get when their servers get a wee bit overloaded.
That’s already been confirmed to be bullshit…And what I mean by that is that youtube’s claim is bullshit.
