dvdnet89YouTube is reportedly slowing down videos for Firefox users
The Picard ManeuverIs this arguably anticompetitive and illegal?
Schwim DandyNobody can even state that it’s actually happening “for competitive browsers” as even Chrome users are reporting an unexplained lag/slowdown. At this point, it’s just wild speculation and bandwagoning.
LoafyLemonYou absolutely can tell what's happening by reading the source code. They are using a listener and a delay for when ontimeupdate promise is not met, which timeouts the entire connection for 5 full seconds.
function smb() { var a, b, c, d, e, h, l; return t(function(m) { a = new aj; b = document.createElement("ytd-player"); try { document.body.prepend(b) } catch (p) { return m.return(4) } c = function() { b.parentElement && b.parentElement.removeChild(b) }; 0 < b.getElementsByTagName("div").length ? d = b.getElementsByTagName("div")[0] : (d = document.createElement("div"), b.appendChild(d)); e = document.createElement("div"); d.appendChild(e); h = document.createElement("video"); l = new Blob([new Uint8Array([26, 69, 223, 163, 159, 66, 134, 129, 1, 66, 247, 129, 1, 66, 242, 129, 4, 66, 243, 129, 8, 66, 130, 132, 119, 101, 98, 109, 66, 135, 129, 4, 66, 133, 129, 2, 24, 83, 128, 103, 1, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 21, 73, 169, 102, 153, 42, 215, 177, 131, 15, 66, 64, 77, 128, 134, 67, 104, 114, 111, 109, 101, 87, 65, 134, 67, 104, 114, 111, 109, 101, 22, 84, 174, 107, 169, 174, 167, 215, 129, 1, 115, 197, 135, 207, 96, 156, 234, 24, 157, 175, 131, 129, 1, 85, 238, 129, 1, 134, 133, 86, 95, 86, 80, 56, 224, 138, 176, 129, 1, 186, 129, 1, 83, 192, 129, 1, 31, 67, 182, 117, 1, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 255, 231, 129, 0, 160, 204, 161, 162, 129, 0, 0, 0, 16, 2, 0, 157, 1, 42, 1, 0, 1, 0, 11, 199, 8, 133, 133, 136, 153, 132, 136, 63, 130, 0, 12, 13, 96, 0, 254, 229, 106, 0, 117, 161, 165, 166, 163, 238, 129, 1, 165, 158, 16, 2, 0, 157, 1, 42, 1, 0, 1, 0, 11, 199, 8, 133, 133, 136, 153, 132, 136, 63, 130, 0, 12, 13, 96, 0, 254, 232, 120, 0, 160, 187, 161, 152, 129, 3, 233, 0, 177, 1, 0, 47, 17, 252, 0, 24, 0, 48, 63, 244, 12, 0, 0, 0, 254, 229, 106, 0, 117, 161, 155, 166, 153, 238, 129, 1, 165, 148, 177, 1, 0, 47, 17, 252, 0, 24, 0, 48, 63, 244, 12, 0, 0, 0, 254, 232, 120, 0, 251, 129, 0, 160, 188, 161, 152, 129, 7, 208, 0, 177, 1, 0, 47, 17, 252, 0, 24, 0, 48, 63, 244, 12, 0, 0, 0, 254, 229, 106, 0, 117, 161, 155, 166, 153, 238, 129, 1, 165, 148, 177, 1, 0, 47, 17, 252, 0, 24, 0, 48, 63, 244, 12, 0, 0, 0, 254, 232, 120, 0, 251, 130, 3, 233 ])], { type: "video/webm" }); h.src = lc(Mia(l)); h.ontimeupdate = function() { c(); a.resolve(0) }; e.appendChild(h); h.classList.add("html5-main-video"); setTimeout(function() { e.classList.add("ad-interrupting") }, 200); setTimeout(function() { c(); a.resolve(1) }, 5E3); # <------------------------ 5E3 = 5s return m.return(a.promise) }) }
I’m sorry but I don’t see how that check is browser-specific. Is that part happening on the browser side?
PoliticalAgitatorThey don’t need to put incriminating “if Firefox” statements in their code – the initial page request would have included the user agent and it would be trivial to serve different JavaScript based on what it said.
Does it though? You cant just speculate that something could happen and insinuate that it is without evidence.
I don’t know, nor am I speculating. The person I was replying to said they didn’t see a browser check in the code, which isn’t enough to dismiss it.
Easy enough to test though. Load the page with a UA changer and see if it still shows up when Firefox pretends to be Chrome
The video in the linked article does just that. The page takes 5 seconds to load the video, the user changes the UA, they refresh the page and suddenly the video loads instantly. I would have liked to see them change the UA back to Firefox to prove it’s not done weird caching issue though
Yeah, and also Edge or an older version of Chrome etc just to be sure.
I guess his question is “is that happening?”
Well, at least I learned that javascript understands exponential notation. I never even bothered to try that lol
Can I have ublock block that? It seems simple enough to extract that code out.