Mastodawn

New: Firefox users have reported an "artificial" 5-second delay when they try to load YouTube videos that is magically fixed if they use Chrome, which has been going viral in a few different places. I asked Google what is going on. They

1) Didn't deny the artificial wait time is happening
2) Said it's part of its war on ad blockers, not targeted at Firefox

Mozilla also told me no indication this is targeted at Firefox

https://www.404media.co/youtube-says-new-5-second-video-load-delay-is-supposed-to-punish-ad-blockers-not-firefox-users/

YouTube Says New 5-Second Video Load Delay Is Supposed to Punish Ad Blockers, Not Firefox Users

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."

404 Media

Jason Koebler Nov 20, 2023

This explanation, I think, is actually crazier. Google is introducing quality of life problems to adblock users without telling them why their experience is getting worse.

I think this is actually the bigger risk associated with YT's anti adblock campaign. Google is tinkering with things constantly, and rolling out different detection methods and making user experience worse in a haphazard way. People rightly then have no idea what's going on or why this has happened

Jason Koebler Nov 20, 2023

This throttling story was on top of HackerNews, top of r/technology, top of r/youtube, top of r/firefox. People are very mad, and it's a result of constant tinkering that affects some people but not others ... just ... why would you do this

A cool crab wearing shades Nov 20, 2023

@jasonkoebler "constant tinkering that affects some people but not others" is how Google has rolled for many years

lampsofgold Nov 20, 2023

@jasonkoebler it’s so funny, it’s the curse of bigness/enshittification in it’s most raw form. Some google princeling trying to squeeze a fractional penny out of some small % of users accidentally introduces regulatory exposure

hannah Nov 20, 2023

@jasonkoebler I was wondering what the issue was. I use Firefox Focus mobile browser and whenever I get the disable your adblock dealie on a website I just give up, it's never worth it.

Anthony Nov 21, 2023

@[email protected] Google is just begging regulators to step in. They're pulling 1990s Microsoft browser wars stuff regularly at this point.

Quincy ⁂Nov 21, 2023

yes, this actually makes it worse 😆

everyone should simply quit #google.

it's an abusive monopolist.

any "convenience" it offers is utterly irrelevant in comparison with the negative impact of its monopoly.

any inconvenience caused by switching away, even to alternatives that aren't perfect, will be temporary if enough people choose to do so.

Greg Spradlin Nov 22, 2023

@jasonkoebler Google Doc’s p

Jason Koebler Nov 21, 2023

in the replies, folks are sharing that this is or is not happening to them on a specific browser, or with specific plugins, or whatever. Some people (not a lot) are saying that because this hasn’t happened to them maybe it’s not happening or not a problem.

I’d argue that this is why this is so insidious: the rollout is really fractured, so simply explaining *what* is happening and to who and when and why and under what circumstances is really difficult.

That Man Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler Could it be a malicious form of A/B testing?

kira :3 Nov 20, 2023

@jasonkoebler holy fucking shit lmao is that what that was?? i thought it was just optimization decay

JoYo Nov 20, 2023

@jasonkoebler i use firefox and pay for yt premium and haven’t noticed a delay. it definitely sounds like theyre punishing non paying customers.

klausfiend has moved Nov 20, 2023

@jasonkoebler Neat. Yet another reason to abandon youtube.com and do everything with yt-dlp, going forward. Enshittification proceeds apace.

Klarname Nov 21, 2023

@klausfiend @jasonkoebler what is yt-dlp?

klausfiend has moved Nov 21, 2023

@d4m13n @jasonkoebler it's a Python program that can be used to download video from streaming platforms:

https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

GitHub - yt-dlp/yt-dlp: A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader

A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader - yt-dlp/yt-dlp

GitHub

emple_adra_Nov 20, 2023

@jasonkoebler I've seen it happen on Brave as well

👾Nov 20, 2023

@jasonkoebler #Youtube is not my kinda #webshite

Steve Leach Nov 20, 2023

@jasonkoebler It's bizarre to even think of YouTube having ads - we've grown accustomed to them cluttering up the web, where they aren't a *huge* problem because you just read around them, rarely if ever tricked into looking directly at them and noticing what product and/or service they're for. But AUDIO ads? I don't think so. I haven't owned a TV or listened to commercial radio in decades - but I still boycott all the brands and services I remember seeing and hearing ads for when I did.

Paranoid Factoid Nov 20, 2023

@jasonkoebler What's on YouTube worth waiting for anyway?

Jake in the desert Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler it's not TARGETED at Firefox, but it's "targeted" at Firefox. 🤣

joemcintyre Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler I'm a paying youtube user. I run ublock origin in Firefox. Lately my entire Firefox freeze for a few seconds when a video starts. I wonder if its related. It does make me want to stop paying if it is.

Reiner Jung 🇬🇱 🇺🇦 🇪🇺Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler Google is at least showing Chrome ads to people to encourage them switching to it. I have strong sense of browser war deja vu with this.

Kaki Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler I've actually experienced that myself, I thought it was a hickup with my connection, but afterwards the videos played fine...

B4ckBOne Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler
What if you change the user agent?
What about different user.js setups?
Is LibreFox affected as well?
Some questions come to mind...

@B4ckBOne @jasonkoebler It's difficult to test because it's not universally affecting everyone in a particular group. Possibly some A/B testing going on, so some Firefox users are reporting no issues.

People who experience the issue have tracked down a particular bit of Javascript that causes the delay (and seems to have no function other than delaying the page load). Adding a custom filter to catch that script solved the issue for me. It only affected videos opened in a new tab. Seemed to still happen with adblock disabled but it could've been due to a cookie they set or something as I never tried clearing them. Never tried changing user agent because that trick mostly stopped working for me several years ago when websites found other ways to fingerprint browsers.

R.L. LE Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler Deceleration while I forego useless ads? I like it!
*switches to Firefox with adblockers*

Morgan ⚧️Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler it's honestly kind of funny to me that they seem to think adding a 5 second delay would inspire anyone to turn off their ad blocker or start paying for youtube premium? my threshold for "what's worse than ads" is gonna be much longer than that, especially considering most ads are longer than that

Tom Ritchford Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler Interesting! I wouldn't put it past them, but I'm browsing on Firefox (MacOS), using uBlock Origin, on a VPN, and I don't see this five second delay on YouTube at all.

But then I'm in the EU (and while I use Mullvad's VPN, my exit point is in my same country), perhaps that's it?

(((Jann Gobble)))🏳️‍🌈Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler This happens w/Safari on macOS too...

Kezia Crawford-Cousins Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler A data point: I see this in the first-party YouTube app on my iOS device too. And yes, I did recently install an adblocker *on a different device*, which is not active for YouTube.

The user experience is incredibly awful. I see all ads, but often with long pauses before the ad even runs. I end up leaving the app in frustration — to everyone’s detriment. Just so incredibly dumb.

Kezia Crawford-Cousins Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler This is in the EU BTW.

Kezia Crawford-Cousins Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler Though… how would this work? Thinking about this, might be correlation but not causation. This would need them to have set some kind of flag on my profile, and then slow down some things, somehow, in the responses to requests from the YT app. It sounds a bit too conspiratorial, somehow.

@keziacc @jasonkoebler could also be the app being shite

I dropped it for just using the browser since, even without adblock, videos don't constantly get stuck spinning forever and need to be reloaded

Ashton Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler feels like something the DOJ should prosecute over.

Starcade Nov 21, 2023

I noticed this about a month ago and figured something was up

By the way mine occurred while using Chrome, and I do have an adblocker.

Later there was a warning about using an ad blocker for about a week and it said I could only use YouTube three more times if I didn't disable the adblocker.

Sure enough after viewing thee videos, it stopped allowing me to access YouTube.

About a week ago, the restriction disappeared and I could use YouTube again even though my adblocker was never disabled.

I figured I could live without YouTube if necessary.

Xena362 Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler yes, I have noticed this too! And I even already have YT premium so I don't have to watch the ads. You would think that Premium would give you a pass for normal or even faster load times, but I guess not.

lucretia Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler a 5 second wait is still vastly less disruptive than any advertisement they could serve.

vermaden Nov 21, 2023

If You use uBlock Origin on Firefox - then add below rule and 5 second delay is gone.

www.youtube.com##+js(nano-stb, resolve(1), *, 0.0001)

💠 Dave No One 💠Nov 21, 2023

@jasonkoebler I guess this won’t happen to me, because I always proxy YT videos through Piped / Invidious (on Firefox).

Cray On 🖍️Nov 22, 2023

@jasonkoebler This should be of help on the desktop versions of Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-string-switcher/

On Android it won’t be installable without some extra steps, which I can explain if anyone is interested.

User-Agent Switcher and Manager – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US)

Download User-Agent Switcher and Manager for Firefox. Spoof websites trying to gather information about your web navigation—like your browser type and operating system—to deliver distinct content you may not want.

cuddle Nov 22, 2023

@jasonkoebler it happened with me too, but honestly, I didn't really care because it was just last two videos (I saw).. and then slept

They seem to fixed it quickly, as on the next morning I didn't notice this delay anymore.

Greg Spradlin Nov 22, 2023

@jasonkoebler
My solution: use Chrome with UBO for YT, Ff for everything else. On those rare occasions when YT shows me a scary warning, I delete the cache and cookies.

Chrome has become so enshittified I can no longer stand it for anything else.

That’s desktop. On iOS, I use Brave for YT. The YT app is garbage.

I’ve always hated gmail. I suspect no one would use it if it weren’t a Google product.