this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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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."

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[–] queue@lemmy.blahaj.zone 581 points 1 year ago (7 children)

"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.

[–] FaceDeer@kbin.social 153 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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.

[–] ElleChaise@kbin.social 58 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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.

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago

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).

[–] NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

their SEC paperwork states that adblockers are a risk to their profits.

Concluding implicitly: "... and therefore a threat to all your computers' security" :-)

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] dalekcaan@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

Dear God, won't anyone think of the shareholders?

[–] ButtDrugs@lemm.ee 31 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] flappy@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What really pisses me off is that mv3 is becoming a standard that Vivaldi, Firefox, Opera, Edge, etc. will use.

[–] Matth78@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

Mind you that Firefox will adjust it to be able to fully support ad blocker.

[–] barnaclebutt@lemmy.world 72 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] iAmTheTot@kbin.social 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

I am a Firefox user who uses adblock and I don't get the issue.

[–] takeda@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think uBlock might already be blocking that code.

[–] iAmTheTot@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just turned it off. No difference.

[–] Interstellar_1@pawb.social 9 points 1 year ago

YouTube rolls features out in waves

[–] ours@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I was getting the delay early yesterday and then it went away. I guess they must have done something in uBO.

[–] seathru@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] SlippyCliff76@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

They just haven't rolled it out to you yet.

[–] Ilgaz@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

Chrome sends every single website you visit to Google. You already pay with your privacy.

[–] casmael@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What do you mean by change user agent to chrome? Asking 4 a friend

[–] chaogomu@kbin.social 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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?)

[–] redcalcium@lemmy.institute 16 points 1 year ago

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".

[–] hyperhopper@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] takeda@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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/

[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

I personally like seeing Mozilla loud and proud in all the user agents.

It's a mess, but also an echo of history.

[–] thanevim@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] casmael@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah cool I’ll have a look. Any extensions spring to mind?

[–] Norgur@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] Kodemystic@lemmy.kodemystic.dev 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] otter@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

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

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Liquid_Fire@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

But then shouldn't there be a delay when using actual Chrome?

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

There's people reporting exactly that if they're using certain ad-blocking tools.

[–] SnipingNinja@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 year ago

I did see Chrome users mention a delay (on lemmy) but I haven't personally checked it out

[–] Ookami38@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

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

[–] tiredofsametab@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

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.