this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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Google slows down Firefox users when watching YouTube....

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[–] netchami@sh.itjust.works 88 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

This reminds me of Elon Musk when he started artificially slowing down links to websites he doesn't like... https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/08/15/twitter-x-links-delayed/

[–] dan@upvote.au 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So much for "free speech" lol

[–] netchami@sh.itjust.works 30 points 1 year ago

Every single word that comes out of Elon's mouth is a big fat fucking lie. I don't understand how people can still trust that guy with anything.

[–] LetterboxPancake@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Free speech is throttled. You might want to buy premium speech for only $19.99 per month!

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[–] Extrasvhx9he@lemmy.today 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Might be a very dumb financial decision but maybe it's time to rethink that whole google search contract renewal coming up in a year or so. Feeling like a toxic relationship

Edit: the time frame is just an assumption due to it being a 3 year contract made in 2020. I would try to seek a relationship with bing tbh, it sucks with privacy but would be a kick to google's balls. Plus the majority of firefox users who start giving a crap about their privacy, change to duckduckgo so it wont be a massive shift from bing imo in terms of searching experience.

[–] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The biggest problem is the loss of users that that incurs… it would be long term damage for temporary financial boost. I think they already tried once to switch to yahoo and it was an unmitigated disaster

[–] Extrasvhx9he@lemmy.today 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah I expect that would be the case but I honestly think out of all the other longterm rivals with deep pockets, bing is firefox's best chance of maintaining most of it's current userbase and maybe even growing it in the longterm especially if bing ai's features keep expanding. Else why would bard be a thing if google didn't feel a bit threatened. Again just my thoughts would like to hear what other opinions are out there.

Edit: would also be a big win for microsoft since a respectable browser is now using it's search engine and not just a butt of the joke like edge is, so maybe firefox can leveage a good chunk of change from them to keep their browser running for a while unlike the deal they did with google. Think it would ultimately destroy edge though but since edge can now be user uninstalled thats bound to happen in a couple of years anyways and with this deal bing will still get some traffic so still a win for microsoft.

[–] dan@upvote.au 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Here's the actual source: https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/17z8hsz/youtube_has_started_to_artificially_slow_down/

The link in the post is just recycling the reddit content.

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

Ah, even more reason for me to use less Youtube.

Been substituting it with Nebula, Odysee, and just watching less video content.

[–] MylesRyden@social.vivaldi.net 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@BombOmOm @furycd001
I am sort of in a content slump right now. The YouTube adblocker blocker has me watching much less and noticing the content actually kinda sucks.

Most news sites are either paywalled or adblocked blocked or so stuffed with ads it's unreadable.

Even my library app doesn't have books newer than like 2019.

This DRM shit totally sucks.

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

What ad blocker are you using? I'm using ublock origin and I still haven't seen the ad blocker blocker thing on anything.

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[–] H3L1X@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I am in a similar situation. I did just start using RSS and that has been interesting. Nice to get everything in one spot, with no ads, and it's specifically what I'm interested in.

[–] MylesRyden@social.vivaldi.net 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@H3L1X
It would be nice if RSS feeds were easier to discover. I think people feel that no one uses them anymore and doesn't bother to put it front and center or to make lists of good feeds to follow.

[–] H3L1X@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That is very true. This page is a good starting point: https://github.com/plenaryapp/awesome-rss-feeds. It has some interesting feeds, but it is very hard to find things "in the wild" now.

[–] MylesRyden@social.vivaldi.net 2 points 1 year ago

@H3L1X
That looks good 😃

[–] krigo666@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Try FreeTube viewer, still in alpha but already works great. You can create profiles with the channels you want in each one.

https://freetubeapp.io

On mobile (Android) you have NewPipe, GrayJay or SkyTube.

[–] netchami@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

LibreTube is another option for Android. On iOS you can use Yattee with this guide.

Invidious and Piped work in the browser, you can combine them with LibRedirect to automatically redirect all YouTube links. LibRedirect is great, you can also use it to redirect other websites, e.g. Twitter -> Nitter, Reddit -> Teddit, etc.

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[–] TGioiellieri@mastodon.uno 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@furycd001 I continue to use this extension in Edge Browser, page opening is slowed down a little but advertising is blocked. Greetings from Italy
https://ublockorigin.com/

[–] netchami@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago

That is not their official website btw. The maintainer of uBO has stated that he doesn't want a website

He doesn't want a forum or a website, thus he won't have any costs and he won't have to accept donations meaning he doesn't have to deal with the administrative workload and that way he has more time to develop uBlock Origin.

Source: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Why-don't-you-accept-donations%3F

[–] ToxicWaste@lemm.ee 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Guys relax. Most of the 'research' comes from this reddit post: https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/17ywbjj/whenever_i_open_a_youtube_video_in_a_new_tab_its/k9w3ei4/

It points out following code in youtube's polymer script:

setTimeout(function() {
    c();
    a.resolve(1)
 }, 5E3);

But exactly this code does show up on a stock installation of chrome too, and it does not check for the user agent. One of the responses goes a bit deeper into what the code above could do: https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/17ywbjj/whenever_i_open_a_youtube_video_in_a_new_tab_its/ka08uqj/

It is rather clear, that this code is not aimed at firefox users to slow down their loading time.

[–] frogbellyratbone_@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

you spent 20 minutes going through this while i just ran a ping test in 30 seconds

it's real

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

I know that you are memeing - but some ppl probably don't have the background to see the difference.

A ping does not contain a http header containing a user agent. The response to a ping is not a webpage - and even if it was, your console won't execute the JS.

[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It is rather clear, that this code is not aimed at firefox users to slow down their loading time.

alternatively it's just well designed

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[–] verysoft@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Mine instantly loads. Perhaps there's some other stuff going on with hardware/software or something this person is running?

[–] LollerCorleone@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

Same, I am not facing any issues too.

[–] iAmTheTot@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

I use YT every day and use Firefox as my main browser. I've never experienced this. Just tested out of curiosity, it loads fine.

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[–] CrowAirbrush@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I wonder what would happen if Google manages to destroy itself with increasing shenanigans like this.

I mean, so much of digital based stuff relies on them for some extent.

[–] FALGSConaut@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Google is declared "too big to fail" and get a multi-million dollar bailout

[–] GarfieldYaoi@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago

"But you see, capitalists take on a risk..."

[–] CrowAirbrush@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Tax dollars are paying for that right?

I'm Dutch myself, but i know a lot of people who can't afford another increase in cost of living...i'm quite certain America has many more people in the same situation.

[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago

we get a lot of people learning what "digital sovereignity" means

just kidding, the state is going to pay every business affected gajillion dollars to buy more google

[–] netchami@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Use Piped or Invidious, it also bypasses ads and tracking. It works best in combination with LibRedirect, which you can configure to automatically redirect all YouTube links to Piped or Invidious.

[–] Dumbkid@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can I set this up so I can still browse my YouTube recommended and only redirect when I select the actual video?

[–] netchami@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You can exclude https://youtube.com/ in the LibRedirect settings. For some reason that doesn't seem to work though, but you can always click on the LibRedirect icon in the extension toolbar and hit 'Redirect to Original'. You can also set up a keybinding for that.

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[–] massive_bereavement@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Freetube has been the biggest life improvement on how I consume YouTube. The fact that it gets better recommendations and I can list my subscriptions in an easy way, even import them is something I miss in all the rest of alternatives.

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[–] frogbellyratbone_@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago

i've got some irrational nerd rage going on right now reading this

less about google, more about the individuals who programmed this. holy hell

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

First thing that comes to mind is user agent spoofer. Anyway I say let them, it's their company with userbase content and it's based in US. They can do whatever they want with it because terms of service. I can just look at my sexy John Oliver poster on the wall for 30 min and replace their service.

[–] netchami@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

First thing that comes to mind is user agent spoofer.

If we all go ahead and spoof our user agents to Chrome, Google will say 'No one uses Firefox'. Use better solutions like Invidious and Piped in combination wit LibRedirect instead.

[–] dan@upvote.au 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If we all go ahead and spoof our user agents to Chrome, Google will say 'No one uses Firefox'. Use better solutions like Invidious and Piped in combination wit LibRedirect instead.

Do these pass through the user agent to YouTube? Otherwise they'll have the same issue with Firefox being underrepresented.

[–] netchami@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (4 children)

YouTube doesn't actually throttle the video stream on the server, they just use some JavaScript on their official website that adds delay to the playback when Firefox is detected. The Invidious client directly connects to Google servers for video streaming, but it just displays the raw video stream without any ads, artificial delay or any crap like that.

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[–] mateomaui@reddthat.com 1 points 1 year ago

I’m not signed in, bitches, your ploy does not work here.

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