Google slows down Firefox users when watching YouTube....

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/

I know everyone wants to be mad, and I'm no fan of Google. But this is almost certainly an unintentional bug.

Google, more than anything, wants watch hours for ad money. They don't want you frustrated by the alow ux. They want you watching advertisements.

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 in the beginning of their journey so it wont be a massive shift from bing imo in terms of searching experience.

Has space bar stopped working for anyone else with Youtube? I keep spamming it and it sometimes doesn't work.

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.

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

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

@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/

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.

Permanently Deleted

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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