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.”

  • Queue@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    “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
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      1 year ago

      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
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        1 year ago

        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
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          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
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          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
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          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.

      • ButtDrugs@lemm.ee
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        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
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        1 year ago

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

    • barnaclebutt@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • thanevim@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Alphabet’s monopoly is bad, make no mistake.

        But they aren’t controlling all electronic means of communication for 90% of the continental United States, as AT&T did in the ma’ bell and pa’ bell days.

        • n2burns@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          But they aren’t controlling all electronic means of communication for 90% of the continental United States, as AT&T did in the ma’ bell and pa’ bell days.

          Google controls over 90% of the search business in the US and that’s the way the vast majority of people begin their browsing. It’s why US v Google is currently in the courts

          • Kodemystic@lemmy.kodemystic.dev
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            1 year ago

            MS vs US back in the 90’s did not result in anything significant. This pretty much will happen again with Google. Some lobbyists will just do their thing, some minor slaps in the wrist and concessments between DoJ and Alohabet etc and Google will continue to Googling around.

        • theneverfox@pawb.social
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          1 year ago

          Uh… Gmail, Ad sense, search?

          They’ve got like a dozen duopolies going on, they have far more control and ability to leverage it than Bell ever did

    • iAmTheTot@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • tiredofsametab@kbin.social
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      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.

    • Ilgaz@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

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

      • chaogomu@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        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?)

        • hyperhopper@lemmy.ml
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          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.

        • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
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          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”.

          • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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            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
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        1 year ago

        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
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          1 year ago

          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.

        • Norgur@kbin.social
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          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
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          1 year ago

          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

    • 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.