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Hector Martin (@marcan@treehouse.systems)
social.treehouse.systemsAttached: 3 images
Today I learned that YouTube is deliberately crippling Firefox on Asahi Linux. It will give you lowered video resolutions. If you just replace "aarch64" with "x86_64" in the UA, suddenly you get 4K and everything.
They literally have a test for "is ARM", and if so, they consider your system has garbage performance and cripple the available formats/codecs. I checked the code.
Logic: Quality 1080 by default. If your machine has 2 or fewer cores, quality 480. If anything ARM, quality 240. Yes, Google thinks all ARM machines are 5 times worse than Intel machines, even if you have 20 cores or something.
Why does this not affect Chromium? **Because chromium on aarch64 pretends to be x86_64**
`Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36`
🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Welp, guess I'm shipping a user agent override for Firefox on Fedora to pretend to be x86.
**EDIT**: The plot thickens. Pretending to be ChromeOS aarch64 *still gets 4K*. Specifically: `Mozilla/5.0 (X11; CrOS aarch64 10452.96.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/66.0.3359.181 Safari/537.36` still works.
**EDIT 2**: OK, so the plot *really* thickens now. Chrome is not affected even if it claims to be aarch64. Turns out there is another codepath: apparently YouTube thinks aarch64 Firefox is... a HiSense TV?!?!?!?! Specifically, model 65a67gevs...?????
This is *server-side* sniffing now and it's *specifically* looking for Firefox aarch64 (or at least "Gecko and not Chrome/CrOS/something else known to pretend to be Gecko"). And it's the "TV" platform that is triggering the resolution crippling.
Hell net neutrality laws might even have relevance if they keep this up.
Edit 2: Well, at least I know I’m right. Downvote away.
Sorry, I’m all for net neutrality, but behavior based on browser usage, while dickish, has nothing to do with it.
Edit: it seems like I’m being schooled. Got any sources to back up your downvotes?
Edit 3: nope. I’m not being schooled. The downvoters should either get better informed or stop downvoting with their emotions.
yes it does, net neutrality not only has to do with the ISP but also the services. different useragent string should NOT lead to a worse quality of service.
Right, but your service provider has nothing to do with that difference. The fact that the entity you’re contacting on the other end of the connection is providing a degraded experience isn’t an internet service delivery problem.
Your internet service, which is what net neutrality is concerned with, is distinct from services on the internet. In the same way that your phone service has nothing to do with the quality of service you get from HP’s telephone support line.
The web is based on open standards; that’s what made it universally accessible. How does limiting access based on how you access the web benefit anyone?
Nobody is defending the practice, they’re just differentiating it from what we’ve previously referred to as “net neutrality,” which is 100% entirely about how ISPs process internet traffic, and not about the services being used within that traffic.
Unless I missed the memo, and “net neutrality” means something different now.
It doesn’t, but that isn’t their point. They’re simply pointing out that existing net neutrality laws in the US usually only apply to ISPs and telcos, not internet businesses.