YouTube is blaming that Firefox delay people been talking about on adblockers. (www.androidauthority.com)
from rob299@bookwormstory.social to technology@lemmy.ml on 22 Nov 2023 01:00
https://bookwormstory.social/post/582362

This delay isn’t exclusive to Firefox, it’s in any browser where a user has enabled adblockers including in Chrome. Disable the adblocker and this delay magically go away. This was done on purpose.

#technology

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CaptObvious@literature.cafe on 22 Nov 2023 01:09 next collapse

To say the quiet part out loud: Bullshit

Google may find that their only option is to paywall YouTube. Too many of us will prefer to pay creators directly rather than letting Google take a cut. And YouTube is not the only game in town.

I admit that I’m pretty much done with YouTube anyway. Their unskippable mid roll ads that interrupt videos mid-word have become obnoxious enough that many creators I follow are jumping ship and advising their viewers where to find them.

derf82@lemmy.world on 22 Nov 2023 01:36 next collapse

Google may find that their only option is to paywall YouTube.

They already have Youtube premium. But $14/month is an insane price. I refuse to believe that is anywhere near the typical ad revenue they get from people. That is more than many streaming services.

rob299@bookwormstory.social on 22 Nov 2023 01:39 next collapse

I’d love to see a plan where you just pay to rid of the ads, but YouTube is past YouTube, they would rather everyone pay YouTube premium as is.

C_M@feddit.nl on 22 Nov 2023 03:20 collapse

They had that plan over here. But they killed it just before the war against ad block started (it was around half of the price of premium)

jacksilver@lemmy.world on 22 Nov 2023 01:39 next collapse

Not that I support anything their doing, but managing YouTube has to be an order of magnitude more expensive to operate than a streaming service. I actually think they could get some sympathy if they took more of a Wikipedia approach and we’re more open about the costs to operate YouTube. However much we might hate Google, YouTube is practically a public good in the way it operates and the world relies on it.

CaptObvious@literature.cafe on 22 Nov 2023 01:45 next collapse

An interesting idea. But non-profit is antithetical to Google’s business model.

Pirate_lemmy_arrrrR@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 23 Nov 2023 21:51 collapse

How could hosting other people’s work and at most giving them a cut of the ad revenue be more expensive than

A. Paying for streaming rights to other people’s work. B. Creating your own works And C. Paying to host all of the above. ???

Unless you’re saying that the hours streamed from YouTube is so vastly more than any streaming service that it out costs all the other costs Netflix etc has in licensing and content creation.

JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz on 22 Nov 2023 04:06 collapse

It’s not, because it’s a lot easier to get someone willing to pay anything in the first place to pay more than it is to convert a free user into a paying one. So as long as a yearly rise doesn’t lose them more in profit they’ll keep increasing the price it until it does.

Though I really doubt that on a platform as huge as YouTube halving the cost to $7 wouldn’t get them twice the paying customers almost instantly, because $14/month is simply ridiculously expensive.

thejml@lemm.ee on 22 Nov 2023 16:21 collapse

Where are they going? Most of the ones I follow are along the “this sucks, but it’s the only real game in town”, so I’d be interested to check alternatives and see what’s there.

The big problem with any social or content centric platform is that new ones are only useful for consumers if there are creators and only useful for creators if there are consumers.

CaptObvious@literature.cafe on 22 Nov 2023 22:16 collapse

Most are headed to Patreon and Vimeo. A few seem likely to try out PeerTube.

rob299@bookwormstory.social on 22 Nov 2023 01:33 next collapse

Just to put this out there for those who probally didn’t read the article. YouTube does this 5 second delay thing, on purpose only if it detects a user using an adblocker if you don’t use the adblocker then Youtube will work as it normally would on that browser.

Whether it’s still a clunky experienceor the browser crashes really Is dependant on that browser and if it’s a good alternative browser.

In other words, ‘fix he delay by disabling the adblocker’, coming from Youtube themselves.

Jamie@jamie.moe on 22 Nov 2023 01:37 next collapse

Man, I already had a hard time justifying my YouTube Premium subscription. I literally only have it for putting on stuff to sleep to on my TV without some ad telling me Mr. Beast wants to give me $10,000 if i click.

But the worse this gets, the more I feel like an asshole for giving them a dime.

520@kbin.social on 22 Nov 2023 02:47 collapse

I put newpipe on my TV for this exact reason

narwhal@lemmy.ml on 22 Nov 2023 04:41 collapse

SmartTube is more optimized for TV: github.com/yuliskov/smarttube

Give it a try.

520@kbin.social on 22 Nov 2023 04:57 next collapse

Will do, thanks mate!

icepuncher69@sh.itjust.works on 22 Nov 2023 06:26 collapse

Hi m8, do you know what would be a good option for like an android box or roku or whatever for tv? I have a semi smart lg tv that sucks ass and i whant to connect it to something like that, but i whant a tv box that can get open source stuff or at least is conpatible with something like youtube revance.

Thanks

redcalcium@lemmy.institute on 22 Nov 2023 09:48 collapse

SmartTube should work on any android box. On webOS (LG) there is youtube-webos: github.com/webosbrew/youtube-webos

Klanky@sopuli.xyz on 22 Nov 2023 03:21 next collapse

So I can either wait 5 seconds in silence, or have to watch a 5 second (possibly longer) ad? I know which one I’ll choose.

Whatisawaffle@kbin.social on 22 Nov 2023 03:30 collapse

Silly. This wouldn't explain why people still get the delay in a "clean" version of firefox, or why the delay disappears when the only thing changed is spoofing that your browser is chrome instead.

Endorkend@kbin.social on 22 Nov 2023 04:07 next collapse

Because the delay is part of adblocker detection on non Chrome based browsers.

theshatterstone54@feddit.uk on 22 Nov 2023 08:29 collapse

If that is the case, then it doesn’t matter whether you’re running an adblocker or not. It’s a marketing ploy to blame it on adblock users.

rob299@bookwormstory.social on 22 Nov 2023 17:22 next collapse

I get that. I’m just spreading what google’s official response was.

jimbo@lemmy.world on 23 Nov 2023 09:50 collapse

Did this happen to anyone other than the one guy who made the video about it? I couldn’t replicate it.

hperrin@lemmy.world on 22 Nov 2023 03:06 next collapse

“We had to fuck over the people who aren’t in our monopoly, because we absolutely fucking love money!!! Omg, money is the only thing we care about!!”

“Ok, public relations guys, do your best.”

Result ^

ElBarto@sh.itjust.works on 22 Nov 2023 05:25 next collapse

Lol, my internet is shit and I often have to wait a few seconds for it to buffer anyway, so I won’t see much difference.

tvbusy@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 22 Nov 2023 07:18 next collapse

The original video showed that just changing the Agent string fixed the “problem”, so it has nothing to do with ad blocking.

jimbo@lemmy.world on 23 Nov 2023 09:48 collapse

Was any else able to verify the claim in the original video? I couldn’t.

Heavybell@lemmy.world on 22 Nov 2023 07:54 next collapse

Okay? But when my Firefox uses Chrome’s useragent string, the delay also disappears.

arrowMace@lemmy.world on 23 Nov 2023 09:37 collapse

I would guess that Google uses a randomised rollout system to make changes affect a tiny % of users while they test it (common in big software companies). Changing your useragent might make you appear as a different client that’s not affected (yet). Source: I work in software and can guess.

Cicraft@lemmy.world on 23 Nov 2023 11:52 collapse

Wouldn’t it be easier to start with their own browser?

theshatterstone54@feddit.uk on 22 Nov 2023 08:33 next collapse

I am ready to jump ship to Newpipe only (or newpipe and invidious) when I get the popup. And when these services are inevitably killed off, I will use a list that is currently WIP to help me find as many creators as possible via alternative methods (their own websites, podcasts, or them being on services like Odyssey or Peertube)

NumbersCanBeFun@kbin.social on 22 Nov 2023 09:52 next collapse

In tandem with my current settings. Adding a Firefox add on to spoof my user agent worked for me. I set it to random and disabled all the Firefox user agents.

drbluefall@toast.ooo on 22 Nov 2023 10:14 collapse

Part of me wonders if the reverse holds - if spoofing one’s user-agent on Chrome to look like Firefox could cause the delay to occur.

Very_Bad_Janet@kbin.social on 22 Nov 2023 12:41 next collapse

Hmm. Is this supposed to be affecting everyone using Firefox with adblockers? I just played a video on FF with uBO. Worked fine for me with no delays. Maybe because I searched for the video using DDG and watched it via DDG (meaning I did not click through and watch it on YT)?

curiosityLynx@beehaw.org on 22 Nov 2023 13:12 next collapse

Could be an A/B test and you’re lucky to be in the control group.

Yerbouti@lemmy.ml on 23 Nov 2023 14:17 collapse

Same here. I tried on 2 computers and no delay so far.

snokis@discuss.tchncs.de on 22 Nov 2023 13:32 next collapse

For anyone confused with the title:

YouTube is blaming the ‘Firefox delay’, that people been talking about, on adblockers.

Maybe it’s just me… English is not my first language so that might be it. I really struggled to understand what it said.

ug02x@programming.dev on 22 Nov 2023 14:57 next collapse

It is my first, and I definitely had to read it twice to make sure that I understood. It is definitely not you, but the awkward way they worded the title.

Yours is much clearer, in my opinion.

TheAmishMan@lemmy.world on 22 Nov 2023 15:26 next collapse

Thank you. The title was absolute gore

deur@feddit.nl on 22 Nov 2023 16:01 next collapse

To make it more clear use “have been” instead of just “been”

snokis@discuss.tchncs.de on 23 Nov 2023 08:30 collapse

Thank you. I missed that part, figured someone would correct me before I finished editing so I left it as is. Took longer than expected!

Willy@sh.itjust.works on 23 Nov 2023 01:38 next collapse

Thank you. I happened to be smelling something toast like at the same time I tried to read that and had to check the comments. Turns out it was a heater that hadn’t been on in a while.

shroomaroomboom@kbin.social on 24 Nov 2023 01:07 collapse

Weird, I use Firefox and ad blockers. I never get ads or delays when watching YouTube videos.

AlphaOmega@lemmy.world on 23 Nov 2023 14:05 collapse

A few months back I had this issue on Chrome, but my ad blocker updated and it went away.

rob299@bookwormstory.social on 23 Nov 2023 16:59 collapse

Interesting. Did any change since then? Regarding it going away.

Also unrelated, your user name reminds of a Youtuber I use to watch.

AlphaOmega@lemmy.world on 23 Nov 2023 21:05 collapse

After the update it’s been working as intended.