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

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[–] Extrasvhx9he@lemmy.today 26 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 in the beginning of their journey so it wont be a massive shift from bing imo in terms of searching experience.

[–] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 8 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 20 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.

[–] ToxicWaste@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] verysoft@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 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.

[–] oatscoop@midwest.social 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've experienced this issue firsthand, although it's more like 3 to 4 seconds. Changing the user agent to Chrome causes videos to load instantly, and restoring it to the original user agent causes the "lag".

Some possibly relevant information: I'm running Firefox with unlock Origin on Linux Mint. I've also received the "playback will be disabled after 3 videos" message in the past -- so it's possibly only affecting users they strongly suspect are still using ad-blockers with workarounds.

[–] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 3 points 1 year ago

It's just typical sensationalized bullshit with people jumping to conclusions based off random ass Reddit threads. This apparently originated from the linus tech tips forums so it's probably straight bs.

[–] iAmTheTot@kbin.social 2 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.

[–] CrowAirbrush@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

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.