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.

      • 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.

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • 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.

        • 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

      • 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.

      • 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?)

        • 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”.