“Is your video not loading ? Check out why, you fucking ad dodging commie” is the feeling i got from youtube’s newest message while my video was unexpectedly taking 10s to load
Google is intentionally throttling YouTube videos, slowing down users with ad blockers
Submitted 10 months ago by mesamunefire@piefed.social to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/streaming-video/google-throttling-youtube-adblock-users
Comments
Coolkat@slrpnk.net 10 months ago
Baguette@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
Oh hey I ran into that issue, fixed it by blocking the element on ublock and spoofing my user agent
nameisnotimportant@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
the element
Which one? That’d certainly help to know how to do that
Baguette@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
www.youtube.com/##.paper-toast-open.yt-notification-action-renderer.style-scope.toast-button
I believe it was this one, just add it as part of the filter list in ublock
The extension I used for user agent was this one. I don’t think it matters what you spoof as, but I chose to spoof as chrome. addons.mozilla.org/…/user-agent-string-switcher/
So far it worked and I’m back to no ads and no interruptions
Pofski@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Also interested in how you can do this.
D_C@lemm.ee 9 months ago
I have ublock, with sponsor block and some others, and don’t have any issues on yt as of yet. Just in case though, how do I block an element and spoof a user agent?
Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
YouTube does a shit ton of A/B testing so they probably didn’t roll that change out to everyone yet. I currently don’t have any issues either but they will eventually hit us with that shit.
Opinionhaver@feddit.uk 10 months ago
As much as I hate dealing with their shenanigans, I can’t really blame them either. As long as I can get away with using an adblocker, I will - but honestly, YouTube gives me more value for free than a lot of services I actually pay for. I have no moral argument for why YouTube should let me watch videos for free, even though I like free stuff just as much as the next guy.
theneverfox@pawb.social 9 months ago
How about: they’re a major factor in the rise of post truth and in ruining the Internet. And in hacking democracy itself
Their control is endangering the human race. They’ve crushed countless innovations to keep a stranglehold on technology. They proactively helped fascists get into power
They don’t deserve to make ever increasing money off us. They’re not content creators - they’re bad stewards of a public forum they bought and expanded through monopolistic practices.
I’d say it’s not only moral to deny them ad revenue, I think watching their ads is a danger to society
TerHu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
oh i absolutely can blame them, because they made a choice. either you take my money and respect my privacy, or you sell all of my data and won’t get my money. however you can’t sell all of my data and take my money, nono, f u alphabet, that’s not how this works.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 9 months ago
YouTube gives me more value for free than a lot of services I actually pay for
That’s the really annoying part.
I’ve been considering swapping to other services for a long time, but to follow the creators I want to follow I’d have to subscribe to Nebula and Floatplane and I’d still miss out on quite a few creators.
Traister101@lemmy.today 10 months ago
I did not always use an ad blocker. Frankly my stance is they’ve made their bed, now they get to lie down in it. If it wasn’t for YouTubes ad quality being so poor I would have never bothered taking the 30 seconds it takes to install an adblock those 10 or so years ago
Aetherion@lemmy.world 10 months ago
They cannot kill Adblocks, because if they would — a lot of html5 embedded YouTube videos would be coming worthless and so would youtube (discord for example)
belastend@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
Grayjay :)
DFX4509B_2@lemmy.org 10 months ago
YT’s blocked on it, at least on my end. Fuck you, Google.
lud@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Does grayjay rehost content from YouTube or are they using the YouTube backend for streaming video? I would be quite annoyed if anyone used my website as a host for content that’s being consumed on another website.
A few years ago (and to a lesser degree nowadays) you occasionally came across images which wouldn’t work if you “hotlinked” to them on another website. Images aren’t a huge deal anymore but video absolutely is.
CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world 9 months ago
YT’s blocked on it.
Just tried it. It works.
toothpaste_ostrich@feddit.nl 10 months ago
Bless you.
colonelsharki@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Is google’s company motto still ‘Don’t be evil’?
Critical_Thinker@lemm.ee 10 months ago
They removed that from their official code of conduct in 2018.
Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Why do i feel like this happened a while ago? Like, isn’t this old news? Or “olds” as it were?
pHr34kY@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It was previously a “thread.sleep(5000)” in the client code IIRC.
CrowAirbrush@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It was reported a decent amoint of time ago and i thought i felt a difference…turned out my isp was sending air bubbles through the internet cable.
After the internet stabilized i noticed exactly zero, just an occasional “restart browser because video’s stopped playing alltogether”
remon@ani.social 10 months ago
Yep, for me it ha been “fixed” for about a week now.
theangryseal@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I’ve been dealing with this forever.
Some issues I have that I only deal with when I’m not signed in without an adblocker:
If I try to skip back to a spot in a video, I get the loading circle and sometimes it doesn’t come back until I refresh the page. I have to make a mental note of the time and do that pretty often.
In safari and Firefox I will get a black box for about 40 seconds, no play button, and sometimes I have to refresh the page a few times just to get it to work at all.
Comments will not load sometimes until I refresh the page, sometimes more than once.
The video will sometimes stop and start “loading” while I’m watching it. The solution is always a page refresh or two.
Signed in with an adblocker, the problems drop by about 50% (pulled that number out of my ass, but I’d be willing to bet it’s close). Signed in with no adblocker on Firefox or Safari and the issues become significantly less noticeable, with exceptions from time to time. Signed in with no adblocker on chrome or edge, I experience none of this.
I believe they purposely throttle it on non chromium browsers too.
Sorry if this comment is jumbled. Woke up in the middle of the night with a stomach ache, got bored waiting for it to pass, so now I’m here and barely conscious.
Fizz@lemmy.nz 10 months ago
Make me wait 5 mins on a black screen and I’ll do that before watching an ad.
farboo99@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Ok so im not crazy. I was wondering why videos kept buffering every minute this past week.
rdri@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Wish they could use Gemini to generate ad clicks instead.
criticon@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
I had to allow a bunch of stuff in pihole because I wasn’t able to use Google flights or Google News and some functions in Gmail, the sites never finished loading
PushButton@lemmy.world 10 months ago
You might need a little bit of degoogleizer.
In a small dose, it eases the pain, but with the right treatment, your life will become yours again.
lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
Phegan@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Ive been commenting on creators videos asking them to upload elsewhere as well. I doubt it will work, but we could try
MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net 10 months ago
A lot of my favorites are already on Nebula. I’d ask the rest to follow but that would require a google account.
LeTak@feddit.org 10 months ago
I also asked some creators, but they can’t because of the Google partnership Programm, it prohibits reupload on other platforms
atlien51@lemm.ee 10 months ago
I love how you’re just doing your bit lol
cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
Great idea. Eventually, and if enough ask, it could be a thing.
Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub 10 months ago
I can’t tell an honest difference between 1080p and 720p from across a room. On a monitor, sure, but I grew up in the 90’s. Anything 480 and above is tolerable to me.
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Did you comment in the wrong place?
Your comment is talking about resolution, and the post is about YouTube throttling speeds, not resolution of videos.
I suspect you were trying to respond to a comment instead of making your own top level comment, though I’m not certain.
In any case, if the comment is in the wrong place, now you know. If it isn’t, well, it may help to know that it’s out of place thematically.
Lazer365@feddit.nl 10 months ago
We can live without YouTube, they can’t live without us.
cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
They can’t cause they already don’t have us 😂. This is their way to try and get you into their money making fold.
SinkingLotus@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I’d sooner spend five minutes waiting for the video to buffer than five seconds watching an ad
desertdruid@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
Welcome back to 2007
RedditIsDeddit@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I noticed this today
yucandu@lemmy.world 10 months ago
uBlock Origin->gear icon (settings)->My Filters->add this line:
||googlevideo.com/videoplayback$xhr,3p,method=get,domain=www.youtube.comChivera@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Thanks I will try this
leckiesock@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Clear cache
shalafi@lemmy.world 10 months ago
No longer working for me on Firefox, Win11. Now what?
leckiesock@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I have no answer. I’m almost 40 and could no longer care less about BabyTube. I’m now more interested in life and travelling. Long gone are the days where YT was interesting.
G4Z@feddit.uk 10 months ago
I’ve been using this
BakerBagel@midwest.social 10 months ago
I’ve got 500Mb fiber internet and YouTube refuses to stream above 360p unless i manually change it. Which each update becomes harder and harder to do as they hide the video quality button somewhere else.
tal@lemmy.today 10 months ago
If you use Firefox:
BakerBagel@midwest.social 10 months ago
I’m don’t having a functioning computer right now because i can’t afford even a used one. I’m just using the YouTube app on ny phone or tv
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 10 months ago
HA! Jokes on them! I’m running a budget dell PC from 10 years ago! The PC itself is slower than any delays they cause! I’m talkin’ 3-5 minutes to load each video. Sometimes the whole PC freezes, and you need to unplug it. Sometimes the browser crashes right at the end, so you gotta relaunch the browser, and then wait 20 minutes for all the tabs to populate. Then you gotta end task on all the individual windows. Then you gotta reload just the tab you’re looking at, and THEN you can wait 5 minutes again.
You think I’m even going to notice your 10 second delay?
a_wild_mimic_appears@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
try to get a ssd from somewhere, that gives devices like yours a second life (and if you switch to linux it gets even smoother - sorry i couldn’t resisit)
bassomitron@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I know times are hard, but you could build/find a PC for <$300 that doesn’t run that badly. Hell, even a ~$150-200 tablet would be way better than that.
Xanthrax@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I also think they slowed it down for firefox users.
teft@lemmy.world 10 months ago
If you get a user agent switcher and change your user agent for youtube to chrome then that slowing down goes away.
JayGray91@piefed.social 9 months ago
Wait I can do it just for YouTube? Never occurred to me. I'll have to look into this
Geodad@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I haven’t noticed on Tubular.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 10 months ago
I saw something that might be this happening last week, but this week the videos are perfect and load normally; but the rest of the page is absolutely fucked. Like the “playables” section last night was tripping balls and looked like a slot machine as the entries randomly changed around at light speeds.
mesamunefire@piefed.social 10 months ago
Ublock origin (if your using it) "fixed" the issue shortly after. Im convinced someone at google works on adblock lol. Probably not true but the timing was really fast.
Steve@startrek.website 10 months ago
Spy vs spy
ieatpwns@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I mean sure I guess but I can just like download them for later?
DirkMcCallahan@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I feel like this has been happening for a while, but maybe it’s just that YouTube’s website is shite.
MagicShel@lemmy.zip 10 months ago
Oh no! What will I—Video Downloader. I’ll just watch offline at my leisure.
apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Good, kill your product
Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
I use adblockers, but I’m confused how this would hurt google if people using adblockers stopped using youtube.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 10 months ago
Less views = less relevancy of the platform. For live streams they have always played second fiddle. For short videos there is even more competition. Just wait for China to open up Billie Billie or instead make a separate version for the west.
ulterno@programming.dev 9 months ago
So here’s what happened recently:
Guess who missed ad money?