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Youtube has started to artificially slow down video load times if you use Firefox. Spoofing Chrome magically makes this problem go away. (old.reddit.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They do the same shit for Google search results. Search weather or stock tickers with a Chrome user agent* and you get a rich, interactive chart of the weather forecast or stock history. Search with another mobile user agent and you get a static snapshot of the weather or stock price at an instant in time.

There's even an extension for Firefox for Android which changes the user agent for Google searches to Chrome, to get the rich content.

* just a user agent, not an actual browser, which proves that it isn't about browser capability, but rather abusing their monopolistic market position in search to further their web browser's market share. Sound familiar, Microsoft from the 90's?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I just tried this and confirmed it, using Firefox's recommended user agent manager:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-string-switcher/

It's the only one I could find so far that doesn't have a security warning.