this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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YouTube blames ad blockers for slow load times, and it has nothing to do with your browser | The delay is intentional, but targeting users who continue using ad blockers, and not tied to any browse...::YouTube has clarified in a statement that users who use ad blockers will have a suboptimal experience regardless of their browser.

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[–] [email protected] 174 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yeah, sure. That's why it happens on Firefox even without an adblocker, and goes away when using a user agent switcher to claim you're using Chrome instead of Firefox while using an adblocker. Because it's toooooooootally about adblocking.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I tried this exact scenario and didn't see any difference in load times. I'm using an ad blocker and it's definitely sluggish, but switching to a Chrome user agent made no difference.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

Yeah, people seem to be having very different experiences with it. It might genuinely be them rolling out different versions to different people to bug test it or something like that. Even if that's the case I still think its probably not unintentional that it hurts Firefox more. They do that too much for me to believe it's an accident.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

It's hard to tell these days when there's so much A/B testing and stuff going on. I haven't run into this at all personally.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

It's actually been confirmed that the 5-second wait happens regardless of browser. Even with Chrome.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How thoroughly was this tested? Because you can summarize a lot of these types of timing differences with one word.

Caching.

And from my experience people tend to overlook this when running casual tests like this.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

This is 100% anecdotal of course, but I've noticed weirdly inconsistent behaviour. I have one tab I permanently keep open for YouTube and that one loads videos really fast. If I open a second tab by following a link from that main tab, then it partly loads the site and sits there for a weirdly long time before any content even appears.

I've got a really fast connection too, and nothing else was having issues. This whole thing is bizarre.

[–] [email protected] 81 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So if I use Firefox I have a choice between a 5sec delay or a 5sec delay and ads. That seems like an easy choice.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I will stop using youtube before I stop using adblockers.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My opinion too. A lot of people say "Oh I couldn't live without it, I'm constantly watching vids on there" so you ask for recommendations, look them up, and it's 99% brain-rotting video porridge

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What, you mean to tell me you don't wanna watch MUTAHAR LAUGH COMPILATION AT FNAF FREDDIE FAZBEAR POOPING ON PURPLE GUY 3AM (GONE SEXUAL)?

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

Have you tried Odysee or Peertube yet?

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The other day my wife asked me "what's that pipe website you use to be able to watch YouTube videos" then I realized it was because she got blocked by YouTube haha

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Android TV: SmartTube

iOS (Sideload or Jailbreak): uYou+

MacOS/Linux/Windows: FreeTube

Every Browser: Invidious

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Android: newpipe, libretube, clipious, skytube, revanced

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Why does nobody ever list ReVanced for Android on these lists?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Funny how soon it will seem as if chrome is the most used browser while it's actually Firefox with a user agent change

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I can already imagine the bullshit wired articles about how users are Switching from Firefox to Chrome, remember how they tried to claim people were uninstalling ad blockers, when in reality they were switching to uBlock Origin, that was pretty funny.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

ask the mainstream users if they using firefox lol

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've got Firefox and Ublock, and don't see any delays, warnings, etc. It may have to do with the fact that I'm not signed in with an account.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

This also appears to be in an A/B test or something similar. It isn't happening for everyone (yet).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Remember that just like with everything YouTube doesn't apply changes to all users across the whole site simultaneously. They always do gradual rollout with randomized user impact. So as to not upset or raise too many alarms at the same time. It's been their MO for about 10 years now.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

As has been the MO of many large sites for a while now. It's called blue-green deployment.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah and while I'm sure it is useful for minimizing outrage at controversial changes, it's mainly to prevent rolling out major bugs to too many people

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

If that's blue green deployment, then what is red yellow deployment?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah it looks like they've switched away from the 5-second penalty for having ad blockers to counting down the number of videos you'll be shown, then after 3-2-1 it's 'adblockers violate youtube's toc'

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

To be clear that is not new, that was a thing already before. Like from around July some people were already getting that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I'm using DNS level ad blocking, anyone else not experiencing anything weird?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Sundar can diaf