Stop Google From Artificially Slowing Down YouTube | Lifehacker
It appears 2023 is the yr Google has determined to make you utilize YouTube the way in which it desires you to make use of YouTube.
First, the corporate started getting aggressive with viewers visiting YouTube with advert blockers. Users begin by seeing a pop-up warning them to not use advert blockers on YouTube, however are in a position to shut it and proceed on. Soon after, the pop-up would not shut, no less than not till YouTube detects the consumer disables their advert blocker.
Not everyone seems to be experiencing this anti-ad blocker technique but, however that does not imply Google is sparing them, both. Now, the corporate seems to be slowing down YouTube speeds on non-Chrome browsers similar to Firefox and Edge.
How the YouTube slowdown works
Firefox who first seen the “artificial slowdown,” reporting that loading a YouTube video takes a stable 5 seconds in Mozilla’s browser, whereas loading instantaneously in Google’s. You can see the impact in motion in this Reddit publish: A Firefox consumer clicks a Linus Tech Tips video to look at, then stares at a clean display screen for 5 seconds till the video web page lastly hundreds into view.
Even from this preview video, it is evident that this is not your common sluggish community connection subject. Within this context, you possibly can inform there’s one thing stopping YouTube from loading instantly. When YouTube does lastly load, it does so fairly rapidly.
There are reviews of this exercise taking place in Edge as nicely, though I do not appear to come across the difficulty on both browser utilizing uBlock Origin.
Google would not deny slowing down browsers
In response to press requests in regards to the state of affairs, Google didn’t verify it’s slowing down browser deliberately, nevertheless it did not deny it, both. In truth, Google confirmed viewers utilizing advert blockers on YouTube might encounter points:
To assist a various ecosystem of creators globally and permit billions to entry their favourite content material on YouTube, we’ve launched an effort to induce viewers with advert blockers enabled to permit advertisements on YouTube or attempt YouTube Premium for an advert free expertise … Users who’ve advert blockers put in could expertise suboptimal viewing, whatever the browser they’re utilizing.
Google’s assertion largely focuses on its beforehand introduced anti-ad blocking efforts. However, saying that advert blockers might present customers “suboptimal viewing” in response to questions on this slowdown subject maybe implies Google is doing this on function. The assertion does say there could possibly be points regardless of which browser you utilize advert blockers with, however affected customers verify there isn’t a slowdown when utilizing Chrome.
How to cease the YouTube delay in Firefox
As such, one method to repair this subject in Firefox is to make YouTube suppose you are utilizing Chrome within the first place. You can use a course of referred to as consumer agent switching to successfully flip Firefox into Chrome when you have to.
One well-liked method to do that is by utilizing the User-Agent Switcher and Manager add-on. Once put in, open the extension, then select one of many Chrome variations listed and hit Refresh. The add-on switches your consumer agent to Chrome mechanically, so you possibly can browse websites like YouTube as for those who had been utilizing Google’s browser as a substitute. However, this add-on requires entry to all knowledge on every web site you utilize it with, which is clearly not superb from a privateness perspective.
A safer method to swap your user-agent is to take action manually. To begin, open a brand new tab, sort about:config within the URL and hit Enter. Accept the warning pop-up, sort common.useragent.override, hit String, then hit the (+). Now, open Chrome in your laptop, place a seek for “my user agent,” and replica and paste the ends in the textual content subject. Hit Enter as soon as once more, and your Firefox browser now seems like Chrome to the world huge internet.
You can at all times revert again to Firefox by deleting the consumer agent choice you made right here. Keep that in thoughts, since Firefox options, just like the add-on web site, won’t work once you’re utilizing a customized consumer agent.
uBlock Origin has a workaround
If you do not need to hassle with consumer agent switching, you possibly can attempt this uBlock Origin workaround. Once you’ve uBlock Origin put in in your browser, open it, open Dashboard, then head to My filters. Paste the next into the sector:
||googlevideo.com/videoplayback$xhr,3p,technique=get,area=www.youtube.com
Now, hit Apply adjustments, and open YouTube in a brand new window to see if the delay remains to be current.
Of course, an alternate nonetheless is to disable advert blockers for YouTube, or subscribe to YouTube Premium, however for those who’re studying this text, you seemingly do not need to go down both of these paths.
