35 votes

Google said to deliberately make YouTube slower on Microsoft Edge, Firefox

22 comments

  1. dblohm7
    Link
    Here is Chris Peterson's original tweet that lit this up. This has been a thorn in our side at Mozilla for months. People are trying Firefox Quantum only to receive poor experiences on Google...

    Here is Chris Peterson's original tweet that lit this up.

    This has been a thorn in our side at Mozilla for months. People are trying Firefox Quantum only to receive poor experiences on Google properties because of Chrome-only tech in their front ends.

    30 votes
  2. [4]
    talklittle
    Link
    The same story on Neowin links to some workarounds from the original series of tweets: Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-classic/ (Tweet) Edge:...
    9 votes
    1. [3]
      ruspaceni
      Link Parent
      I just installed that and now I can't find the darkmode settings absolutely ANYWHERE. Does this roll it back to a version where you have to use a 3rd party theming extension?

      I just installed that and now I can't find the darkmode settings absolutely ANYWHERE. Does this roll it back to a version where you have to use a 3rd party theming extension?

      1 vote
      1. [2]
        Gabe_DeGrossi
        Link Parent
        Looks like it is before YouTube made a native darkmode (it's got the old design), so yeah, you'll have to use a 3rd party extension.

        Looks like it is before YouTube made a native darkmode (it's got the old design), so yeah, you'll have to use a 3rd party extension.

        2 votes
        1. ruspaceni
          (edited )
          Link Parent
          After disabling the extension, I'm not seeing it revert back.. hmm does this set cookies and whatnot that i need to manually reset or what? I don't like hurty eyes and only installed the extension...

          After disabling the extension, I'm not seeing it revert back.. hmm does this set cookies and whatnot that i need to manually reset or what?

          I don't like hurty eyes and only installed the extension to see if i could notice the different speeds

          e: I've removed the extension and tried a few media cache clears, then a few youtube/google cookie clears. but nothing cleared it away until i did a full one..... I was hoping to avoid the need to log into all of my accounts just for some extension curiosity

  3. [5]
    cfabbro
    (edited )
    Link
    I would be 100% exclusively using Firefox now if it wasn’t for the weird YouTube, Netflix and Twitch issues it has which other browsers (even Opera) don’t. E.g. Whenever I open a YouTube video...

    I would be 100% exclusively using Firefox now if it wasn’t for the weird YouTube, Netflix and Twitch issues it has which other browsers (even Opera) don’t. E.g. Whenever I open a YouTube video there are weird grey blocks where the text should be and they take a good 2-5 seconds to be replaced by all the text. The screen tearing experienced on all three video platforms is also entirely exclusive to Firefox as well, which makes me wonder if this claim of it being entirely google’s fault is entirely accurate, tbh.

    P.s. And before people ask, yes I have tried fiddling with hardware accelleration (enabled/disabled makes no difference), updating (and even rolling back) my Nvidia drivers, force enabling vsync (and even setting hard frame limits) using Nvidia inspector, disabling all my extensions, etc. Nothing works and it’s driving me fucking nuts.

    7 votes
    1. [3]
      whisper
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      The placeholder content on Youtube issue you describe is the exact one described in the tweet linked by @dblohm7. A workaround — using an extension that reverts to the old Youtube design — is also...

      The placeholder content on Youtube issue you describe is the exact one described in the tweet linked by @dblohm7. A workaround — using an extension that reverts to the old Youtube design — is also presented in that tweet.

      I haven't yet tested the workaround, but I am eager to — Youtube runs like janky molasses in Firefox's Dev Edition. It's so bad that I've almost exclusively been downloading videos via Youtube-dl and viewing them locally.

      As for the screen tearing while watching a video, I have not experienced that in FF. It may be a combo of FF + some device-specific setup you have? Have you tried to reproduce it on other devices, or starting FF in safe mode with a fresh profile?

      EDIT: I tried out the previously mentioned extension and I'm seeing a massive decrease in time-to-load and time-to-play-a-video. From ~7 seconds down to instantaneous!

      3 votes
      1. Gyrfalcon
        Link Parent
        And here I was thinking the text and thumbnails loading in later was a feature to help the video start sooner... what a fool I am. I also have some tearing on Linux with vsync enabled (nvidia...

        And here I was thinking the text and thumbnails loading in later was a feature to help the video start sooner... what a fool I am. I also have some tearing on Linux with vsync enabled (nvidia card), though that seems to happen for other video sources and not just youtube.

        2 votes
      2. cfabbro
        Link Parent
        Thanks a ton, that extension worked great for the grey box issue and YouTube feels a ton more snappy and responsive because of it. I also love how condensed it made the sidebar since the new...

        Thanks a ton, that extension worked great for the grey box issue and YouTube feels a ton more snappy and responsive because of it. I also love how condensed it made the sidebar since the new YouTube design has way way way too much white space, IMO.

        And yeah I have tried on my laptop as well and it’s just as bad. I suspect it may be a Firefox+Nvidia 900 series issue though since my pc has a 980Ti and my laptop a 980M, which is why I even tried rolling back the drivers to see if that fixed it. I haven’t tried safe mode with a fresh profile yet though so will look into doing that later today, thanks for the suggestion.

        1 vote
    2. Parliament
      Link Parent
      Wow, okay. So I'm not the only one. I use Youtube white noise for my son to go to sleep at night, and reloading the page takes ages. Always thought it was just because my laptop is fairly old.

      Whenever I open a YouTube video there are weird grey blocks where the text should be and they take a good 2-5 seconds to be replaced by all the text.

      Wow, okay. So I'm not the only one. I use Youtube white noise for my son to go to sleep at night, and reloading the page takes ages. Always thought it was just because my laptop is fairly old.

      3 votes
  4. [3]
    JustABanana
    Link
    The title is misleading. They used an outdated api that only chrome supported, making youtube really slow while using firefox/edge

    The title is misleading. They used an outdated api that only chrome supported, making youtube really slow while using firefox/edge

    4 votes
    1. [2]
      talklittle
      Link Parent
      I guess it's debatable:

      I guess it's debatable:

      As it turns out, Internet Explorer 11 is still being served the old design by default, and as the Mozilla engineer notes, Google could have chosen “to service it to Firefox and Edge too.” By not doing it, however, YouTube becomes substantially slower on these browsers

      6 votes
      1. JustABanana
        Link Parent
        Fair point. They also serve the old google search results page to firefox despite it supporting the new layout just fine...

        Fair point. They also serve the old google search results page to firefox despite it supporting the new layout just fine...

        3 votes
  5. [2]
    spctrvl
    Link
    Looks like the IE6 days are making a comeback. At least webkit is basically standards compliant though.

    Looks like the IE6 days are making a comeback. At least webkit is basically standards compliant though.

    3 votes
    1. Neverland
      Link Parent
      It’s crazy to see the old Microsoft Embrace, Extend, Extinguish technique become used by Google, while Microsoft becomes more and more open source friendly. I guess maybe it’s a function of size...

      It’s crazy to see the old Microsoft Embrace, Extend, Extinguish technique become used by Google, while Microsoft becomes more and more open source friendly.

      I guess maybe it’s a function of size and market share, and not founders’ philosophy.

      4 votes
  6. gsy
    Link
    If you enable the shadow DOM API in Firefox, YouTube gets a lot faster, on par with chrome

    If you enable the shadow DOM API in Firefox, YouTube gets a lot faster, on par with chrome

    2 votes
  7. [5]
    clone1
    Link
    Is there proof that it was a deliberate slowdown?

    Is there proof that it was a deliberate slowdown?

    1 vote
    1. crius
      Link Parent
      I read about it this morning and honestly it felt more of a mixing between not caring to make the website optimised and exploiting the position of power that chrome/youtube already have. The point...

      I read about it this morning and honestly it felt more of a mixing between not caring to make the website optimised and exploiting the position of power that chrome/youtube already have.

      The point is that the average user won't think "Ah this shitty browser" but just "ah this shitty website" so I don't really see reason for this to be a conscious strategy but more realistically "we don't have time to fit a rewrite of the frontend to not use the shadow dom in that way".

      I worked closely with youtube engineers in the past 2 years and can assure you that more often than not, it's a big mess, certainly not a super efficient company as one would expect from a giant like that.

      12 votes
    2. [2]
      JustABanana
      Link Parent

      As it turns out, Internet Explorer 11 is still being served the old design by default, and as the Mozilla engineer notes, Google could have chosen “to service it to Firefox and Edge too.” By not doing it, however, YouTube becomes substantially slower on these browsers

      3 votes
      1. clone1
        Link Parent
        Could it be that internet explorer couldn't run the old design at all? I think Google wanted to put it on as many browser's as possible.

        Could it be that internet explorer couldn't run the old design at all? I think Google wanted to put it on as many browser's as possible.

        2 votes
    3. phedre
      Link Parent
      Seems to be more a case of not giving a fuck than outright malice.

      Seems to be more a case of not giving a fuck than outright malice.

      1 vote
  8. Thoughtninja
    Link
    That's funny because YT runs way worse (all video in fact) for me in Chrome to the point that's the reason I don't use it. I have no interest in Edge due to the fact I'm running Win7 with IE removed.

    That's funny because YT runs way worse (all video in fact) for me in Chrome to the point that's the reason I don't use it. I have no interest in Edge due to the fact I'm running Win7 with IE removed.