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YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

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Re: YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

#101

Post by psll »

Lacerda69 wrote: post #11
m4tthumphrey wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting as I had noticed this happening to me (in Chrome) when the anti-ad-blocking started. I assumed that it was YT's way of "annoying" me still while no ads were shown... It was eventually replaced with the "You cant use Adblockers modal" and now I just tolerate the ads. So I wonder if that 5s delay has always been there.

It's weird but I saw the anti-blocker modal a week or two but them it stopped appearing and never saw it since shrug

Might be because of the EU ruling, if you're in the EU.

Re: YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

#102

Post by lucideer »

asddubs wrote: post #89
kristopolous wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it works. Good engineering isn't about being obtuse and convoluted, it's about making stuff that works.

when the purpose is to abuse your monopoly to further your business interests in another area, being obtuse and convoluted to get plausible deniability is good engineering. This is just sloppy.

I think this is a good example of corporations being made up of people, rather than being contiguous coordinated entities as many of us sometimes think of them.

An engineer doing "good engineering" on a feature typically depends not only on them being a "good engineer" but also on them having some actual interest in implementing that feature.

Re: YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

#103

Post by Dumble »

qwery wrote: post #95
ayhanfuat wrote: post #3

From reddit discussion ( https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/17ywbjj/comment/k9... ): > To clarify it more, it's simply this code in their polymer script link: > setTimeout(function() { c(); a.resolve(1) }, 5E3); > which doesn't do anything except making you wait 5s (5E3 = 5000ms = 5s). You can search for it easily in https://www.youtube.com/s/desktop/96766c85/jsbin/desktop_pol...

Is the use of the "E" notation common in JS? I can see that it (could be) less bytes, obviously more efficient for bigger values... Looking at the script I can see it is minified or whatever we call that these days. I guess my question really is: did someone write "5E3" or did the minifier choose it? (Sorry this is heading into the weeds, but I'm not really a web developer so maybe someone can tell me!)

Totally possible that the minifier did this, yes.

Re: YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

#104

Post by xxs »

enlyth wrote: post #78
vanderZwan wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think they let inexperienced developers touch the YT code base without proper code review? Even if that were the case, which is an extremely charitable assumption, that itself would be malice in my opinion.

> You think they let inexperienced developers touch the YT code base Uh, yes? We were all inexperienced at some point. Just the linked file is like 300k lines of unminified code, I doubt it's all written by PHDs with 20 years of experience

Some would argue that owning a PhD degree does not necessarily guarantee half decent engineering skills.

Re: YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

#105

Post by ftk_ »

MrNeon wrote: post #65
blueflow wrote: post #31

If you are fluent with the terminal, you don't need to suffer from the YT Web UI. Install mpv and yt-dlp. Play videos like this: mpv [--no-video] "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9zVjEZ7W8Q" Option in brackets is optional.

One feature it lacks is seek bar previews. There are thumbnail scripts but they don't use the available youtube thumbnails.

I implemented downloading of youtube thumbnails for one of these scripts.

https://github.com/marzzzello/mpv_thumbnail_script

Re: YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

#108

Post by dewey »

imiric wrote: post #49
blueflow wrote: post #31

If you are fluent with the terminal, you don't need to suffer from the YT Web UI. Install mpv and yt-dlp. Play videos like this: mpv [--no-video] "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9zVjEZ7W8Q" Option in brackets is optional.

This is the way. I really don't understand why any technically proficient user would willingly use any of the official YouTube frontends. You get bombarded with ads, you're constantly tracked and experimented on, and your behavior is used to improve their algorithms in order to keep you on the site for as long as possible. It's a hostile user experience, just like most of the mainstream web. Whenever possible, I sugg…

> I really don't understand why any technically proficient user would willingly use any of the official YouTube frontends.

- Because I don't see ads with YouTube Premium

- Because I add things to my playlists

- Because I more often than not find interesting things to watch there

- Because I like using it on my phone or TV

There's a lot of reasons why someone would prefer the official apps over some third party app that might break every few months.

Re: YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

#109

Post by petargyurov »

bad_user wrote: post #26

I am not getting this behaviour in Firefox 120. Tried it, logged out as well. > setTimeout(function() { c(); a.resolve(1) }, 5E3); The code looks like a silly concurrency bug fix, i.e., a lazy way to force ordering.

A 5 SECOND timeout for a concurrency issue? I doubt it.

Re: YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

#110

Post by asddubs »

lucideer wrote: post #102
asddubs wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when the purpose is to abuse your monopoly to further your business interests in another area, being obtuse and convoluted to get plausible deniability is good engineering. This is just sloppy.

I think this is a good example of corporations being made up of people, rather than being contiguous coordinated entities as many of us sometimes think of them. An engineer doing "good engineering" on a feature typically depends not only on them being a "good engineer" but also on them having some actual interest in implementing that feature.

I would imagine that in a well coordinated company engaging in this kind of thing, the order wouldn't be "slow down firefox", but something along the lines of "use XYZ feature that firefox doesn't support and then use this polyfill for FF, which happens to be slow". Something that doesn't look too incriminating during any potential discovery process, while still getting you what you want.
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