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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

#391

Post by shadowgovt »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #382
Jensson wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google stopped testing stuff in Firefox, that is all they did afaik. We all should know how many bugs and "oppsies" you get when you don't test before releasing new features. Test code snippets being pushed to prod etc. Engineers tend to create paper trails on what they work on, code reviews and bug logs etc are everywhere, so I doubt there is any of those where they say "Make things shit for Firefox to hurt our comp…

Another person is claiming that Google writes custom code for Firefox (or other browsers) to enable tracking, because of the feature difference between Firefox and Chrome [1]. Only one of you can be correct. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38347364

The company is big enough for both of them to be correct.

I have firsthand knowledge that Cloud, for instance, did not test regularly directly on Firefox. Team couldn't justify the cost of setting up and maintaining a FF test suite to satisfy 1 in 50 users, so they didn't (and nobody up-chain pushed back on that). Testing was done regularly on Chrome, Safari, and Edge, as per the usercounts and "top three browser" guidance (at the time, we didn't even test regularly on mobile, since there was a separate mobile client).

But the analytics team? I'm sure they test directly on Firefox. They're just testing an entirely different piece of the elephant and their end-to-ends won't include how, for example, changes they make interoperate with Firefox in the context of Cloud. Or YouTube. Or etc. Not unless they have a specific reason to be concerned enough to.

Google's like any other megacorp in the sense that costs of cross-team coordination are combinatoric.

Re: YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

#392

Post by shmerl »

kjhgksjdfhg wrote: post #27
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...

I'm not even mad about Google making my artificially wait 5s for using firefox. I'm mad that such a big company with suposelly decent engineers, are making me wait 5s with literally a sleep, how is even possible to do such thing in such a rudimentary way? I would be like damn that was smart, this feels like, seriously this is the level?

Reminds me A Ticket to Tranai by Robert Sheckley where they deliberately asked to slow down robots in order for people to be angry and destroy them.

Re: YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

#393

Post by Kwpolska »

taylodl wrote: post #325
beej71 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

_I_ would in their shoes because I'm not just in it for the money and I care about the craft. But clearly I am not them. :-) Mathematically it doesn't make sense for Google. It might make sense from an anti-trust perspective...

It's hard to argue anti-trust when all these browsers are based on Chromium - which is maintained in part by Google, Microsoft, Opera, Vivaldi, Intel, ARM, and Canonical plus several volunteers.

Google is the largest contributor. The others chose Chromium because making a browser that's compatible with all the bloated standards invented by Google would require too much effort.

Re: YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

#394

Post by acdha »

taylodl wrote: post #310
foob wrote: post #219

I use Firefox, and Google's sites are literally the only ones where I consistently have issues. There was a period of about a month this summer where Google Maps was just completely broken for me, the map wouldn't update at all when attempting to search or pan. There was recently a several day span where chat in Gmail had a 10+ second input lag due to some font-related JavaScript code spinning the CPU nonstop. It's l…

It's clear Google is only testing for chrome engine and safari: which comprise 97% of the browsers being used. Would you increase your testing by 50% to thoroughly test for 3% of the market?

Here’s another way to answer that question: do Vimeo, Twitch, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Instagram, TikTok, etc. say “let them use Chrome” or do they manage to do entry-level browser testing? The cost increase is nowhere near 50% and clearly they aren’t willing to write off millions of users – only the company with a direct financial incentive does that.

Yes, Firefox’s market share has been declining but that’s substantially because Google spent billions of dollars marketing Chrome and promoted it heavily on YouTube, Gmail, Search, etc. Deciding not to test or optimize fits neatly into the same pattern.

Re: YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

#395

Post by shadowgovt »

foob wrote: post #219

I use Firefox, and Google's sites are literally the only ones where I consistently have issues. There was a period of about a month this summer where Google Maps was just completely broken for me, the map wouldn't update at all when attempting to search or pan. There was recently a several day span where chat in Gmail had a 10+ second input lag due to some font-related JavaScript code spinning the CPU nonstop. It's l…

You're basically looking at testing being done on Chrome (because it is Google's, and because of its large market share), Safari (because it runs on a large percentage of completely exclusive platforms where the customer can't switch, and because of its large market share), and Edge (because there are still many corporations that do "Nobody ever got fired for choosing Microsoft" and lock down browser options to just Microsoft's offering).

At this point, Firefox is very much an also-ran on two axes: market share is tiny and nobody forces it on their captive audiences. We may as well ask why Google isn't optimizing testing on Opera, or Samsung Internet.

(There is also the issue of under-the-hood engine. Since so many browsers have converged on a few core and JS stacks, testing on one exemplar of that stack has a tendency to suss out bugs in the other stacks. Firefox still being its own special snowflake in terms of JS engine and core means it has more opportunities to be different, for good or for ill. So there's a force-multiplier testing the other browsers that one lacks testing Firefox).

Re: YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

#396

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

taylodl wrote: post #325
beej71 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

_I_ would in their shoes because I'm not just in it for the money and I care about the craft. But clearly I am not them. :-) Mathematically it doesn't make sense for Google. It might make sense from an anti-trust perspective...

It's hard to argue anti-trust when all these browsers are based on Chromium - which is maintained in part by Google, Microsoft, Opera, Vivaldi, Intel, ARM, and Canonical plus several volunteers.

> hard to argue anti-trust

Makes me wonder if it's the wrong strategy and what an alternative might be. In context, one might assume that Google will use the Chromium monoculture to... ahem more assertively deliver advertisements, which would be "a real dick move" as it goes. I don't know how a concerned citizen might bring attention to or possibly prevent the actualization of such a strategy by Google.

Re: YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

#397

Post by acdha »

rsolva wrote: post #388
mighmi wrote: post #2

The most interesting part from the discussion was noting it's implemented in the most basic, easily avoidable way (just spoof chrome) implying engineers unhappy with these tasks. @dang or op, wrong link. Should be: https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/17z8hsz/youtube_ha...

I sometimes wonder if the use of Firefox is under reported just because a lot of it's users are power users, installing extensions that spoof the user agent. I know I did for a long while, making my Firefox pretend it was Chrome on a Windows machine.

This is definitely the case for anything like Google or Adobe Analytics which are blocked by the default tracking protection. You can’t compare the results directly due to bots but on sites I’ve controlled our servers saw significant disparities between the server logs and the percentages commonly reported as global share.

Re: YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

#398

Post by b112 »

Jensson wrote: post #352
b112 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Untrue. I optimized pages pre-2000, and it had always mattered. It's always, always mattered. If anything, people care less today, with the entire ridiculous 100 loads per page.

Of course it always mattered. But at the time lots of people argued it didn't matter, which is why the headline is "Speed matters". You thinking it did matter at the time doesn't mean the general community thought so.

But the general community did care about speed. Everyone worked towards small load times, optimized (for example) image size for optimal load time, everyone cared.

Whomever didn't care was weird.

Re: YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

#399

Post by fckthisguy »

nusl wrote: post #150
chii wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Buy a movie on YT or DVD, and then... watch a torrented version? in which case, why buy it at all? A torrent isn't going to load as fast as what you paid YT for.

The further time goes on toward segmented streaming platforms and DRM bullshit, the deeper my piracy hedge grows. Eventually there will be a streaming service aggregation service a la Cable channels and we're back at square 1. Add to that streaming services pushing new ad schemes now that they've captured enough market share for the risk to be worth it, and we've got a great storm brewing for a resurgence in piracy a…

A half decent NAS, with Dockerised *rr is the gold standard of torrenting. I never knew it could be so painless.

Re: YouTube slows down video load times when using Firefox

#400

Post by da_chicken »

f4c39012 wrote: post #374
giancarlostoro wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've posted this here on HN numerous times over the years, and it's been a while since I last posted it: Google is the new "Microsoft", they embrace, they extend, then extinguish. Look at their email offering, messaging offerings, they built on top of XMPP, then they pulled the plug eventually. Android is Linux based, but insanely proprietary, the app store is not open by any means, you're fully at their whims to get…

don't forget the old Microsoft is still here. We have two Microsofts now!

The old, old Microsoft is still here, too. IBM is still there, a dinosaur in the mist.
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