YouTube Says New 5-Second Video Load Delay Is Supposed to Punish Ad Blockers, Not Firefox Users
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404media.co
Firefox users are reporting an 'artificial' load time on YouTube videos. YouTube says it's part of a plan to make people who use adblockers "experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using."
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Supposedly Firefox users spoofing the Chrome user agent don't get the issue because the script tries to execute the 5s delay in a way that works on Chrome but not on FF. Because the Chrome method doesn't work on FF, it just gets skipped entirely. But I'm not sure if that's entirely accurate, just read about it.
But then shouldn't there be a delay when using actual Chrome?
There's people reporting exactly that if they're using certain ad-blocking tools.
I did see Chrome users mention a delay (on lemmy) but I haven't personally checked it out
My understanding is the method they can use on chrome is near instant, but the alternative they use on Firefox is slower, hence the delay. Is this BS? Yeah probably, but it does at least logically follow.
It could be as simple as for Chrome assuming there is a certain API, while for Firefox, give it a try and assume no if no response in 5sec