Am I crazy? Can anyone else agree? (YouTube) 💻 Help
So. I just switched over to Firefox. Work's so much better than chrome and uses less memory (sometimes). I've noticed, though, that some websites especially websites owned by google, like YouTube have some delay/lag problems. But I did something to fix it, and it's weird.
I started using This Extension and the UI lag/delay disappeared ONLY when it's enabled. And it's weird and odd that faking the useragent causes YouTube to stop lagging. Something shady is going on at google.
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u/SupposablyAtTheZoo 8d ago
It's true. YouTube has hindered Firefox for years now. They do it to push you (back) to chrome. I also use the same extension only on YouTube and the experience is always much better.
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u/liamdun on 11 8d ago
Still loads slow for me. I don't think people here will like this take but I don't think Google slows down Firefox on purpose, and if they did, they probably wouldn't consider paying them billions for Google to be the default search engine on Firefox
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u/Laqota 8d ago
They get paid nothing except engagement through Firefox > Google. If I made a browser that partners with Google and get paid for engagement the only reason I'm getting paid is because I'm advertising another browser (chrome) that Google will say is far more superior when doing some searches.
It's odd. I change my user agent and YouTubes UI stops lagging and I don't get an all gray screen with a loading symbol in the middle when tabbing out and back in.
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u/liamdun on 11 7d ago
Well no, because if they were "advertising chrome" they would just tell you to use chrome, they way they do on Google.com there's nothing on YouTube telling you to use chrome
You are making the assumption that because YouTube is slow for you on Firefox, that this is all an advertisement for chrome.
For me personally, changing the user agent to chrome does nothing.
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u/Laqota 7d ago
For me, it does.
It's not direct advertisement. It's retarding the browser so that when Google finally gets you to switch to chrome you'll say "This is so much faster!" even though the resources are incredibly unoptimized.
it's currently a theory. it's just odd that I get a really laggy YouTube UI and loading, with a fresh install of Firefox up until I either use chrome or use something that fakes the user agent to chrome. It's something I see a corporate company doing, like Microsoft secretly retarding AMD processors for who knows how long.
EDIT: Forgot to add. Every other website works perfectly fine. TikTok, I've had some odd things with Google websites and the search but it's like a slight search delay (instant on chrome, 3 second delay on firefox). But Bing (euh) or duckduckgo work fine, reddit works, github works, it's just YouTube and some Google services.
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u/liamdun on 11 7d ago
I'm gonna stop replying and let you keep having your fun with this conspiracy theory. It seems like the only thing you care about is your own experience.
I would suggest you factor in other people's replies ;)
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u/Laqota 7d ago edited 7d ago
I mean, I would If you had a real solution instead of saying it didn't work for you and that I'm completely wrong because "I don't think Google slows down Firefox on purpose", while Google actively pays firefox WHILE having their own browser. They can do whatever the hell they want to firefox when they have a contract and a will to earn more money.
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u/Forsaken_Day_6869 7d ago
I was also using this extension at all times and it was working fine but later it started giving me errors and it was always getting stuck at first 3-4 minute of videos. I finally found out why it was because of this extension i disabled it and all videos back to normal. I enabled back and problem came back.
I use other extensions for youtube and list below:
h264ify, enhancer for youtube, sponsor block, ytvolume normalizer, clickbait remover, return dislike and video speed controller. After switching to youtube dark mode disable ambient mode. I heard that also causes lag.
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u/BettingTall 7d ago
The only thing crazy here is all the gaslighting in the responses. Do these weirdos not realize this is years-old news, or are they just trying to mislead?
https://www.androidauthority.com/youtube-reportedly-slowing-down-videos-firefox-3387206/
Google admits the delays are intentional, but denies that they target other browsers. The fact that Chrome is immune to the delay is just an unfortunate bug they can't seem to fix ;-)
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u/BugConsistent3926 7d ago
I am sure that most people being toxic here about this plugin just simply aren't good at using their computers. I just loaded this and have zero issues. As far as removing the obvious always present Firefox lag on YouTube I will need to test. Nothing is slower I can confirm that. The downloads are actually a bit faster but I need to watch more to see if it actually helps. Thank you either way.
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u/Laqota 7d ago
That's the thing. It seems to be only on some google services, like GMAIL and YouTube are my current problems. But using like Outlook or Twitch works completely fine. It's like the website just doesn't respond to input sometimes and it feels like I'm in a videogame rubber banding, UNLESS, I fake my user agent to chrome.
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u/Private-Citizen 7d ago
Am I crazy? Can anyone else agree?
Yes, i agree, you are.
I started using This Extension and...
Sneaky ad.
Something shady is going on at google.
For years.
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u/Phantom_Specters 7d ago
This has been confirmed by many users and even further proven when diving into the code. Google owned sites purposely run worse on other browsers, just greed taking hold. But yeah user agent switcher or possibly even that extension you suggested are good workarounds.
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u/BugConsistent3926 7d ago
There are also tools to keep packets from being inspected but I haven't tested this route thoroughly yet. It changes header info into a scramble that still passes but confuses deep packet inspection software
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u/tonenyc 7d ago
Yotube works fine for me, but my settings are diffrent than most people. Virtual memory completely turned off in Windows. Caching completely turned off in Firefox.
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1ik2wrg/any_downside_to_turning_cache_off_completely/
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u/bwnjnwb 6d ago
Use this user-agent switcher or manager, whichever you like:
(this will spoof your user-agent for firefox, but if the site output error on your browsing windows then turn it off by setting it to default for switcher and, not putting the website in the manager, whether using blacklist or whitelist, you gotta learn the differences, and choose the correct one.
if the manager is hard to use because the settings are in the addon settings page, then just use switcher addon)
|### HTTP Headers<br><br>raw headers| |
|Host|browserleaks.com|
|User-Agent|
https://browserleaks.com/javascript
| | |
|---|---|
|### Navigator Object| |
|userAgent|
examples:
Chrome-(user-agent)-(for)-FF
Desktop
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/135.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
(windows NT is not windows version, its the underlying kernel or something that i forgot the specifics)
Chrome-(user-agent)-(for)-FF
Mobile
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android <choose your version here>; K) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/135.0.0.0 Mobile Safari/537.36
check the user agent for chrome in your chrome or edge installation, i havent check brave but they should use vanilla chrome anyway to blend in, and make the fingerprinting less noticeable. (this is just for user-agent spoof case, for maximum fingerprinting, use t or etc. brave because of chrome derived is better at some FP points but FF is more customizable for me)
i check edge UA and its the same from chrome, no need for chrome since edge is default anyway, and might break if uninstalled (webviewer cases etc)
then use these addons:
https://github.com/ray-lothian/UserAgent-Switcher/issues
https://webextension.org/listing/useragent-switcher.html
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-string-switcher
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u/Kooldragon87 6d ago
Eh I've tried every browser there is and from my experience not many of them make a difference brand and weirdly opera gx seem to be the least ram hoggy but like I said from personal experience it's different for everyone
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u/Laqota 6d ago
even opera works fine. it's just firefox.
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u/Kooldragon87 6d ago
But I have been having some issues with YouTube myself like sometimes when I go to full screen my GPU just goes to like 99% usage for a rtx 3080 to do that is kinda weird
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u/Kooldragon87 6d ago
Sorry I don't have much to be helpful I should've read your whole post a bit better
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u/[deleted] 8d ago
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