Some Firefox users noticed playback issues on YouTube for several months. These affected high resolution videos only, from 1080p and up. To make matters worse, no clear pattern could be identified.
Some videos played fine, others would stop abruptly when they ran out of buffer.
Clearly this isn’t an anti-competition effort.
We need to being back trust busting.
FTC is already on Google’s case
Yeah that $1000 fine should fix things (or whatever amount they pick)
75% of annual revenue until the issue is addressed would actually work.
Yes well that’s pie in the sky.
A pie in the face is worth two in the sky.
The question is why? Having big corporations beyond the control of regulation should not be as normalized as it is.
Oh lol so that was it, yesterday all of a sudden 1440p and 4k videos were unwatchable, it was a stutter fest and thought something was wrong with my gpu.
Ya I’ve had this issue for months now, the video will freeze when the original 10 seconds of buffer is used, and it’ll play fine if I skip another 10 seconds but just buffer indefinitely otherwise.
You can get an extension to easily change your browser ‘user agent’ to make YouTube think you’re on chrome lol
Which one
Not OP, I use this https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/uaswitcher/
I’ve been having this exact issue too
I’ve noticed that 60fps videos struggle a lot, even at 720p, suspiciously, no issues on chrome
I have had the same issue for at least a month now. I use YouTube Premium, the fuck am I paying for?
You’re posting for your inability to download ublock.
I already have an uBlock dude, it’s just I like to support content creators on YouTube by having Premium.
Support them directly instead of whatever peanuts google decides to graciously give them.
That’s a lot of effort, given how many people I am subscribed to. And I wouldn’t say that it’ “peanuts”, after all they redistribute 55% of YouTube Premium earnings, that’s a lot more than what other similar subscriptions give.
Would you support that kind of business model if you were at the other end, knowing full well you could be earning more? Then again, this is an age-old question…
For your experience to only be degraded a little.
For an slightly better but still degraded experience they want you on Google Chrome. But remember please use 360p or lower so their poor servers don’t have to work so hard, they even help you do this by default on mobile!
I also pay for YouTube, and I keep chrome around for watching it, and for the Google apps
You’re paying them to sell your data and to better advertise to you.
I stopped watching on their website due to this. It’s faster and I get better scalers on ytdl(p)+mpv
You browse YouTube in the browser then use a handler to send it to MPV?
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Are Piped or vanced affected as well?
No, nither
I had issues yesterday with re vanced, but it was only a couple of videos not all
What is this?
mpv? yt-dlp? mpv is a media player, kind of like VLC but more powerful and lightweight.
yt-dlp is a CLI (command line interface) tool that allows you to download youtube videos as videos, videos without audio, or just as audio files.More powerful and lightweight than VLC? I didn’t know such things existed.
Could you elaborate on your workflow for that? I am really interested in doing the same.
Personally, I copy the url from the link or at worst the url bar after clicking into youtube.
Then ‘mpv + [pasted url]’ into a terminal (I use Yakuake as a quick terminal) and it’s away quicker than youtube.com anyway.
mpv automagically invokes ytdl/yt-dlp if you have it installed on linux or if it’s in the same directory as mpv or in a directory added to your windows search paths on windows. MacOS, just use a package manager like macports/homebrew.
Reminder for everyone to use a user-agent spoofing extension to make their Firefox appear to be chrome/another browser to Google
sadly, skewing stats like that gives Google more reason not to support Firefox in the long run.
Well… yes, but I assume that this specifically was sabotage. Like how Intel products have been throttling amd cpu performance for years.
Absolutely not, I want them to know I’m using Firefox on my Linux computer. I’m doing my best to boost up marketshare.
Just add flag in about:config page
It seems Netflix is able to detect that spoofing, and sends this error when trying to play videos, “Sorry, something went wrong. Please try again later.”. I had to disable my add-ons one by one to identify that it was User Agent Switcher causing it.
Simple solution is to not pay Netflix and just pirate their content. They go out of their way to make the experience worse for paying customers on a regular basis. Sonarr+Jellyfin on an old computer with no video card and you’ve got a better Netflix where your content doesn’t just magically disappear or fail to play on some devices.
This ends with $500/mo Netflix subscriptions. An employee comes to your house and holds a laptop up in front of your couch while looking for hidden cameras camming the show.
Bathroom breaks are allowed, but they’ll pause the show.
*pause the ads
I’ve been really ahpy with Stremio + Real-Debrid. Yes, it costs money, yes it’s worth it (less than 3€/month).
Any piracy costing money is also really really likely to be shut down relatively soon, making you need to change your setup.
Been using it for 2 years, no issues so far.
The DRM module tells Netflix you are on Firefox. For Netflix I would use Chrome on Wine tbh, it now supports 1080p w/o extensions. Or maybe Chromium w/ ChromeOS’ Widevine module + CrOS user agent.
Yuck. Piss on anything chrome related. Just hit the high seas for what you want to watch, it doesn’t care what browser or os you’re using.
Good point
Any you recommend? I tried this during during the first round of YouTube fuckiness on Firefox, and it didn’t seem to make a difference.
I’m also probably the least techy person on Lemmy, so chances are high that I fucked something up.
I personally use Chameleon on Firefox. Alternativly, you may find luck using a web client such as piped.
When it all goes down, there’s always the option of just downloading what you want to watch and watch it in your favorite media player. That’s what I do on my phone since I refuse to watch ads and they make everything buffer. Hit the dl button and in under a minute i have the video downloaded in hd.
what would be the benefit of that?
I solved a lot of performance issues I had with yt playback by disabling Ambient Mode (it’s hidden under cog menu in the player). No clue why, but it was causing massve CPU usage.
Yeah. I hate ambient mode. Kills battery life on all systems.
It’s also really ugly and distracting.
I’m not sure why, but ambient mode also introduces a lot of color banding for me. I find it odd because it doesn’t occur in similar dark-gradient scenes while gaming, just YouTube.
My guess is that it’s supposed to look good if you have HDR enabled (which gives you 10 bits per color channel, although even with HDR, the desktop UI still renders in 8 bits per channel).
But still, it looks terrible for most people, and is a complete waste of resources. Because of the horrible banding, I initially thought something was wrong with my monitor. I don’t understand why they added this feature.
For months I’ve had problems with YouTube videos in Firefox, at any resolution. They would play at really low FPS. Sometimes the player would pause and continue at the correct FPS, but usually not. Skipping backwards or forwards usually fixes it but not always. Another step in their monopoly to destroy competition.
Firefox for Android? Happens with any video, this is not YT bug.
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NewPipe on Android.
Fuck GrayJay, their marketing lies, and their nasty license.
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Advertised as “open source”, violates several key parts of the open source definition. It’s really a “look but don’t touch” thing.
And you do realise ANY copyleft license (GPL, etc) prevents the creation of nonfree applications using that code? Making the app proprietary (yes, GrayJay counts as proprietary) is completely unnecessary.
I know Rossmann brought up NewPipe fakes on the Play Store as justification, but NewPipe is licensed under the GPL. These fakes were already illegal.
If someone posts their source code publicly, it’s open source. It’s unreasonable to ask them to review and maintain every PR sent their way. If they want to work on it by themselves, that’s fine. If you want to fork it and make changes yourself, you can. Literally the only qualification for something to be open source is that the source is open.
It’s also unreasonable to be upset if they tell you you’re not allowed to take their work and re-sell it for your own profit. That would be like saying that artists are in the wrong for being upset that all those AI companies used their work to train their bots without asking. “Why would they prevent the creation of nonfree applications that use their work?!” I assume that’s not your position, right?
But as you said, NewPipe is also copyleft, and it seems like you don’t have a problem with that. So I don’t really understand what your issue is with Grayjay/FUTO. It’s reasonable to be concerned about where their funding comes from, but you haven’t mentioned that. You say they have “marketing lies”, but haven’t pointed to any.
It’s perfectly fine for there to be multiple open source solutions to the same problem, and you’re allowed to have a favorite, but that doesn’t warrant dragging the others’ names through the mud for no reason.
If someone posts their source code publicly, it’s open source.
Uh, no. That’s called “source-available”. Terms have meanings. And from the day the words “open source” started being used, this definition is what defined them: https://opensource.org/osd
You can’t just redefine an established term because it’s inconvenient to your argument.
It’s unreasonable to ask them to review and maintain every PR
Good thing being free/open source doesn’t require that, then? It basically just requires the users be free to make their own modifications and distribute them. No requirement for public development involvement at all, really. It’s standard practice but by no means necessary.
If you want to fork it and make changes for yourself, you can
They can terminate your license for any reason or no reason (stated in the license) making your fork in violation of copyright law :).
In other words, they can take down your fork if they feel like it. Making the ability to fork useless.
literally the only qualification for something to be open source …
Again, terms have established meanings. See above.
It’s also unreasonable to be upset if they tell you you’re not allowed to take their work and re-sell it for your own profit.
I don’t see how this paragraph relates to my point at all. Is it about the NewPipe paid clones? Because they were illegal anyways (copyleft violation), no egregious license needed.
But as you said, NewPipe is also copyleft, and it seems like you don’t have a problem with that. So I don’t really understand what your issue is with Grayjay/FUTO.
What do you mean “also copyleft”? Are you implying the GrayJay license is copyleft? Because it absolutely isn’t. Again, established term, definition: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html
And finally, here’s some particularly nasty parts of the license, which funilly enough you don’t ever see in free/open source licenses (because they’re horribly restrictive terms):
“If you issue proceedings in any jurisdiction against the provider because you consider the provider has infringed copyright or any patent right in respect of the code (including any joinder or counterclaim), your license to the code is automatically terminated.”
“We may suspend, terminate or vary the terms of this license and any access to the code at any time, without notice, for any reason or no reason, in respect of any licensee, group of licensees or all licensees including as may be applicable any sub-licensees.”
You can’t just redefine an established term because it’s inconvenient to your argument.
Agreed, which is why you can’t expect to enforce the definition you like on everyone. The only thing about “open source” that we agree on is that the “source” is “open”.
I’m realizing you’re working with outdated information. Take a look at the license again, it’s been updated.
you can’t expect to enforce the definition you like on everyone
It is literally the definition which has been used since the term’s conception when the open source movement split off from the software freedom movement. It is a well established term with a well established meaning. Just because you don’t want to use that meaning doesn’t mean it isn’t the correct and most widely recognised. Its not that I like the definition, it’s that it is the primary definition and always has been.
Isn’t the greyjay developer team funded by Louis Rossman
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No. Louis works for greyjay. There is some billionaire behind it all.
You know the billionares name, it would be a good idea to see who the people are behind the funding
How can I use those while keeping my watch history automatically sync’d between devices?
Can’t speak for invidious, but grayjay’s youtube plugin has a “Provide Youtube Activity” option in it’s settings to keep history synced.
you can use a native client that incorporates invidious servers like pipe-viewer or minitube to reduce overhead and browser dependence
I love freetube
Me too. So nice not needing an account to keep a playlist or channel subs.
I happens to me but all i thought was that YouTube was bad not Firefox.
It is.
“This problem is triggered by bad muxed VP9 bytestream served by Youtube, so it’s not a regression on our side, this issue can also be reproduced on old versions Firefox”.
If it doesn’t load quickly or properly, I just don’t watch it, which ultimately hurts Google.
Badly muxed VP9 stream? Is that where they tried to stuff ads into it?
No such problems with yt-dlp + mpv. And still no injected ads.
I use Librewolf with Ublock and sponsorblock. Sometimes youtube video stops loading or keeps seeking 5-10 seconds forward. However, reloading the page helps. I don’t have such problems when watching Youtube with mpv.
The youtube ui is so slow I don’t use it, even back when I was using chrome. Thanks invidious!
