www.404media.co Open in urlscan Pro
151.101.67.7  Public Scan

Form analysis
3 forms found in the DOM

<form class="subscribe-form" data-members-form="subscribe">
  <input aria-labelledby="footer-subscribe" data-members-email="" type="email" placeholder="Your email" required="">
  <button type="submit" title="Subscribe" aria-label="Subscribe">
    <i class="icon icon-arrow-right">
  <svg class="icon__svg">
    <use xlink:href="https://www.404media.co/assets/icons/feather-sprite.svg?v=bf780cc532#arrow-right"></use>
  </svg>
</i> </button>
  <div class="message message-success">
    <div class="message__header">
      <div class="message__type">Success</div>
      <div class="message__close js-msg-close"><i class="icon icon-x icon--xs">
  <svg class="icon__svg">
    <use xlink:href="https://www.404media.co/assets/icons/feather-sprite.svg?v=bf780cc532#x"></use>
  </svg>
</i></div>
    </div>
    <div class="message__content"> Great! Check your inbox and click the link to confirm your subscription </div>
  </div>
  <p data-members-error=""><!-- error message will appear here --></p>
</form>

<form data-members-form="subscribe">
  <input data-members-email="" aria-labelledby="post-subscribe" type="email" placeholder="Your email address" required="">
  <button class="btn--brand" type="submit" title="Subscribe" aria-label="Subscribe">
    <i class="icon icon-arrow-right">
  	        <svg class="icon__svg">
    		  <use xlink:href="https://www.404media.co/assets/icons/feather-sprite.svg?v=a043330434#arrow-right"></use>
  			</svg>
	      </i>
  </button>
  <div class="message message-success">
    <div class="message__header">
      <div class="message__type">Success</div>
      <div class="message__close js-msg-close">
        <i class="icon icon-x icon--xs">
  			    <svg class="icon__svg">
    			  <use xlink:href="https://www.404media.co/assets/icons/feather-sprite.svg?v=a043330434#x"></use>
  				</svg>
			  </i>
      </div>
    </div>
    <div class="message__content"> Great! Check your inbox and click the link. </div>
  </div>
  <div class="message message-error">
    <div class="message__header">
      <div class="message__type">Error</div>
      <div class="message__close js-msg-close">
        <i class="icon icon-x icon--xs">
  			    <svg class="icon__svg">
    			  <use xlink:href="https://www.404media.co/assets/icons/feather-sprite.svg?v=a043330434#x"></use>
  				</svg>
			  </i>
      </div>
    </div>
    <div class="message__content"> Please enter a valid email address. </div>
  </div>
</form>

<form class="subscribe-form" data-members-form="subscribe">
  <input aria-labelledby="footer-subscribe" data-members-email="" type="email" placeholder="Your email" required="">
  <button type="submit" title="Subscribe" aria-label="Subscribe">
    <i class="icon icon-arrow-right">
  <svg class="icon__svg">
    <use xlink:href="https://www.404media.co/assets/icons/feather-sprite.svg?v=bf780cc532#arrow-right"></use>
  </svg>
</i> </button>
  <div class="message message-success">
    <div class="message__header">
      <div class="message__type">Success</div>
      <div class="message__close js-msg-close"><i class="icon icon-x icon--xs">
  <svg class="icon__svg">
    <use xlink:href="https://www.404media.co/assets/icons/feather-sprite.svg?v=bf780cc532#x"></use>
  </svg>
</i></div>
    </div>
    <div class="message__content"> Great! Check your inbox and click the link to confirm your subscription </div>
  </div>
  <p data-members-error=""><!-- error message will appear here --></p>
</form>

Text Content

Listen to the 404 Media Podcast

404 Media is an independent, journalist-founded tech news site dedicated to
bringing you unparalleled access to hidden worlds both online and IRL. Subscribe
to our newsletter for updates on our new investigations, articles, and podcasts.

Success

Great! Check your inbox and click the link to confirm your subscription





ACCOUNT

 * Log in
 * Subscribe

NAVIGATION

 * Home

 * About
 * Support/FAQ
 * Podcast
 * Merch
 * Advertise
 * Thanks
 * Privacy

FOLLOW US

Twitter Bluesky Mastodon Instagram TikTok Facebook RSS
Sign in Subscribe
 * About
 * Support/FAQ
 * Podcast
 * Merch
 * Advertise
 * Thanks
 * Privacy

Advertisement
•
Go ad free
Sponsored by Codeword The only marketing agency where everyone reads 404 Media.
Come say hi
Adblock


YOUTUBE SAYS NEW 5-SECOND VIDEO LOAD DELAY IS SUPPOSED TO PUNISH AD BLOCKERS,
NOT FIREFOX USERS

Jason Koebler
· Nov 20, 2023 at 5:36 PM
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."
Become a paid subscriber for unlimited, ad-free articles and access to bonus
content. This site is funded by subscribers and you will be directly powering
our journalism.

SUBSCRIBE

Join the newsletter to get the latest updates.
Success

Great! Check your inbox and click the link.
Error

Please enter a valid email address.

Firefox users across the internet say that they are encountering an “artificial”
five-second load time when they try to watch YouTube videos that exists on
Firefox, but not Chrome. Google, meanwhile, told 404 Media that this is all part
of its larger effort against ad blockers, and that it doesn’t have anything to
do with Firefox at all.

Optically, this is a potentially a big deal: The US government just wrapped up
arguments in a historic and massive antitrust case against Google, and the
company has faced a series of other antitrust suits from state attorneys
general. It is not a good time for Google to be seen as putting its thumb on the
scale against a much smaller competitor.

Here is what this looks like:

This artificial load time has become one of the top topics of conversation on
the YouTube and Firefox subreddits, was at the top of Hacker News, and an
article about it by Android Authority skyrocketed to the top of the r/technology
subreddit. 

The issue, however, is that neither Android Authority nor 404 Media has been
able to recreate the problem, though the code that is apparently causing it can
be easily found while using Firefox. Mozilla, which makes Firefox, told 404
Media that it does not believe this is a Firefox-specific issue. Enough people
have posted about it, however, that it is clearly happening for some users and
not others.

In a statement to 404 Media, Google did not provide specifics but also did not
deny implementing an artificial wait time. “To support a diverse ecosystem of
creators globally and allow billions to access their favorite content on
YouTube, we’ve launched an effort to urge viewers with ad blockers enabled to
allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad free experience, the
spokesperson said. “Users who have ad blockers installed may experience
suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using.”

Multiple Reddit users and Hacker News users have posted videos that show them
trying to load any video on YouTube in Firefox. Most of the page goes completely
blank for five seconds, then the video loads. Multiple users have then used a
“User-agent switcher,” which is an extension that makes Firefox act as though
it’s another browser—in this case, Chrome. The user then loads the YouTube video
instantly.

YouTube’s ‘War’ on Adblockers Shows How Google Controls the Internet
Google’s anti-ad scripts are breaking browsers and privacy plugins. It could get
worse because Google controls the ad market, Chrome, and the extension store.
404 MediaJason Koebler


Videos of this issue, as well as user complaints about it, have spread widely on
the Firefox and YouTube subreddits, as well as on HackerNews, with many users
saying this is happening to them: “This behaviour from Google is beyond
disgusting! Artificial wait on YouTube now if you’re not using Chrome / Edge,”
one post reads. “Youtube has started to artificially slow down video load times
if you use Firefox. Spoofing Chrome magically makes this problem go away,”
another user who experienced the issue posted.

The broader context of all of this is that Google and YouTube have been
tinkering with YouTube’s adblocker detectors, and have been rolling out changes
to how it does this detection regularly and in a staggered fashion. This means
some people have had no problem using adblockers on YouTube, while others can’t
watch videos at all if they have adblocking enabled. YouTube’s adblocker
detectors have also detected some privacy-protecting scripts as being
adblockers, when they actually aren’t. 

The bigger problem, then, is that Google is losing the benefit of the doubt with
the people who use its websites every day. This is something that the
uBlockOrigin adblocking team pointed out in one of its many megathreads about
YouTube’s war on adblockers. The user experience on YouTube varies wildly from
day-to-day and browser to browser. 

It is now, seemingly, implementing quality-of-life problems for some users, but
it’s difficult to tell how, when, to who, and why these changes are being rolled
out on any given day (I didn’t get the wait when I tried both with and without
an ad blocker). In this case, the “artificial wait” doesn’t have any associated
message that tells users that an adblocker may be the reason they’re getting
this delay time. They’re just facing an overall worse experience.  

In 2018, Mozilla engineer Chris Peterson accused Google of making YouTube load
slower on Firefox and Edge. In 2019, Johnathan Nightingale, a former Mozilla
executive, explained that Google regularly pushed updates that made using
Firefox worse: “Google Chrome ads started appearing next to Firefox search
terms. Gmail & docs starts to experience selective performance issues and bugs
on Firefox,” he tweeted.

Last week, Google announced that in June 2024, Chrome will no longer run browser
extensions that use Manifest Version 2 (the Chrome extension platform) and would
only run extensions on Manifest V3, which limits how adblockers work. This means
that current blockers like uBlock Origin will no longer work when Google makes
the switch.

Become a paid subscriber for unlimited, ad-free articles and access to bonus
content. This site is funded by subscribers and you will be directly powering
our journalism.

LATEST POSTS

OPENAI ANNOUNCES SAM ALTMAN IS RETURNING AS CEO WITH A 'NEW BOARD'

NOV 22, 2023

CEO REMINDS EVERYONE HIS COMPANY COLLECTS CUSTOMERS' SLEEP DATA TO MAKE
ZEITGEISTY POINT ABOUT OPENAI DRAMA

NOV 21, 2023

HUGGING FACE REMOVES SINGING AI MODELS OF XI JINPING BUT NOT OF BIDEN

NOV 21, 2023

THE PS5’S $200 PRO-CONTROLLER HAS A MAJOR PROBLEM WITH ITS GRIPS

NOV 21, 2023

YOUTUBE SAYS NEW 5-SECOND VIDEO LOAD DELAY IS SUPPOSED TO PUNISH AD BLOCKERS,
NOT FIREFOX USERS

NOV 20, 2023

NEW OPENAI CEO WAS A CHARACTER IN A HARRY POTTER FANFIC THAT'S WILDLY POPULAR
WITH EFFECTIVE ALTRUISTS

NOV 20, 2023

BING GENERATES DISNEY LOGOS, DEFINITELY WON’T INCUR DISNEY’S WRATH

NOV 20, 2023

BEHIND THE BLOG: THE TIKTOK LETTER, BRAND SAFETY, AND AI GIRLFRIENDS GONE
OFFLINE

NOV 17, 2023

Advertisement
•
Go ad free
Sponsored by Codeword A non-traditional marketing agency for non-traditional
brands.
See what we're about

Advertisement
•
Go ad free
•
Hide



UNPARALLELED ACCESS TO HIDDEN WORLDS BOTH ONLINE AND IRL.

404 Media is a new independent media company founded by technology journalists
Jason Koebler, Emanuel Maiberg, Samantha Cole, and Joseph Cox.
 * About
 * Support/FAQ
 * Podcast
 * Merch
 * Advertise
 * Thanks
 * Privacy

Twitter Bluesky Mastodon Instagram TikTok Facebook RSS
Join the newsletter to get the latest updates.
Success

Great! Check your inbox and click the link to confirm your subscription



© 2023 404 Media. Published with Ghost.