YouTube artificially slows down video load times when using Firefox

Re:YouTube artificially slows down video load times when usi... by GuB-42 on Monday November 20, 2023 @08:02AM (#38347364)

Probably because there are other methods for Chrome that don't apply to Firefox.

Like when I noticed that some sites did some URL rewriting trickery on Firefox and others browsers, but not for Chrome. The trick is to show you the proper URL the link points to, but as you click, it is substituted for one that is a redirection, for tracking purposes (ex: "https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http:://actualsite..."). On Chrome, they don't need to use these tricks as the browser supports the "ping" attribute of links, so they can do their tracking without rewriting the URL.

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Re:YouTube artificially slows down video load times when usi... by shantara on Monday November 20, 2023 @08:26AM (#38347643)

I've also noticed this behavior popping up a lot lately, but I had no idea why. The URL with tracking included was still blocked by uBlock Origin, but having to manually copy-paste the relevant portion was an annoyance.

Thanks for the context!

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Re:YouTube artificially slows down video load times when usi... by seba_dos1 on Monday November 20, 2023 @05:55PM (#38356115)

Check out ClearURLs extension.

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Re:YouTube artificially slows down video load times when usi... by Thiez on Monday November 20, 2023 @08:22AM (#38347589)

Wow, that is pretty disgusting behavior.

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Re:YouTube artificially slows down video load times when usi... by shadowgovt on Monday November 20, 2023 @12:57PM (#38351607)

The web developer interprets missing features as damage and polyfills around them.

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Re:YouTube artificially slows down video load times when usi... by JohnFen on Monday November 20, 2023 @06:43PM (#38356659)

This kind of BS is why I don't ever click on links directly. I copy/paste them instead, so I can examine and trim them. Often, the actual link is through some sort of redirection service and I need to copy/paste the text the browser shows for the link rather than the actual link.

There's so much trickery and nonsense around this stuff that no link is safe to just click on.

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Re:YouTube artificially slows down video load times when usi... by l8rlump on Monday November 20, 2023 @10:30PM (#38358733)

Check out the Privacy Badger extension. I believe it removes the tracking stuff from (some) links.

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Re:YouTube artificially slows down video load times when usi... by vanderZwan on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @04:25AM (#38361373)

There are also dedicated link cleaning extensions (I use Neat Url).

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Re:YouTube artificially slows down video load times when usi... by flexagoon on Wednesday November 22, 2023 @01:11AM (#38375333)

You actually don't need to use any dedicated extensions for that, as this functionality is built into uBO, you just need to find a filter list (just search for "ublock origin clearurl list" or whatever)

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Re:YouTube artificially slows down video load times when usi... by vanderZwan on Friday November 24, 2023 @12:42PM (#38406305)

Does it work on links copied from the page for chats?

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Re:YouTube artificially slows down video load times when usi... by JohnFen on Tuesday November 21, 2023 @10:39AM (#38365087)

I use privacy badger, but it doesn't cover everything so I end up having to manually check all links anyway.

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