If it is a old video (3 days), just search for it in DDG, and just watch it via DDG.

This is not a solution that will work for mom and pop. Exactly the kind of workaround that relegates Firefox to being a "techies only" browser.

Firefox's irrelevance is why it's regulated to techies. And sure, you're free to blame Google for some of that, but let's not pretend Mozilla has always been some wellspring of user-pleasing decision making.

> Youtube on firefox has been broken since they started their ad-blocker brigade.

I use Youtube in Firefox daily, even in Strict mode with many user.js tweaks, and have never had a problem.

> The UI has become sluggish and 'pause-y'.

Get a faster computer.

This is the wrong assumption to make. I can tell you as someone with a powerful rig that is by no stretch a "slouch" sitting at 0% CPU and 0% GPU I have seen Youtube act like garbage for absolutely no reason. I've even had video playback skip ahead a second as well and it throws me off when watching videos.

> Get a faster computer

or... and keep up with me here. Google has been known to do A/B testing on users. Just because your part of "B" group that doesn't see it doesn't mean that it's not happening. It only means Google is artificially putting their thumb on the scale and I take serious issue with people handwaving issues with "get a better computer" Nothing is wrong with my computer and only Youtube has this issue, any other video platform does not do this so why is it only Youtube?

> Get a faster computer.

Yeah my m2 max is a total fucking slouch, just barely better than a 486.

If you can't play videos on an M2, that's not a Youtube problem, that's a "you messed your computer up" problem.

Vimeo works fine, nebula works fine, max works fine.. youtube videos play fine, the ui is hitchy/pause-y/janky. It's WIDELY reported that this is a problem with youtube specifically on firefox and ONLY since they went on their adblocker blocking schemes. (even though I subscribe to youtube premium and disable my adblocker on their site). This happens if I have 100 tabs open or if I cold boot my system and start up a new firefox with a single tab.

Swallow your fucking pride and admit that you don't know what you are talking about.