Technology

The fuck?? Isn’t this anti competitive behaviour?

It's bizarre how blatent this is. Google has so much power over web standards that Mozilla have to work really hard to make firefox work, but YouTube don't bother being subtle or clever and just write 'if Firefox, get stuffed' in plain text for everyone to see.

BTW, this:

This is why net neutrality is important. To prevent bullshit like this from happening.

Doesn't this break competition laws?
Couldn't Google/YouTube be sued over this?

I wonder how long it'll be before google gets sued for their anti-competitive behavior.

That's an antitrust case if ever I saw one.

Sometimes I get curious about chromium based browsers and consider giving them a shot for a while.

Then Google does shit like this and I keep mainlining Firefox out of spite. Half the reasons people experience “issues” with Firefox are just dumb garbage like this (see sites / web content being developed with Chrome-based in mind)

Google has been doing this kind of thing for years, to strangle their competition. For example, back when Windows Phone existed, Google went deliberately out of their way to cripple youTube, and maps. Apparently google will do anything they can to create lock-in and faux loyalty.

Google are completely evil. Here we're talking about them using their popular products as weapons against competitors in unrelated areas. But also have a history of copying products made by others then using advertising strength to promote their version over the original. And if that somehow doesn't work... they buy out the competitors. Both youTube and google maps are examples of this.

"Do no evil^1^"

^1^ unless we can make money from it.

Let's remember, fellas, that big tech is not a disease that needs to be eradicated. Let us not forget that Google is a legitimate corporation, not merely a group of professional stalkers. And let's be clear: obviously you are the crazy ones for worrying about this, naturally...

Pardon my jest; I was merely echoing the absurdities often heard.

Maybe just maybe it's time we stop with this garbage and actually stop using their services. Nothing will change if we keep using their services.

The most direct and effective strategy to inspire reform in their practices is to stop using of their platforms. Each time we use a service from Google or any similar big tech entity, we inadvertently endorse their methods.

YOU hold the power to change them by using FOSS alternatives instead.

Did someone actually investigate and find the exact place in scripts where this logic takes place?

EDIT: Yes. https://www.androidauthority.com/youtube-reportedly-slowing-down-videos-firefox-3387206/

Adding this to your uBlock Origin filters also makes the problem go away:

www.youtube.com##+js(nano-stb, resolve(1), *, 0.001)

Not noticing this change from the EU... Guess they're too afraid of pulling that shit here?

imagine sitting down to code this and thinking you're doing the right thing

you should be able to whisteblow clearly evil technology and have some sort of economic safety net

Gmail is almost painfully slow on my PC (I use Adblock on Firefox). Does anyone else experience this?

And, yes, I know Gmail is very bad, you're preaching to the choir. I am in the midst of switching over.

I really hope they try this in the EU. The EU regulatory agencies have been on a roll lately.

Bet it's done in such a way that they can claim "We're just optimizing for Chrome, not slowing down any competitors. It's not our fault our competitors don't using our web engine for their browsers."

I mentioned similar shading behavior on another post, when using Firefox with Chrome or native user agents on the plain old Google search page.

Yeah, user agent switch to chrome made YouTube vid instantly load. Real shitty google!

They are really the worst scumbags ever. They want world domination.

Ah, I was wondering why YouTube was taking so long to load recently. I thought it was just because their code was shit, and it turns out I was right, but not in the way I thought.

I smell a spicy lawsuit

They do the same shit for Google search results. Search weather or stock tickers with a Chrome user agent* and you get a rich, interactive chart of the weather forecast or stock history. Search with another mobile user agent and you get a static snapshot of the weather or stock price at an instant in time.

There's even an extension for Firefox for Android which changes the user agent for Google searches to Chrome, to get the rich content.

* just a user agent, not an actual browser, which proves that it isn't about browser capability, but rather abusing their monopolistic market position in search to further their web browser's market share. Sound familiar, Microsoft from the 90's?