YouTube is reportedly slowing down videos for Firefox users - eviltoast
  • PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    30
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    They don’t need to put incriminating “if Firefox” statements in their code – the initial page request would have included the user agent and it would be trivial to serve different JavaScript based on what it said.

    • phx@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      27
      ·
      1 year ago

      Easy enough to test though. Load the page with a UA changer and see if it still shows up when Firefox pretends to be Chrome

      • TastehWaffleZ@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        25
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        The video in the linked article does just that. The page takes 5 seconds to load the video, the user changes the UA, they refresh the page and suddenly the video loads instantly. I would have liked to see them change the UA back to Firefox to prove it’s not some weird caching issue though

        • phx@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yeah, and also Edge or an older version of Chrome etc just to be sure.

      • PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I don’t know, nor am I speculating. The person I was replying to said they didn’t see a browser check in the code, which isn’t enough to dismiss it.