Starting today, YouTube is almost unusable on Firefox

https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1f30ku4/youtube_sabotaging_on_firefox/

by 3371 • 2 years ago

271 242 2 years ago

old.reddit.com

PaulHoule10• 2 years ago

Google has been degrading YouTube in Firefox for me for about six months. Where are the antitrust enforcers when you need them?

supermatt3• 2 years ago

Have you reported it to them? I have nothing but praise for the EC on the way they have handled the few complaints I have registered regarding such things.

PaulHoule10• 2 years ago

I thought support from Google was "talk to the hand"; all the time I see posts where people got no satisfaction from Google make it to the HN front page.

sunaookami2• 2 years ago

I complained about Chrome Web Store but they said it's not a gateekeper even though everything applies... They aren't very competent it seems

darby_nine3• 2 years ago

Google may yet be forced to divest from Chrome as a result of the recent judgement.

zarzavat• 2 years ago

maleldil• 2 years ago

Would that force them not to give Chrome preferential treatment? Even if Chrome becomes independent, it will still likely be the most used browser. Google could just do what other companies already do, and never test on Firefox anyway.

safety1st• 2 years ago

Well, um, er.

As a matter of fact the antitrust enforcers just won their case against Google.

They are in the remedy phase now. Figuring out what Google's punishment is going to be.

Google no longer being allowed to pay Firefox for its default search placement is most certainly in play as part of the possible remedies.

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/boom-judge-rules-google-i...

If you follow the money the idea that Google would sabotage Firefox doesn't make a lot of sense.

It's more likely that Google kept Firefox on life support so they could plausibly deny that they had a browser monopoly. Firefox blew that by mismanaging its market share into oblivion though.

mort96• 2 years ago

AFAIU that case is about Google's search engine monopoly, not about their browser engine monopoly, so I'm not sure how it's relevant.

(Except that it might dry up Firefox's funding if Google won't pay Mozilla to be the default browser engine anymore...)

wannacboatmovie• 2 years ago

We are supposed to believe Google hires some of the most brilliant minds on the planet, but I've yet to see evidence of this. YouTube has been unusable for years and is only getting worse. When one of your flagship products is unusable for both technical people and novices alike, in my mind you have failed as a company. The front end is what the user sees and what matters. YouTube was a better product 10 years ago and they know it.

wilsonnb32• 2 years ago

They have billions of monthly active users, many of whom are literally toddlers. I think "unusable" is a bit too much hyperbole.

Reubachi3• 2 years ago

While diminishing return products from hyper rich mega corporations is an issue, being as hyperbolically critical as possible only muddies the water and allows the slide to keep happening.

"Youtube has been unusable for years and is only getting worse." I only use FF on a work laptop, and I only use brave at home. No issues, ever. In fact, YTP is the one sub service i've paid for uninterrupted over my adult life. (shill post over.)

How can I help you get back to using youtube, and what about is getting worse that I can keep an eye on?

EasyMark2• 2 years ago

Can you say what in particular? Maybe you’re using it in a different way than me. tI never seem to have any issues with YouTube, albeit I’m not a heavy user, and I never post videos and I use block origin to block ads; I just consume video content. The DMCA limitations on high Rez stuff is annoying but that’s a licensing issue. It’s not exactly the fastest website on the planet, but it works fine

bmicraft• 2 years ago

I'm always hearing that, but I've yet to see a single video load slow enough to notice. And I'm using YouTube quite a lot.

whalesalad• 2 years ago

Happens to me all the time. I switched to Chrome just due to the way Firefox sucks with YouTube. This is on Linux, 5k display, YT premium, highest quality available.

ilrwbwrkhv2• 2 years ago

Yeah, it's time for Google to be broken up into pieces because of anti-competitive laws and really get back to making America into a capitalistic society once again.

darby_nine3• 2 years ago

Yeah, it's time for Google to be broken up into pieces because of anti-competitive laws and really get back to making America into a capitalistic society once again.

Isn't that what got us into this mess in the first place? Seems to me that anti-competitive practices are the logical conclusion of privately-owned enterprise.

EDIT: to be clear, I'm very pro breaking up google. I'm just surprised that people are coming back around to the idea that government intervention is necessary to balance a stable economy with a private one.

Spooky23• 2 years ago

There’s a balance between allowing for the freedom to encourage innovative growth and regulatory regimes to govern behavior in more stable markets.

We’d be using AT&T’s version of AOL for $150/mo without breakup of that company.

prartichoke• 2 years ago

What got us here is a capitalistic society where antitrust laws are not implemented in practice. Time to go back to square one and change that

tdb7893• 2 years ago

It's hard to get more capitalistic that the owners of capital trying to build monopolies since that's what maximizes value for shareholders.

Turns out "free markets" (by the econ 101 definition) are bad for capital owners so they try to have the markets be as not free as possible, I'm shocked they would do this (well, not that shocked)

PaulHoule10• 2 years ago

See

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism#Definition

to note that "Capitalism" is really a technical term from Marxist theory. Advocates of capitalism will never find a definition they accept because they want to have one that encompasses all the good (of which there is plenty) and rejects the bad (of which there is also plenty)

Positing such as thing as "Capitalism" is positing that there could be some other system or that the current system could have an end. Advocates of the status quo really believe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_is_no_alternative

want to treat prosystemic economics as a science like physics or chemistry, etc.

If there is a way our system can claim to be better than others it is because we have competition in markets, politically, etc.

pessimizer3• 2 years ago

Capitalism, an undeniable driver of innovation, incentivizes firms to endlessly innovate ways to avoid competition. The only question is whether the anti-competitive innovation is more or less expensive than the innovation they'll have to do to compete.

It's not even really a question, it's a collective action problem, nominally hampered by price-fixing laws. Price-fixing laws are an indication that the desire to avoid competition is so strong and so dangerous that to slow it down we're willing to abridge the supposedly universal freedoms of speech and of association.

croisillon2• 2 years ago

with ublock i never had problems and no ads either

miah_6• 2 years ago

Same it has worked fine for me for ages with Ublock, but this week it has been _bad_. I recently switched to 5g for home internet (i live in the woods), and thought that was the cause. But seeing others complain about it leaves me to believe some Google Manager is upset that people are A. blocking ads, and B. using Firefox.

tgv• 2 years ago

I think I only have problems when there's a chat channel.

cholantesh4• 2 years ago

I have occasionally run into a weird issue when I jump from one video to another - Video 1's title, comments and description (and maybe its recommendations?) will be displayed but Video 2 will play in the container. Load times are also wonky, but that's about it.

croisillon2• 2 years ago

maybe i'm not such a heavy user

louky• 2 years ago

Glad I saw this - I thought it was some local issue. Amazingly laggy for me with firefox/Debian 12. I restarted firefox thinking it was the problem, apparently not. Very high CPU usage as well.

neilv3• 2 years ago

Just now, I soon saw excessive delays on Debian 12 with `firefox-esr`, more than the occasional usual-of-late several-second blank video area spinner, though the videos otherwise play OK.

The noticeable first delay this session, they displayed a still image of the Chrome logo in the video area, with text saying that they recommend Chrome, and maybe a button to get Chrome.

(Edit: Screenshot from reproducing this in new browser session; again, it was the first ad, blocking before playing any content video: https://i.imgur.com/GkasyRX.png )

(I'm wondering why they bother with this, if under antitrust scrutiny, when they have more subtle and deniable ways of leveraging their platform control.)

Though, I should mention that YouTube is not showing ad videos when it seems to be trying to, which could explain some of these delays. It will overlay white text in upper left of video area, identifying an advertiser (e.g., Old Spice, Liberty Mutual?), but then not run the ad at all, and move on after several seconds. I suppose that my uBlock Origin rules might be blocking something for ad display now, though that's not my intent (and I normally see YouTube videos without having consciously changed something since then), or the ad-showing failure might be the fault of YouTube.

eadmund• 2 years ago

YouTube is barely usable on Google’s YouTube app on Google’s Pixel phones running Google’s Android OS at the moment.

It used to be that if one were watching one YouTube video and followed a YouTube link to another, that one would be prompted to either enqueue that video or go to it immediately. I used that all the time to enqueue an evening’s worth of videos.

Now, each link interrupts the current video and starts playing. Which means that I instead have to watch the video, then go back to my list of videos to watch, then select another one.

Also, it used to be that YouTube links would just open in the YouTube app. This was nice. Now, they open in an embedded version of the app, which means that my current app (say, an RSS reader) is blocked until I finish watching.

It’s all so annoying. Why does Google make the experience of using its own products worse?

Oh, yeah: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41337899

PaulHoule10• 2 years ago

My take is that Google products have always punished people who have bad internet connections. 10 years ago I had a crappy DSL connection which could usually handle Netflix, Amazon Video, etc. YouTube was unreliable.

Google Meet never worked well for me, even after I got my ADSL upgraded to a more reasonable 20Mbps. Zoom works fine. Skype works fine. Discord works fine. The chat built into Slack... works fine. Google is a standout.

kccqzy2• 2 years ago

Your take directly contradicts my personal experience. 10 years ago I had a crappy internet connection that went down to as little as 10KB/s (severe network congestion and building management didn't care). YouTube served 144p video when every other video site went down only to 240p or even 320p, which was unusable on this connection.

aners_xyz• 2 years ago

There are significantly less bugs on the IOS version of YouTube which pretty much sums up the whole situation.

Ygg2• 2 years ago

I've noticed background Youtube Tabs, seem to eat memory like crazy. At one point I swear it went to 20GiB of RAM.

graemep• 2 years ago

Works fine for me. Firefox on Linux.

brink• 2 years ago

No, it happens for me on Linux too. Yesterday it crashed the page on my new laptop.

tyfon• 2 years ago

Same for me. I have yt premium + ublock origin, perhaps this is related to their war non premium users having adblock.

Narishma2• 2 years ago

No, it's become unusable with or without ublock origin for me.

mmh0000• 2 years ago

Starting yesterday afternoon, YouTube doesn't play anything in Firefox (+ublock +sponserblock on Linux) for me. Thankfully, youtube-dlp still works just fine, so it's a minor inconvenience.

__MatrixMan__2• 2 years ago

There's a lot of important stuff on YouTube. Google doesn't really feel trustworthy enough to be in charge of it. What options do we have to ensure that people can still access that information or whatever if the degradation gets to a point where it's literally unusable? Is the internet archive sufficient? I feel like I should be participating somehow...

exe342• 2 years ago

If there's something I value, I keep my own copy.

__MatrixMan__2• 2 years ago

Do you get much value out of a youtube video the second time around? If I need to figure out which screws to remove or something like that, it's probably the first and last time I'll need that particular information.

If you're not also ensuring that others can access that copy then I don't really see the point.

miroljub• 2 years ago

Can confirm.

Google is a new Microsoft, they leverage their position to cross promote their shit browser and their shit data stealing services.

Sorry guys, if your data collection website doesn't work well with Firefox and uBlock Origin, I just won't use it.

amelius2• 2 years ago

Thank heavens there is https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

escapecharacter• 2 years ago

if only this existed for meetings

dspillett• 2 years ago

And on mobile, things like https://grayjay.app/

illegalmemory• 2 years ago

Not only YouTube, but even Google Meet is completely unusable on Firefox. I've noticed memory usage spikes on Firefox, while all other video conferencing platforms work fine. On Chrome, it works perfectly.

throwway120385• 2 years ago

It'll also randomly bug out and drop the network connection. Although it is so far the only videoconferencing platform that actually works with Pipewire.

multimoon• 2 years ago

The behavior is awful, but I wouldn’t call chrome shit. I keep trying to switch away and keep ending back up on it because everything else has inferior performance, or is just a clone of chrome and its rendering engine.

PaulHoule10• 2 years ago

I still develop some rather complex React applications on Firefox at work and let the tester see if it works on Chrome. There is one page in our admin interface that loads 40,000 records that is much worse on Firefox than Chrome.

I am noticing an increasing number of sites that just plain don't work on Firefox including the one I use to pay my credit card.

ericmcer• 2 years ago

Frontend devs usually know exactly what browsers they support and to what level. I wonder if at Google the list is just Chrome and other browsers can deal with it.

VancouverMan3• 2 years ago

Promoting Chrome may have gotten more people to install it and give it a try, but it didn't force those people to continue using Chrome. It didn't force them to keep using Chrome for years and years, in many cases.

Most people, including a great many former Firefox users, simply chose to keep on using Chrome because it offered (and still offers) a superior web browsing experience compared to its competitors.

This isn't specifically tied to the performance of Google's various web sites, either. Firefox still feels slow and bloated even on non-Google web sites. A lot of people who don't even use Google's web sites or services still choose to use Chrome anyway.

Many of Chrome's users could easily switch to Firefox at any time, yet they choose not to.

Firefox's developers simply haven't given people a compelling reason to start (or to switch back to) using Firefox.

AlwaysRock2• 2 years ago

Promoting Chrome may have gotten more people to install it and give it a try, but it didn't force those people to continue using Chrome. It didn't force them to keep using Chrome for years and years, in many cases.

Isnt a huge reason Google just lost its anti trust case exactly this? Google search is the default on iphones and studies, and the court, found that that was enough to make a huge majority of users stay with google search for years and years.

pyrale3• 2 years ago

Bundling IE may have gotten more people to give it a try, but it didn't force those people to continue using IE. It didn't force them to keep using IE for years and years, in many cases.

Most people, including a great many former Netscape users, simply chose to keep on using IE because it offered (and still offers) a superior web browsing experience compared to its competitors.

miah_6• 2 years ago

DEVO got America so right:

Freedom of choice

Is what you got

Freedom from choice

Is what you want

jarsin3• 2 years ago

And to think Chrome was such a savior from the IE hell we all were in back in the day. It's almost like all the MS execs ended up at (do no) Evil Corp.

gertop• 2 years ago

Your version of history is bizarre. Firefox was the one that stole the market from IE. Chrome saved us from a (at the time) very sluggish Firefox.

wilsonnb32• 2 years ago

You really think Google is trying to steal the 5% market share that Firefox has held on to?

I doubt they think about Firefox much at all.

VancouverMan3• 2 years ago

I think putting Firefox's share of the market at 5% is being quite generous.

All of the metrics I've seen lately for a variety of web sites indicate that Firefox has less than 3% of the overall market.

The mobile situation is particularly bleak, where I've yet to see it even get close to breaking 1%.

At this point, Firefox's share of the market is closer to that of Mosaic, Navigator, and IE than it is to Chrome, Safari, and Edge.

buro9• 2 years ago

I found it freezes every 60 seconds, and I just click the "Share" button and "Starting at", and copied the time into the URL and reload the page... then it works.

After a few times I got into the habit of "increment seconds by 60, reload page".

I don't know why it has to be so hard, I seldom to never go to YouTube now because of how badly it works.

Feels super anti-competitive to own YouTube and Chrome, and to punish Firefox users so aggressively.

xnickb• 2 years ago

Might as well just download videos and watch them later.

FriedrichN• 2 years ago

This is actually what I do most of the time. I feel like that anecdote of RMS where he says he wgets web pages and e-mails them to himself.

cholantesh4• 2 years ago

The one thing you lose I guess is discovery, but the algorithm is so volatile that maybe that's not the worst thing in the world.

bell-cot• 2 years ago

Doing a quick test (Windows 10, Firefox, NoScript, Privacy Badger) - it seems to work fine for me.

FWIW, I've got NoScript blocking most of the sites that YouTube wants to use js from.

phaedrus• 2 years ago

I have the "DF YouTube (Distraction Free)" Firefox extension installed, hiding anything to do with suggested videos. YouTube is working for me with Firefox on Windows 11 about the same way it has all month.

mrkramer• 2 years ago

They do it every now and then, and then they claim that it is a bug. Yea sure.

scrlk• 2 years ago

Seems to be okay for me on FF 129.0.2 + uBlock Origin, running on Windows 11.

Looking through the Reddit comments, users running older versions of FF may be affected? Seeing a few people commenting that they're seeing this YT issue with v88, 110, 115 ESR and 121.

mypastself• 2 years ago

Same here, with the caveat that Google has managed to successfully bully me into paying for Premium some time ago. Not sure if any Premium users are affected.

hightrix• 2 years ago

Same setup here, but without premium. I'm seeing no issues.

chii• 2 years ago

i am using the ESR version and the slowness definitely exists here.

The slowness accumulates after the infinite scroll loads a lot (e.g., the subscriptions page or the home page, or comments). Refreshing fixes it, but now you've lost the old position and have to re-scroll back (which, causes the slowness once again).

mykowebhn• 2 years ago

I have the latest Firefox on Mac OS, and no problems for me. I pay for Youtube Premium, though. I wonder if that makes a difference.

danielbln• 2 years ago

Same here, macOS and premium and can't tell any difference to using YouTube on Chrome.

faaarmer• 2 years ago

I use MacOS, Youtube Premium and I can tell a difference in general usability since switching from Chrome to Firefox. Skipping 10 seconds using left and right keys is much slower in Firefox vs Chrome.

danaris• 2 years ago

I have the latest Firefox on macOS and do not pay for Premium, and I have been having no problems with YouTube.

drpossum• 2 years ago

I've got premium and am using MacOS and I've had to kill my browser several times in the last couple days because it froze up. I'm using M3s if it makes a difference.

entropicdrifter3• 2 years ago

Working fine for me over here. Firefox on M1 Pro Mac, also YT Premium. I'll check on my gaming PC (Linux Mint 22, Firefox)

kjkjadksj• 2 years ago

Even with ubo I’ve been getting a flash of ads on youtube website. I might not see the ad but I will see the keyframe as well as a black loading screen for about as long as it takes for the skip button to appear on that ad. The solution was to of course pull the video directly.

zelias• 2 years ago

going by Hanlon's Razor, i would guess that this is merely the result of an engineering update that nobody bothered to QA on Firefox rather than a malicious attack on a single browser that isn't _really_ winning market share

let's not assume Google malice is _too_ competent

kccqzy2• 2 years ago

That's totally true, but it's still Google's fault.

I found a nice article on exactly this from a former Mozilla exec: https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has...

Gmail & [Google] Docs started to experience selective performance issues and bugs on Firefox. Demo sites would falsely block Firefox as 'incompatible' […] All of this is stuff you're allowed to do to compete, of course. But we were still a search partner, so we'd say 'hey what gives?' And every time, they'd say, 'oops. That was accidental. We'll fix it in the next push in 2 weeks.' […] Over and over. Oops. Another accident. We'll fix it soon. We want the same things. We're on the same team. There were dozens of oopses. Hundreds maybe?

This latest article is basically the same thing again. Google would tell Mozilla it's a genuine bug; they would fix it soon; but Mozilla loses some users and Chrome gains some. Nothing new.

timw4mail• 2 years ago

Yeah no, this has happened too many times to be just incompetence. It's malicious, plain and simple.

dymk2• 2 years ago

Everybody knows a company can’t be incompetent a bunch of times in a row.

daedrdev• 2 years ago

Still they shouldn't let this happen considering their antitrust scrutiny

Kiro• 2 years ago

Yeah, I'm baffled that people on HN will happily accept pretty damning conspiracy theories at face value when there are much more plausible explanations available.

My app is also having performance issues with WebGL on Firefox so I guess I'm part of the conspiracy?

riiii2• 2 years ago

These are glaringly obvious flaws that even a basic rudimentary QA test will uncover.

AlwaysRock2• 2 years ago

No one bothered to QA the browser with the 4th largest market share? The willful negligence is the malicious.

thebytefairy2• 2 years ago

Wouldn't be surprised. The 4th largest browser is a mere 2.7% of the market. What about the fifth and sixth? If I had to decide how to allocate testing hours, I probably wouldn't put much into the 2.7% vs the top 3 with 88%.

observationist• 2 years ago

Google is a megacorp - Hanlon's razor doesn't apply.

Just because there's no one person twirling their mustache and mwahahaha-ing doesn't mean this isn't malicious and hostile behavior by Google. It doesn't matter even if there's no individual human at Google that intended this.

What does matter is that the leadership at Google clearly doesn't do what is necessary in preventing hostile behavior as a consequence of negligence. They know that if they don't put in the effort to ensure compatibility, side effects will degrade competitor performance. It's an inevitable consequence; they've done, and been forced to do, the right thing, and provide quality assurance and compatibility review in complex systems. There are people that know the consequences of not being proactive. Hell, they probably have lawyers that know the exact numbers - they probably make some tens of millions of dollars more revenue by "slacking off" and not being proactive about compatibility.

bawolff3• 2 years ago

Google is a megacorp - Hanlon's razor doesn't apply.

On the contrary, i think it applies more. The larger the group, the more stupid stuff it does.

chippiewill• 2 years ago

The idea that Youtube wouldn't QA test on Firefox is ludicrous.

Yes, it's not a massive browser share these days, but it's basically the only major browser left that doesn't share any lineage for the rendering engine.

I agree it'll be incompetence, but they'll definitely have Firefox QA testing.

BenoitEssiambre3• 2 years ago

Imo, it's just too difficult to maintain compatibility through a natural language specification.

Things like browsers need some kind of open source reference implementation to act as a spec to maintain interoperability.

https://benoitessiambre.com/specification.html

carpenecopinum• 2 years ago

1) I'm reasonably confident that this issue is not an accident. Better compatibility / better specs won't help here, I'm afraid.

2) A reference implementation for browser-features is an insanely complex project. Already there are effectively only two entities on the entire planet who can produce a browser that is reasonably close to the current spec. If you forced a reference implementation to exist, it'd probably just end up being Chrome(ium), which is arguably an even worse situation than where we are now.

BenoitEssiambre3• 2 years ago

You don't think Mozilla adopting chromium or a fork of it would fix a lot of their problems?

robin_reala2• 2 years ago

It existed and was called Amaya.[1] Unfortunately it was way too expensive to keep it up to date with the ever-evolving specifications, and slowing down spec development was a non-starter. So it was canned.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaya_(web_editor)

PaulHoule10• 2 years ago

WSYIWYG web editing seems to be impossible. CMS systems seem to have mostly given up on interactive HTML editors and switched to things like markdown.

I want to like Dreamweaver but whenever I try to use it there is a 1-2 sec delay between me typing text in and it appearing on the screen.

Most HTML editors behave like they are possessed by the devil: try to select the text in an <h1> and somehow it either selects everything but the first character or it selects all the text before the <h1> and also the <h1>.

bigfishrunning• 2 years ago

A reference implementation isn't really enough either though. Think about Perl, which is implementation defined, vs Python, which is specification defined.

Python is much more successful (it really ate Perl's lunch), and less of a moving target, because of this. Alternate implementations of don't really exist, because they're always having to play catch-up. Python's specifications level the field a bit.

BenoitEssiambre3• 2 years ago

Python has open source implementations that act as defacto standard, as specification of the details.

bamboozled• 2 years ago

The iPhone app sucks too, am I the only one who force quits the app to get back to the search screen ?

a1o• 2 years ago

This is all browsers that aren't Safari in iPhone. I have to do this too with Chrome on my iPhone too.

KptMarchewa• 2 years ago

Google Flights has been broken on Firefox for as long as I can remember.

kuschku• 2 years ago

It works perfectly fine (everything loads instantly) when I'm logged in with an account that has YouTube Premium.

But when I try using it with an account that doesn't have YouTube Premium, on the same browser, on the same hardware, everything hangs for 30+ seconds.

Hmmmmmmmmm?

entropicdrifter3• 2 years ago

Adtech bloatware causing issues, maybe?

bloopernova• 2 years ago

I don't know what the solution is to private/shareholder corporations that own a defacto public space like YouTube and Twitter.

Maybe we're still in the big bang of the Internet and this will fix itself over time. Although I'd really like a public organization like the Library of Congress to support archival of public spaces.

Which makes me wonder: If society decides that viewing information is a right, does that lead to government sponsorship of browsers? i.e. if viewing information is a right, then an information viewer is an important thing that must be open and unfettered by monetary interests. Considering how much gets pumped into Congressional jobs programs, a few million to hire some good software engineers seems easy to support.

robin_reala2• 2 years ago

Oops.

(context: https://archive.is/tgIH9)

markus_zhang8• 2 years ago

On a side note, I have been reflecting on the impact of modern Internet contents on me for the last 12 years or so. The conclusion is, for whatever the reason, the impact is mostly negative. It would do me a great favor to simply remove Youtube, social media sites and anything similar from my life.

I probably have ADHD. I rarely completed any side projects. I'm anxious most if the time, biting my fingers all the time, a habit I formed before I reached teenage. Having access to the modern Internet makes everything above worse, a lot worse. Yes they also introduced a lot of ineresting things to me, but there are endless amount of interesting things in the world and I need to focus on a couple of them to get a deeper understanding. Reading new contents every day is my escape, not my medicine.

Maybe I should just block myself from the Internet. I taught myself Foxbase and Foxpro back in the 90s without the Internet. I taught myself C++ in 2012 without the modern Internet (SO was the only source I inquired and the experience was bad). If I really want to achieve something meaningful in the rest of my life, which is about 3 to 4 decades based on the mortality curve, I probably should just plug off from the internet.

But how do I do that? Apparently Internet is essential nowadays for day to day chores, and my family absoutely needs a high speed Internet. How can I go back to the cave? I don't have enough will power to do that.

jarsin3• 2 years ago

I saw a tip once from a 3D artist on how he mastered sculpting. Everyday he would force himself to just sculpt a straight line on his model. This one line was enough to engage his brain and before he knew it he would keep sculpting.

I use this in coding. Just do this one function then you can do whatever. Most of the time I won't go back to procrastinating, but end up spending an hour or so working on the project.

I also think the opposite is true. If you try to force yourself to work many hours per day on side projects by disabling the internet or netflix etc. you will burn out.

dwighttk• 2 years ago

In Plato’s allegory of the cave it isn’t the cave you want to go back to, it is your family you want to awaken to the fact that they are inside he cave being entertained by shadow puppets.

nilsherzig• 2 years ago

I can recommend leechblock a lot. It allows you to block websites using Regex and some time based rules.

You could for example block reddit from 0800 to 1900 but still open individual posts you found while using a search engine. For me (I have ADHD, but I don't think that makes the difference in this case) that's the perfect balance between usability and avoiding endless scrolling.

markus_zhang8• 2 years ago

Thanks. I'll give it a try. Right now I probably need to fix my flooding basement and my mood first. I kinda don't want to do anything after work.

scohesc• 2 years ago

If it helps you at all - you're definitely not alone with this, I'm going through the same "existential crisis" of sorts in my 30s.

The internet and the variety of content and dopamine sources are horrible for some people who have ADHD, myself included. So much time wasted last decade going down the rabbithole on Youtube, Wikipedia, video games, etc. with deep regrets of missing out on more important things in life like networking, socializing, trying new things, etc. Not sure if you feel that way as well.

Even with long-term medication (Vyvanse)- which I have my own personal reservations about if they really "work" or not - I still struggle with this daily.

If you're looking/asking for advice - for me, I've found that taking drastic, meaningful actions help. "ripping the bandaid off", if you're familiar with that phrase.

I've unplugged my gaming PC, threw the power cord in the trash, and challenged myself to go as long as I could without it. I purchased a lower-end laptop and dock to plug into to still have dual monitors. It's not powerful enough to play the games I want to play which was the point, but I could still run VS Code to work with Python, Javascript, spin up webservers to play around, etc.

I ended up lasting a couple of weeks before purchasing a new power cord - but I did learn to remember that I do like programming/scripting.

The lack of self-control/willpower sucks. It would be nice if there were ADHD life coaches that didn't cost an arm and a leg.

markus_zhang8• 2 years ago

Thanks. I think I'm fine with missing out on networking or other human interaction because I'm pretty awkward with that, even after getting married and a son. But yeah I get your feeling because I do regret missing out other things like growing my careers or focusing on something more meaningful.

I feel that you are not at peace with yourself yet. I can't have that too, maybe for the whole life. I hope eventually you can have peace with yourself.

Actually, the more I read your post, the more I feel that we have the same issues. I had those "ripping the Band-Aid off" moments too, but they never worked for long. I also lack self-control/willpower and fancy about a service that throws me into a prison and forces me to do what I want to focus on.

MisterTea2• 2 years ago

I probably have ADHD.

Very familiar with ADHD and anxiety which is extremely disruptive. I sometimes think its more of a autistic spectrum thing as there is a vivid world of thought in my head I retreat into and the real world. The anxiety part is where the self sabotage comes from as you get bad thoughts stuck in your head which puts fear into you and causes a feed-back loop of doom that leads to depression. That or you invent all sorts of "bad" fantasy outcomes or scenarios that become excuses to avoid anxiety causing things without ever attempting anything. That leads to depression.

I think the right answer is therapy and likely medication. I am currently looking for therapy but navigating the US medical system and insurance bullshit is triggering on every level causing anxiety, depression, and rage. I suppose I'll have to sacrifice my savings and pay out of pocket.

Good luck, stay strong, and remember - you can overcome it. It takes effort which for us is very very difficult.

MisterTea2• 2 years ago

P.S. Youtube sucks and I avoid it like the plague. Video as a form of blog is crap IMO, especially if you have ADHD and so on. I just want to skim a text article and if I see enough interesting information I'll take the time to read it.

markus_zhang8• 2 years ago

Thanks. I can relate. I'm making appointments for tests and therapy as I'm 100% sure whether I have ADHD. I'll also pay it out of pocket.

Thanks for the encouragement.

perihelion_zero• 2 years ago

I feel like I'm in a similar boat. Like 6 different mental disorders including constantly pulling my hair out.

I've contemplating sales calls. You can theoretically make like on the order of over $1000/hour while sitting on a bench or walking on a trail. It can be done in short bursts once you get the hang of it.

Then once you have some financial freedom in a few hours of successful work (not the first few hours), you can sell other people designs for clubhouses and build them all over the world and pay people to show up to club meetings (because sadly that is the only way).

Modern workplaces are a lot like clubhouses because everyone is friends there, but they suck because you have to be there all day. If you could just show up to any workplace for a few hours here and there whenever you wanted, the world would be a better place. Some days you could be a dishwasher, other days you could be a bulldozer operator or dig in the mines. I like to try new jobs.

That's my business idea, thanks.

markus_zhang8• 2 years ago

I actually pushed myself into a Sales position 10 years ago. I worked as a stock broker for a few years, just for the challenge. Eventually I realized that I really hated this kind of job, so I quit the job without earning anything substantial.

I wish you good luck!

whamlastxmas4• 2 years ago

My adhd was helped a lot by:

Reading about adhd to understand how it impacts your brain and life

Reading about coping mechanisms and actually doing them

Things everyone hears and never does but it absolutely helps: good diet, exercise, meditation

Work on any other mental health issues you have

Therapy

Lots of trial and error of management methods to see what works

Learning to be kind to myself

Stopping “I should” statements.

Realizing that if something was actually that important to me, I would work on it. If I don’t finish a side project it means it probably isn’t that important and that’s okay

And medication, which alone is at least 30% of the improvement

markus_zhang8• 2 years ago

Thanks. I guess eventually I need to be at peace with myself, which I cannot do that. TBH I loathe myself. I can lie to others but I cannot lie to myself. I guess therapy is probably my best resort.

ASalazarMX• 2 years ago

I'd advise people not to self-diagnose with mental diseases, go to a doctor and get checked. Being neurodivergent became fashionable, but there's natural neural diversity among humans. Most people are easily distracted, have difficulty focusing, are unusually sad/tired or happy/energetic according to the whims of life, etc. Most people need to overcome this so they make an effort to put aside distractions, concentrate, be more resilient to uncertainty, etc.

Normal humans have a wide range of neural diversity, that's not a disease.

markus_zhang8• 2 years ago

Yeah I totally agree. I'm going to get it checked out. I just think that without any external help, it is hopeless for me to push away distractions for a reasonably long time. So either I find a way to increase my will power, or find a way to numb my sensitivity to the distractions.

_proofs• 2 years ago

as someone who suffers similar experiences, especially ocd related to nail-biting and rumination/adhd rabbit-holes, something i've adopted is a shift in attitude: i decided a while ago i was going to stop punishing or shaming myself for what my brain finds interesting or worth pursuing (ie: the "rabbit-hole", the fixation, the current dopamine drip).

most of the time my rabbit holes are pragmatic and related to a hobby, skill, or educational/learning.

but sometimes the rabbit holes are escapism -- and instead of telling myself this is wasted time, i've tried to develop a more cooperative relationship w my feelings and my brain --the brain, the body, perhaps the "spirit" was in need of rest, and it recuperates in ways that generally are creature comforts (maybe reading or Netflix binges or video games and chess or sleeping for me, YMMV w.r.t. "meaningless" activities).

this has mitigated a lot of the existential dread i previously would experience, especially in how i relate to perceived "wasted time".

obviously this is my experience and i do not mean to imply the above anecdote as being a prescriptive change, but the existential dilemmas i'd find myself in due to whatever neuro divergence i demonstrate, have gotten a lot less frequent, and i find myself enjoying these experiences, and therefore appreciating my rabbit-holes more and more over time. or rather, appreciating my brain, and my experiences overall.

i've tried the preventative and/or tried fighting "against the current", so to speak, and it always left me exhausted, depressed, despairing, lamenting, and floating back the way i came, so i kinda said fuck it, built myself a raft that i strengthen over time, and just navigate the waters as they come.

edit: i realize i drifted away from the original topic -- i've had the opposite experience with the internet. while it has contributed to me consuming otherwise "meaningless" content from time to time for no other reason than wanting to be a couch potate, i have benefitted from the ease of access to information in such a crazy fucking way, especially with platforms like youtube (and forums, or aggregators) -- i mean we effectively have libraries in various forms and abstractions at our fingertips. yes it means accessible vectors for distraction, but man -- it's single-handedly the one tool my life has benefitted the most from using -- and that includes some of the listed pursuits involving networking, relationship building/socializing, my career, my "real-world" interests and experiences, good, bad, and everything in between.

pragmar• 2 years ago

Became unusable for me (Firefox/Win) a few months back on my laptop with integrated intel graphics. Fine on other computers with more capable hardware. The solution was an extension called h264ify. There was something about the vp8/9 codec that was bringing Firefox to its knees. h264ify avoids those codecs altogether on Youtube.

j16sdiz• 2 years ago

It works for me on Windows 10, Firefox Developer Edition, no addon that touches youtube. Logged in, not premium

dncornholio2• 2 years ago

Try scrolling through comments or watch a video with chat. It seems the slowdowns happen in those components.

everyone• 2 years ago

I havent had performance issues, but I did have a very annoying issue recently where it would only show 3 videos per row. I tried a bunch of potential fixes but the one that worked for me was actually adding this custom filter to ublock origin...

youtube.com##ytd-rich-grid-renderer:style(--ytd-rich-grid-items-per-row: 5 !important)

xnx• 2 years ago

Just tried it out and ... it works fine?

Kye2• 2 years ago

Not to WOMM, but as a data point, it's working perfectly for me in Firefox on Windows with uBlock Origin. Is this one of those A/B test things where I'll get it eventually? I know the ad bomb rolled out slowly[0] and we know they're looking for a way to foil ad blocking without drawing bad press and regulatory scrutiny.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23769291

mrandish4• 2 years ago

I just checked and YT is normal for me in FF 129.0.2 (64-bit). YT specific add-ons: uBlock Origin, Nova YouTube (userscript with dozens of modules to fix various YT behaviors and UI annoyances), and Enhancer for YouTube (adds more playback speeds, fixes default player size & volume levels).

Since YT in my FF is heavily modified to be not awful, maybe the regression is in something my add-on stack is blocking.

inhumantsar• 2 years ago

Nova YouTube

looked this up out of curiosity. the only thing resembling a description is "Combine small plugins, expanding the possibilities of YouTube." which is pretty useless.

what all does this do?

amanzi• 2 years ago

Same here, using Firefox 129.0.2 on Windows 10. uBlock running and I also have Firefox's "Enhanced Tracking Protection" turned up to max.

I did have issues with YouTube recently - I was getting some of the same symptoms described in the Reddit post. But tracked it down to me changing my user-agent to Chrome, which I had forgotten about. This was also causing issues with reCaptcha and Cloudflare-protected sites.

HungSu• 2 years ago

What is WOMM?

Kye2• 2 years ago

Works On My Machine

dncornholio2• 2 years ago

Conspiracy theorists on top already even though this also happened on Chrome multiple times in history. Sometimes software can be a bitch, there's no reason to believe this is intentional

wsdookadr• 2 years ago

NAS with lots of storage + tubesync + jellyfin. problem solved.

cut3• 2 years ago

Google docs blocks the ability to print in firefox, it will instead always save as pdf. Google doesnt even try to hide its anticompetitive practices at this point.

bastard_op• 2 years ago

It's not only windows, it's happening to me on arch linux with firefox as well. Has been for a few days now.

jeroenhd• 2 years ago

Took a performance benchmark in both Firefox and Brave. Both of them are unusually slow (addons/extensions disabled, fresh profile), but Firefox especially so. Source for the huge render times seems to be desktop_polymer.js, specifically the part that's registering and setting up custom web components. Once the website loads, performance becomes a lot better.

My guess is that a Polymer update made Youtube slower for everyone, but SpiderMonkey isn't particularly great at the kind of excess operations that have been added. Firefox in particular seems to suffer from complete UI freezes whereas Chromium browsers seem to just have slow tabs when the browser is overwhelmed.

While I certainly wouldn't be surprised if this is part of an anti-adblocker mechanism, not every slowdown on Google's websites is done out of malice. Some of it is just caused by bugs.

IncreasePosts2• 2 years ago

Also, it is Firefox on the desktop. 90% of YouTube views come from mobile, and Firefox only has about 5% market share on the desktop. So desktop Firefox is a half a percent of the overall users of youtube.

Is it any surprise that maintaining support for a browser that delivers less than a percent of the total users is deprioritized or just forgotten about?

miah_6• 2 years ago

Despite those stats, if Google wants to avoid being called a monopoly they need to support it, and it needs to receive the same level of support as their own product.

pessimizer3• 2 years ago

If they're doing it to intentionally damage firefox because they feel it is competition, that's an argument for Chrome to be severed from google.

If they're inadvertently doing it because firefox is so insignificant as not to be worth thinking about, that's an argument for Chrome to be severed from google.

ChocolateGod• 2 years ago

I have a strong feeling the developers behind sites like YouTube and Reddit don't actually use the software they make, because both are slow and laggy to use on any computer I use.

I just can't think of any other reason why they're both so infamously bad.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF• 2 years ago

As they say, you aren't the customer, the advertiser is the customer.

If the site works for the 95% of ad dollars who use Chrome on their phones, it works as intended.

ohthatsnotright• 2 years ago

Working on software rarely, especially at large companies, means you have any sort of agency over the features of the software. That's Not Your Job (TM).

zagrebian• 2 years ago

They use it but in Chrome on a maxed out MacBook Pro

thebytefairy2• 2 years ago

What actions do you find slow and laggy? There are definitely UX improvements, but I don't find either laggy on the multiple platforms I use them on, as long as I have a good network connection.

neilv3• 2 years ago

Since YouTube has massive resources and famed tooling&processes, presumably either they knew about the Firefox problems before deploying, or (if there was a genuine QA mistake) they'd know about it very soon after deploy, when they'd be able to rollback if they wanted to.

(Obviously, they know about Firefox, they've developed for it since it was available, and they've even been funding it.)

PaulHoule10• 2 years ago

Google funding Firefox is part of the problem. It contributes to the perception of corruption around the Mozilla organization, just as it does when the bus has a supergraphic ad for a car dealership on it.

If the EU was serious about privacy they'd fully fund Firefox.

bawolff3• 2 years ago

I always find these comments a bit rediculous. You think that big corporations are incapable of having accidental bugs?

Wish that were true. The world would be a much less buggy place.

roughly2• 2 years ago

You’d be shocked how shitty the development practices inside a bigco can be. Working at a FAANG-level company is profoundly disillusioning.

MyFedora• 2 years ago

It feels more like YouTube just doesn't prioritize an unpopular browser. Google only put resources into Firefox so they can say they're not a monopoly, but that strategy didn't really pan out. So, now, they're probably going to stop caring about Firefox altogether.

genewitch• 2 years ago

even after load, youtube shorts (the doomscrolling section of youtube) has a 2-3 second lag between when the audio starts on a new video and when the video starts moving.

seems monopolistic. what's goin on with peertube and rumble these days

smegger001• 2 years ago

my question is why isn't this being tested for before it is rolled out? shouldn't google be running testing on their sites for each of the major browsers before dropping it on everyone?

aidenn02• 2 years ago

Another wild-ass guess is that a lot of garbage may be generated? I had to use an intranet site that was developed on an older version of vue, and that version apparently was a profligate allocator; difference between chromium and firefox was stark.

On an only-slightly-related note, if anyone knows how to use the new firefox profiler when there is no internet access, please point me at it.

rasz• 2 years ago

desktop_polymer.js

its doing such fun things as patching tons of standard js methods (.append() .appendChild() etc) for no reason other than maybe fighting adblockers?

When debugging own scripts/extensions running on YT every other call to standard function ends up calling some proxy in desktop_polymer.js

amelius2• 2 years ago

"Our mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

MrVitaliy• 2 years ago

Just have two browsers. Use Chrome for only youtube and google apps. And Firefox for rest of web use.

meiraleal• 2 years ago

Still working fine for me, Firefox/Linux.

oglop• 2 years ago

Weird. Works just fine for me, in that my CPU skyrockets in usage on that process and stays pegged at 100% or higher for about 5 mins before calming down.

Just a normal day on YouTube for me.

riiii2• 2 years ago

Works for me, but the settings cog hasn't been OK for a long time, the settings menu doesn't have any text.

But all my Firefox problems happen on Google owned sites. Maps navigation doesn't highlight the route (desktop). Google image search doesn't work (desktop).

vergessenmir• 2 years ago

I use zen. Ditched firefox and brave irrationally last week because youtube runs so much better and page loading is fast. Let's see how long this change lasts

Trebhawkins• 2 years ago

Why are you even allowing satanic Google access to your Firefox? Keep YouTube corralled in Chrome. No sense in consorting with satan anymore than we need to.

bArray• 2 years ago

There seems to be two bugs here, one that YouTube seems to have regressed on a popular browser choice, but also that Firefox allows any website to claim enough resources to make the entire browser inoperable.

tempaccount4202• 2 years ago

Everyone is talking about Google breaking something, but what if this is something Firefox has to fix? If it works in Chrome and not Firefox, it should be a browser bug, not website bug.

ilaksh• 2 years ago

What are the alternatives to YouTube these days?

reaperducer• 2 years ago

Coincidentally, today I tried to log in to Google AdSense for the first time in months using Firefox. Google simply will not permit it.

  Couldn’t sign you in
  This browser or app may not be secure. Learn more
  Try using a different browser. If you’re already   using a supported browser, you can try again to sign in.

I checked, and my version of Firefox is up to date. I know I could play reindeer games with the user agent, but I shouldn't have to.

Surprisingly, to me, it had no problem with Duck's browser. I thought that would be on the forbidden-by-Google list, too.

lainproliant• 2 years ago

Never assume as malice what can more easily be explained by incompetence or accident.

aidenn02• 2 years ago

Works fine for me?

[edit]

Just ran into the issue when clicking on a video someone else linked; yt homepage was fine though; weird.

natch• 2 years ago

Starting today, almost everything is unusable on Firefox. Seems like there’s been some change in DNS or maybe it’s just my ISP but Safari is fine.

Narishma2• 2 years ago

Seems like they have reverted whatever update from yesterday that caused this. It's back to normal for me on Firefox ESR.

rldjbpin• 2 years ago

if it is indeed an intended user experience, then i expect non-chrome users to only prosper by either paying for premium or by turning to browser extensions to improve youtube.

i'd wager that those choosing to installing firefox are more likely to go to this route themselves.

tempaccount4202• 2 years ago

Everyone is talking about Google breaking something, but what if this is something Firefox has to fix? If it works in Chrome and not Firefox, it should be a browser bug, not website bug.

3371• 2 years ago

Because it did not happen after a Firefox update?

Starting today, YouTube is almost unusable on Firefox

Related Stories