YouTube delays

Earlier this week, there was reports that YouTube deliberately slowed down Firefox. While the slow down was real (at least for certain users), there are claims it wasn’t specific to Firefox.

404Media reports YouTube Says New 5-Second Video Load Delay Is Supposed to Punish Ad Blockers, Not Firefox Users:

Firefox users across the internet say that they are encountering an “artificial” five-second load time when they try to watch YouTube videos that exists on Firefox, but not Chrome. Google, meanwhile, told 404 Media that this is all part of its larger effort against ad blockers, and that it doesn’t have anything to do with Firefox at all.

I wouldn’t take these words as is given Google actions and how Chrome is the new Internet Explorer¹.

However:

[…] Mozilla, which makes Firefox, told 404 Media that it does not believe this is a Firefox-specific issue.

But it’s interesting if they actually want to fight ad blocking that way. There are already workarounds, so it won’t last.

Maybe we’ll have a case of Streisand effect making the DoJ to have a look into it.