Recently, many internet users have been complaining about YouTube running slower in the Firefox browser, claims they shared on platforms such as Reddit. Allegedly, YouTube was deliberately loading videos with a five-second delay in Firefox and some other browsers. A statement came from YouTube regarding the issue.
YouTube blames ad blockers
According to the video and streaming platform’s statement to The Verge, the reason for these delays is the effort to neutralize ad blockers. According to YouTube Communications Manager Christopher Lawton, who made the statement, the cause of the problem experienced in recent weeks is ad blockers. Those who use ad blockers may experience such loading delays no matter what browser they use. Lawton also stated that turning off ad blockers would solve the problem.
Another point that Lawton drew attention to was that such problems may continue to occur while YouTube’s mechanisms for detecting ad blockers are being developed. The fact that some users stated that they also experienced the problem in Chrome and Edge browsers makes us think that YouTube is right. Mozilla’s Senior Brand Manager Damiano DeMonte told The Verge that they did not find “any indication that the problem is specific to Firefox.”
We did not encounter any lag problems in our own small test. The loading time we achieved with YouTube Premium in the Chrome browser was faster than the loading time with the ad blocker in Firefox, but there was no obvious difference. This delay did not reach 5 seconds, as other users claimed. Of course, this experiment is a small experiment and does not show a definitive result.
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