this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2025

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915

Google is intentionally throttling YouTube videos, slowing down users with ad blockers (www.windowscentral.com)

submitted 2 days ago by mesamunefire@piefed.social to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] drhodl@lemmy.world 5 points 12 hours ago

I have no issues at all, once a vid is running. Choosing a vid takes much longer these days though, because the goddam stupid fucking algorhythm serves up 95% slop these days. Already viewed vids, ones expressly blocked, "news" stories that are YEARS old, or those in weird foreign languages, make up most of the garbage I get offered....

[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 5 points 13 hours ago

ublockorigin etc... 5 second unnecessary delay, very annoying . that's my experience

[–] Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 13 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Aha I'm not crazy! There was about a week where YouTube videos were so slow and we mainly use SmartTube on the shield TV, the fucked up part is I pay for YouTube premium, I just like the UI and options available on SmartTube better then the default app.

It did seem to get better, so maybe they realized I fucking pay for this service.

[–] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 2 points 16 hours ago

Or it was just a weird network issue. A week is a long time, though.

[–] vala@lemmy.world 7 points 16 hours ago (5 children)

Sample size one but I'm on Fedora with Firefox and uBlock. Not seeing any issues yet.

[–] Turret3857@infosec.pub 2 points 13 hours ago

I'm on Android w/ PipePipe & GrayJay and have been experiencing issues with videos loading a little then buffering for like 5 minutes

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 1 points 12 hours ago

Same setup, same results. I do intentionally keep the resolution low though.

[–] mondomon@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago

Same, using CleanTube.

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

Same with Piped. Pinchflat downloads it so even if it were throttled when it fetches, it will play at local speeds

[–] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 1 points 16 hours ago

Same on FireDragon with Garuda.

[–] m3t00@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago

might be brain damaged but haven't noticed a slowdown or seen any ads in occasional use.

[–] JATtho@lemmy.world 4 points 17 hours ago

So this is it. The enshittification has reached slowlorris levels.

[–] FE80@lemmy.world 10 points 23 hours ago

Freetube works pretty well, there's a cat and mouse game with youtube changes though.

https://freetubeapp.io/

[–] UltraBlack@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

Remember when videos would buffer all the time on non-chrome browsers lol

[–] AlreadyDefederated@midwest.social 46 points 1 day ago (2 children)

[–] Shaper@lemm.ee 1 points 13 hours ago

Is it possible to post the same video both to youtube and peertube without trouble? I wonder if this is prohibited cause I think many creators would mirror their content to peertube if they could.

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 11 points 1 day ago

Very good news!!

[–] Berlinblades@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

I watch ad free, and screen off through the Brave browser. All good for now.

[–] drhodl@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Same here, but do you notice how bad the algorhythm has become, at offering useful, interesting, or relevant vids..?

[–] Berlinblades@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

Yes I have actually. I thought it was a trump thing. Like you watch one news item featuring him, then they push a hundred reaction videos of some guy playing newsman in his home.

[–] Siresly@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I've noticed occasional "buffering" before playback starts through the past week or so. Takes like ten seconds before the video starts playing. Hasn't been worse than that so far, knock on wood.

Youtube feels like an impossible service to actually compete with, whether through the enormous and complicated setup required or amassing creators/users. It's basically a monopoly and it sucks. One will just have to resist Google's bullshit using whatever means available for as long as possible.

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Still I prefer buffering over the inane noises of commercials

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 4 points 17 hours ago

Yeah, I'd genuinely rather watch whatever amount of seconds forced ads are of black, silent screen than see an ad. It sucks and is awkward, but whatever.

[–] dynamoMaus@feddit.org 4 points 23 hours ago (3 children)

Peertube is working on breaking the monopoly. I try to use it more.

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[–] frenchfryenjoyer 64 points 1 day ago (2 children)

A wild YouTube appeared!

Go, uBlock Origin!

Wild YouTube used Throttle!

It's not very effective...

uBlock Origin used Evolve!

It's super effective!

YouTube fainted!

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[–] whome@discuss.tchncs.de 39 points 1 day ago

So it's wait a few seconds and watch a black screen or watch a minute of ads? What a choice...

[–] catty@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I'm finding I'm using youtube less and less that I can't actually remember the last time I used it for anything. Youtube has so much crap now.

Because of their monetisation scheme for content creators, it was profitable for creators to drag 15 mins of information out to one hour, and then to include shock faces as thumbs to get more clicks, and then to get more viewers just to watch a bit of the video as viewership dwindles into just mindlessly watching suggestions.

I feel sorry for those creators who have gone balls deep with youtube content and who have no "plan b".

[–] lemmyingly@lemm.ee 8 points 22 hours ago

I think that says more about the channels you watch and your viewing habits. I enjoy STEM and STEM related channels; I don't experience the same as what you've described.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 47 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I watched videos on Newgrounds using dial-up

They are going to have to slow ad blockers by a lot for me to consider it slow

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 24 points 1 day ago (2 children)

My wife and I were discussing this. This isnt "slow" to us, its just a tiny bit inconvenient. We were used to the old AOL pictures taking a good minute or two to load.

We would get rid of Youtube before we get ads.

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[–] happydoors@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yo I pay for premium and it’s been fucking slow. Cancel my subscription? Guess I might need to.

[–] scintilla@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I had to turn off privacy badger and ublock for it to not be slow. It's stupid I'm paying for the service to be ad free it should be ad free without complaints.

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[–] benjaminb@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I didn’t know if I’m crazy or of YouTube is genuinely slow for me (with adblocker)

Turns out I was not crazy

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[–] RedEyeFlightControl@lemmy.world 255 points 2 days ago (18 children)

Yeah they are, I noticed it get really, really bad this week. It's an awful experience. But they'll leave my browser before my adblocker does.

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