Youtube notching up their commercial attack

[wotnot]

Not sure how many folks are debian linux users here, probably using firefox-esr, but largely anyone using linux/firefox will likely see this...

...what may or may not be widely known, is that users in this group have been able to watch youtube content free of ads, by using one or another extension/plugin -- what they (youtube) want is a subscription to youtube premium for such ad-free viewing.

If you're in this group, you will have noted that youtube playback has become...problematic... from stuttering video playback, through video freezing but audio still playing, to the video stopping replay and you see the twirling buffering arrow....

...as I'm into software devel/testing, I often find the need to record a video, to show the maintainer some unaligned software behaviour that is better in pictures than words ; over the last week or so, even though I can upload these vids fine to youtube, if I go to watch in replay I get...



...however if I load the URL into Chorium browser...you know, that google product...just like youtube is another of their products.... it works.... =)

Cunning bastards....when a video is uploaded to youtube, it's re-encoded (transcoded) into a container that suits, and apparently embedding additional code... to thwart ad-blockers.

...now...if you're in this group, it's very likely you haven't seen this in your face....



....I know I was shocked and horrified when I saw it =) Then it all fell into place...it is this pop-up that the adblockers in firefox-esr are choking on ...they're found a way through...

I just wanted to put this out there, so that users in this group have some answer ...google/youtube have really upped the ante of late ; it's not your system, software, or how much your cat is shedding of late causing this ... it's greed =)

Interestingly not all youtube content if affected ...not sure why yet, but perhaps the content has yet to be re-encoded ....and like, you can just imagine google inc. burning millions of $$$ in electricity, getting their server farms to re-encode all content, just to force their agenda further....

....if you haven't succumb to the hype of immediacy ...that is (simple example)...you don't have to watch the 6pm teevee news to remain current, you can watch it one, two, three hours later and it makes no difference.....same with youtube, you don't have to watch a clip *now*, you can grab it and watch it later.... then they've only 'won' when it comes to real time viewers ...a nod's as good as a wink .... =)

[Jma]

I saw similar issues around 6 months ago, MX-Linux (Debian based) & Firefox ESR.
It appeared they were trying hard to stop viewing ad free without a subscription as I was also getting similar behaviour and messages with Brave & Vivaldi browsers.
Then I think uBlockOrigin caught up with what they were doing and it stopped
Haven't been on there much lately so haven't had the pleasure of dealing with it again.

Occasionally I'd still get the buffering issue and sometimes just trying again later it then played through ok.
Other times if I just skip past the point it's stuck buffering at it'll then continue to play correctly.
I was thinking it was being done deliberately considering it only happened on youtube with a good internet connection and usually only the same point in the timeline of the videos that did it, before or after that point they seemed to play fine.

[lsemmens]

I'm on Mint with Ublock Origin, can't say I've noticed a problem, but then I hardly watch YouTube anyway. I have noticed that Youtube video downloader extension has become problematic with the video clips that I do use (these are generally songs that I am learning) so I've taken to using Audacity to record the audio as it plays in real time. That solves most of my problems.

[wotnot]

Finally found a reference to this problem -->

So my suppositions/testing align with what they found ~ it has no real discernible pattern, and has something to do with YT's VP9 video encoding...

...apparently fixed as of firefox v127.xx ... but of course, debian being what it is, is only shipping firefox-esr based upon firefox v115.xx ...(even testing & unstable)..

So....my solution is this ---> ....and follow the "Local Firefox installation in user's account" route.

This gets you to firefox v130.x (which contains the fix), as a stand-alone app in your user's homedir, and you can install ublock into that, and everything's back to normal. ad-free YT watching.

I do it like that (instead of adding the mozilla repo to apt's source.list), because it doesn't futz with the debain system-wide install... which eventually the debian maintainers will update and fix.

HTH

[Jma]

Getting the occasional message from Youtube about my internet being offline now when I try to watch some videos with uBlock Origin enabled, click the message and it starts playing.
Haven't been on there for weeks so no idea when that started...