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Google Has Made YouTube Slower on Edge and Firefox, Mozilla Alleges (neowin.net)

Usama Jawad, writing for Neowin: Early last year, YouTube received a design refresh with Google's own Polymer library which enabled "quicker feature development" for the platform. Now, a Mozilla executive is claiming that Google has made YouTube slower on Edge and Firefox by using this framework. In a thread on Twitter, Mozilla's Technical Program Manager has stated that YouTube's Polymer redesign relies heavily on the deprecated Shadow DOM v0 API, which is only available in Chrome. This in turn makes the site around five times slower on competing browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox. Further reading: Safari Users Unable to Play Newer 4K Video On YouTube in Native Resolution.

145 comments

  1. Chrome is the new IE 6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Long live IE6

    1. Re:Chrome is the new IE 6 by The+Original+CDR · · Score: 1

      No kidding. My company's IT department is supporting Chrome for a cloud-based help desk system AND Internet Explorer for everything else.

    2. Re:Chrome is the new IE 6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Long live IE6

      Well, one thing IE6 wasn't:

      Spyware.

      It certainly has that over Chrome.

    3. Re: Chrome is the new IE 6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      But it sure made it easy to install some for you!

    4. Re:Chrome is the new IE 6 by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1, Redundant

      Nope, don't think so. IE6 was an arrogant and conceited browser implementation from Microsoft that totally disregarded any standard and overlooked whatever critic. Chrome has some extra internals that might be used by a web site [detecting Chrome] but it respects the CSS standards, meaning you can still make a page using only the standard CSS that will load nicely in Chrome. In IE6 that was not possible.

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    5. Re:Chrome is the new IE 6 by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      When they start being as obnoxious to support, watch me drop support for Chrome.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    6. Re:Chrome is the new IE 6 by KiloByte · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, one thing IE6 wasn't: Spyware.

      IE was wide open to spyware, but technology marches on: Chrome has it integrated!

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    7. Re:Chrome is the new IE 6 by KiloByte · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Please read the summary: YouTube uses something that has never been a standard, it was merely a basis for a prepared standard. Think of Microsoft Office vs what they submitted as OOXML.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    8. Re:Chrome is the new IE 6 by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 0

      Again, any CSS standard page runs fine on Chrome, not on IE6 (even with the standard at the time). This is the difference. Now, again, Chrome offers some API that are not standard, and sites may or may not use them. Youtube does.

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    9. Re:Chrome is the new IE 6 by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      Which is exactly what IE6 did... It encouraged you to use the non standard APIs, thus rendering sites incompatible with other browsers.

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    10. Re:Chrome is the new IE 6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This guy gets it, your Google messiah has lead you astray

    11. Re:Chrome is the new IE 6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those 8 people will show em! BOOYA!

    12. Re: Chrome is the new IE 6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ie6 also implemented standard APIs differently. Even Microsoft couldn't keep up with it. Compatibility mode didn't just tweak the ie rendering engine, it switches it out with the old version.

    13. Re:Chrome is the new IE 6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please read the summary: YouTube uses something that has never been a standard, it was merely a basis for a prepaid standard. Think of Microsoft Office vs what they submitted as OOXML.
      FTFY

    14. Re:Chrome is the new IE 6 by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 1

      Good analogy, but there are two critical differences:
      1. Google continues to develop Chrome (IE6 stayed stagnant for a long time)
      2. New versions of Chrome don't break your Web site like new versions of IE.

    15. Re:Chrome is the new IE 6 by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      Which is exactly what IE6 did...

      No, ie6 gave the user no choice. Devs had to develop specific (i.e. not standard) otherwise their pages would look bad. At least Chrome renders standard code pages OK.

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    16. Re:Chrome is the new IE 6 by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      It implemented standards around at the time just as badly as competing browsers (ie netscape 4.x) did...

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    17. Re:Chrome is the new IE 6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chrome (well, actually blink) is quite quirky. You don't notice it because, like IE6, the web has adapted so Chrome is pretty much guaranteed to work everywhere. But take a version of Chrome that's a year or two old and try using it and you'll see a lot of stuff breaks, because that version of Chrome has a whole different set of quirks, and no one bothers working around them anymore because virtually everyone is on the latest version of Chrome, or maybe the latest version - 1. On the other hand, a version of Firefox a year or two out of date doesn't have these problems because Firefox does a much better job of implementing and following the actual standards.

  2. video loads first now, too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This means that after the page finished loading, any resize that you've done gets reverted.... good job Google.

  3. I think I've noticed this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    On Firefox, the video portion loads right away, and all the other shit I don't care about loads later. Sometimes quite a bit later.

    But, as I said I don't care about that, so I thought maybe Google was purposely loading the actual content first.

  4. Just part of their war on... everyone by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is what happens when any corporation gets into too many supporting markets. That situation rewards anticompetitive behavior. Google has every incentive to use Youtube to prop up Chrome, and vice versa. They have become Microsoft.

    Remember when Google declared that Amazon Fire TV users would no longer be able to use an app to access their site, because rea$ons? Well, that's still the state of affairs. You have to use a browser instead of an App because Amazon won't carry Google's devices in their web store. Well, Google doesn't carry Amazon's devices in their web store, either. How on earth is this not anticompetitive?

    While I'd like to see Google held accountable for their anticompetitive behavior, the best solution is still for someone else to spin up a video streaming site. There's enough people who want an alternative to Youtube for it to work out. But it has to be at least as friendly to uploaders as Youtube...

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I remember when they added video adverts, that was bad enough (remember when it was just text advertising?) Now because they keep fucking with monetization content creators are setting sometimes up to 3 ads per 25 minute video which is beyond what I care to deal with. There are a few YouTube only shows I'm gonna miss, that said there are a lot of sites out there that (with adBlock) mirror the content and give me less hassle.

      It's not that I don't want to support creators, I just don't want to support Google's scummy behavior anymore

    2. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 1

      While I'd like to see Google held accountable for their anticompetitive behavior, the best solution is still for someone else to spin up a video streaming site. There's enough people who want an alternative to Youtube for it to work out. But it has to be at least as friendly to uploaders as Youtube...

      They're steadily working on making that an easier hurdle to clear.

    3. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by swilver · · Score: 1

      Brilliant idea. I'll get some servers and spin up a YouTube replacement, give me a couple.

    4. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Brilliant idea. I'll get some servers and spin up a YouTube replacement, give me a couple.

      When I say "someone" above, I obviously mean "some corporation". To me, the obvious candidate is Amazon. Youtube was viable for Google because they were already sitting on a gigantic cluster, and already had massive brand recognition. Ditto Amazon.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by Luthair · · Score: 1

      Remember when Google declared that Amazon Fire TV users would no longer be able to use an app to access their site, because rea$ons? Well, that's still the state of affairs. You have to use a browser instead of an App because Amazon won't carry Google's devices in their web store.

      That is an interesting retcon, Amazon decided they didn't need to follow the Youtube API's licensing agreement when they implemented their Fire TV application. Amazon's anti-competitive store behaviour certainly didn't engender them to Google but Google has similarly kicked off other companies, see also Microsoft when they violated the Youtube terms.

    6. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Amazon decided they didn't need to follow the Youtube API's licensing agreement

      That licensing agreement was created specifically for anticompetitive purposes. Amazon wasn't interfering with Youtube's revenue-generating abilities in any way, since they were showing the ad content.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    7. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by Merk42 · · Score: 1

      Remember when Google declared that Amazon Fire TV users would no longer be able to use an app to access their site, because rea$ons?

      The "rea$ons" being Amazon's anti-competitve behavior?

      Well, Google doesn't carry Amazon's devices in their web store, either. How on earth is this not anticompetitive?

      Because the Google Store only carries products made by Google, (or Nest, a subsidiary of its parent company, or at one point hardware that was made by other OEMs, but than ran a Google OS such as Android or ChromeOS). Amazon, however, makes it a point to try and carry everything and they even did carry the Chromecast when it first appeared.

      While I'd like to see Google held accountable for their anticompetitive behavior, the best solution is still for someone else to spin up a video streaming site. There's enough people who want an alternative to Youtube for it to work out. But it has to be at least as friendly to uploaders as Youtube...

      Yeah Amazon should be held accountable too, I mean, how hard is it to make an ecommerce at the same scale???

    8. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ever heard of vimeo or dailymotion?

      There already are alternatives to youtube but people (both uploaders and viewers) will need a reason to migrate. Youtube is currently "good enough" that I won't migrate.

    9. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      And given the whole demonetization-bullshit flying low on YouTube right now, this just might be the right time to do it. Quite a few content creators are desperately looking for alternative places that let them get a cut of the ad money, if Amazon played its cards well, now is the right moment to do so.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    10. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by BronsCon · · Score: 1

      How on earth is this not anticompetitive?

      Both parties had devices and in each others' stores, putting them on equal footing. That means that, when Amazon removed Google's devices, Google had a matching competitive move (which they took): remove Amazon's devices from their marketplace.

      Absent that equal footing, it absolutely would by anti-competitive; but, given the similar posture of the two competitors, this is simply them mutually agreeing not to help each other compete.

      --
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    11. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      venmo

    12. Re: Just part of their war on... everyone by sound+vision · · Score: 1

      There might be a few corner cases of users who would like a YouTube alternative, but what really matters are the advertisers. And good luck getting the record industry to let a new startup site host the vast amount of copyright content that makes up a huge chunk of YouTube's traffic...

    13. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by imrahilj · · Score: 1

      Isn't this more or less what Amazon is trying to do right now with Twitch?

    14. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope. Twitch is something else with equal number of idiotic policing and rules. It is the SafeTube.
      What Amazon can do is create another Wild West YouTube of old which is what needs to compete with YouTube.

    15. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't worry. YouTube is testing a new method to deliver videos in the Subscriptions page based on algorithms, the page that otherwise neatly lists, by upload date, all the videos uploaded by your subscriptions.
      That's the last straw for me when they fuck it up. YouTube runs like such crap that i have the subscription page bookmarked by default and i use MPV to grab and watch the videos one-by-one so i don't need to open the video pages and endure frustration and anger as it loads and drags.
      At that point i'll just inform all the subscription channel owners that i'm quitting their shit because of YouTube's subscription videos listing shit, because that's how close i am to abandoning all of my youtubing. In a way YouTube will save me because youtube is a time waste and this will be the last straw in making me more productive by abandoning YouTube, which is good news for myself and bad for the youtubers if i'm merely one in a big domino effect/butterfly effect.

    16. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by Holi · · Score: 1

      I love when people link to an "article" in their claims of news bias, only for the "article" to be an opinion based editorial.

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    17. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by Luthair · · Score: 1

      The agreement is so that Google maintains direction of their service instead of a different experience on every device based on the priorities of the manufacturers.

    18. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dang. You got modded information even though you are wrong. Amazing! So, to set it straight (and you could have read all this both here on Slashdot and on numerous other sites) here's what happened:

      - Amazon drops Google devices from all Amazon store fronts (3rd part sellers TOO) when Fire stick came out. They claim it is to protect user experience.

      - Amazon won't allow (again for all sellers not just sold by Amazon) new Nest devices like the latest cameras or Nest thermostat-E, etc.)

      - Amazon breaks the Google TOS by showing YouTube in an app that either suppresses or makes it possible to skip the pre-roll advertisements. Microsoft did this too on Windows phone and the same fight ensued.

      - Google enforces their TOS by blocking Amazon's infringing app after months of negotiating with Amazon could not resolve the issue.

      While Google may have some blame here by far the majority of it lies with Amazon.

    19. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Floatplane?

    20. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by morethanapapercert · · Score: 2

      A fact which also means that it is difficult, maybe even impossible, for a manufacturer to add value and differentiate themselves in the set top appliance market. Why bother making yet another Android based streaming content appliance when the only way you can compete is on price? Since Google has its own digital media appliance line, handicapping other manufacturers ability to differentiate themselves is arguably a clear case of anti-competitive behaviour. Both Amazon and Google have vast amounts of cash reserves they can spend on lawyers, so any legal challenge to this practice would likely be long and expensive. What would matter to Amazon is whether the cost of winning is out-weighed by the potential profits. (It seems that Amazon's primary interest in this market is as a channel for promoting their own software and entertainment content, so access to Youtube content would be a lower priority for them anyway)

      --
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    21. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What load time? Every page on Youtube loads in 0.5-2 seconds. Typically less than 1sec. That includes the 1080p video starts streaming. It's 9:30p right now and stats for nerds is claiming 230Mb/s. I picked a few videos, set them to 720p, and the page plus 30 seconds of buffered video within 1 second after hitting the refresh button.

    22. Re:Just part of their war on... everyone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      ...{snip}... the best solution is still for someone else to spin up a video streaming site. There's enough people who want an alternative to Youtube for it to work out. But it has to be at least as friendly to uploaders as Youtube...

      First I should preface with the fact I owned and operated a UGC video sharing site pre-YouTube, We reached 42M users with a Billion streams before YouTube outpaced us and all other other UGC video sharing site out there. That service I started had it's hay day and was turned off by the new owners last year, as are most video hosts (it's a Strategic Content business, not a profit business).

      Trying to create a Streaming site now to out compete with YouTube is folly best explained by the Red Queen effect
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen_hypothesis

      To win, this "Youtube Disrupter" would have to go to where YouTube needs to go but can't (The innovators Dilemma).

      YouTube is a service built from the perspective of the video consumer (compared to Vimeo which is a service built from the perspective of a video uploader).

      Where YouTube tried to go but couldn't was to build a product from the perspective of the content curator. (Multi Channel Networks Like Machinama are a good example of this)

      So The new service might likely not host video rather provide an interface to obviate the host and aggregate content-domain appropriate video from many sources. That is, if you love Cats, here are all the great, popular and latest Cat videos from.....(yeah, no one really cares who hosts it Sorry YouTube)

      That Said We also know of a couple areas where Youtube has failed recently. Namely trying to compete with Netflix and Hulu in Premium content land (trying to be what they're not) And then alienating their top uploaders for not having "Brand Safe" advertiser-friendly messaging. So there is a desire for a replacement.

      Technically the challenge has to be paid for, I can't underscore the time, money and human cost of moderating videos, keeping streaming servers up, and dealing with the problem of serving millions of different videos to millions of different people. Trust me I ran a business doing this for 6 years and before I did that I was trained as an AT&T Backbone and IDC engineer. At scale it's a horribly inefficient design which is one reason why YouTube hires thousands of employees.

      A well run web service should have no employees, so we can see the YouTube core design is being scaled through Google's application of brute force capital.

      Thankfully there is a solution.
      When I first built my service my day job was watching Bit Torrent fill up the backbone with packets. It was painfully clear that P2P design is a fundamentally superior solution for Media distribution. When you're getting started and boot strapping from your garage it's a million times easier to just make a single server solution, which is what happened with Napster. But if you don't have serve content in a way that Madison Avenue approves, they shut you down (which is also what happened to Napster and is happening to YouTube streamers today).

      15 years ago The tech to make P2P streaming simply wasn't possible, but now the only thing that truthfully blocks a serverless P2P Video streaming network is the "No Ad-Hoc Networks" Commandment from the Apple App Store. That's it. Remove that non-technical business-focused limitation and we could see the app that replaces YouTube.

      And Ironically the tech to do Serverless P2P streaming was recently created in 2011 by Bram Cohen while working at Bit Torrent,
      So guess what? That means it's never going to happen because Bit Torrent suffered so hard at the hands of Madison Aveneue that the LAST THING they're going to do is release tech that would piss off their now media partners.

      So the tech is there to make what happens after YouTube, but it's held back by business interest. Which is ironic to me, because when UGC video sharing popped 15 years ago it was against everyone's bus

    23. Re: Just part of their war on... everyone by drinkypoo · · Score: 0

      There might be a few corner cases of users who would like a YouTube alternative, but what really matters are the advertisers.

      Starfucks, Home Despot, and Dodge+Apple (comarketing) all interrupted me watching Mighty Car Mods this morning. And I will not forget, and I will shop somewhere else. Not, to be fair, that I would have given any of those companies money in the first place except for possibly HD. I will also have to remember to install my Youtube downloader on the tablet so I can use it next time. Or, I guess, I can just install Kodi.

      I laud companies for sponsoring content I want to watch, but not for interrupting it with advertisements. I call them out for that.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  5. Google is a monopoly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and will be broken up

  6. Hosts File Help? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How can I use a hosts file to help bring back my performance?

    1. Re:Hosts File Help? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Quit LYING, it works!!!! +++

  7. Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Shadow DOM is a W3C standard. I don't know why they throw in "v0" there, as far as I know, the version of the Shadow DOM that Chrome supports is the released standard. Firefox flat-out doesn't support it yet.

    The Shadow DOM makes various repeated elements load much faster because it allows the same snippet of HTML be reused without being reparsed. It's a very useful feature if you're writing a web UI library where you have effectively the same HTML chunk over and over again. The lack of support in Firefox and Edge is annoying and results in effectively having to manually add the elements to the DOM, which is, not surprisingly, slower than just being able to copy them.

    This isn't Google being evil. This is Google using web standards that Firefox is too lazy to adapt.

    1. Re: Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

      Are you seriously trying to deny google is evil? The rest of us figured it out 10-15 years ago.

    2. Re: Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      No, I'm saying this isn't an instance of it. Firefox is literally saying "stop using a published W3C standard we don't support because using it makes Chrome faster than Firefox." They're saying Google should artificially slow down YouTube to match Firefox rather than implementing the published Shadow DOM standard.

    3. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by GeLeTo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The parent post is moderated into oblivion but it is 100% correct. The statement that Shadow DOM is deprecated is factually wrong. If Shadow DOM did not exist - Polymer apps would have been equally slow on all browsers. Firefox currently has experimental support for Shadow DOM, you can enable it with the dom.webcomponents.shadowdom.enabled flag.

    4. Re: Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      More fully,

      Shadow DOM supported by default in Chrome and Opera. Firefox is very close; they are currently available if you set the preferences dom.webcomponents.enabled and dom.webcomponents.shadowdom.enabled to true. Firefox's implementation is planned to be enabled by default in version 63. Safari supports shadow DOM already, and Edge is working on an implementation as well.

      https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Web_Components/Using_shadow_DOM

    5. Re: Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by bianguyen · · Score: 2

      From the linked article Another rather interesting aspect to note is that Polymer's latest versions support both Shadow DOM v0 and v1 APIs, but for some reason, Google still uses Polymer 1.0 with the deprecated API. I read this as Google continuing to use the old ( probably draft) API instead of the actual released version.

    6. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This appears to be correct. Mozilla are in the middle of implementing Shadow DOM and there's an about:config flag you can flip to turn it on (although whether that means Youtube will automatically start using it is another question, most websites go by browser ID rather than probing for features alas.)

      The notion this is tied to "version 0" is the bit that I don't get about the summary. It doesn't matter what version of Shadow DOM is targeted by Youtube, none of the major browsers except Chrome supports it right now.

      On that basis, I'd say "Google making use of a good new standard that they happen to support but other browser makers haven't gotten around to yet, with a safe workaround for browsers that don't support it" is hardly the anticompetitive act the summary makes it out to be. I'd expect websites, be they Google or anyone else, to do the same thing.

      --
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    7. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by ichimunki · · Score: 3, Informative

      No one said Shadow DOM is deprecated. The point is that Polymer 1.0, which is being used on YouTube uses on Shadow DOM v0, which is deprecated. They could update their version of Polymer to 2.0 or higher and rely instead on Shadow DOM v1, which is not deprecated. https://www.chromestatus.com/f...

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    8. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by GeLeTo · · Score: 1

      Looking further, there's a more recent version - Shadow DOM v1. Chrome is still the only browser that has support for Shadow DOM, so whether YouTube uses v0 or v1 is irrelevant for Firefox.

    9. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by ichimunki · · Score: 4, Informative

      They throw "v1" in there because "v0" is deprecated and the version of Polymer that Google is using on YouTube uses v0. https://www.chromestatus.com/f...

      --
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    10. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Informative

      They could, but that wouldn't fix the problem here, the version number is a red herring. Mozilla, IE, et al, do not support Shadow DOM at all, not any version. They have plans, there's an about:config flag in Firefox you can flip to test their current implementation, but it's not enabled by default.

      So, what people are saying Google should have done, in order to be "fair" to competitive free browsers including the one Google has funded for most of its lifetime, is to upgrade one of the most highly traffic'd websites on Earth to the "latest version" (not revision, we're talking major version number, so the one with API changes) of the framework they're using in order to achieve literally nothing at all.

      There is no urgency for Google to do any of this until Firefox has Shadow DOM support, and it's absolutely the wrong thing for Google to do to try to rush an upgrade just to satisfy some competition checklist that has nothing to do with the real world.

      --
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    11. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by UPi · · Score: 1

      W3C standards can be deprecated. In this case, the "Shadow DOM v0" is just that. The new version, supported by 10% more of current browsers, is "Shadow DOM v1". v1 was released in 2016, so rolling out a new feature in 2018 against a deprecated and less supported API seems like a bad move from Google.

    12. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://www.chromestatus.com/features/4507242028072960

      The current YouTube site is using Shadow DOM v0, which Google deprecated in Chrome in April, scheduled for removal next April. v1 is supported in Chrome and Safari, Mozilla plans to release it with Firefox 63, Microsoft is going to release it... sometime.

    13. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by JMJimmy · · Score: 1

      I was discussing an upcoming change to Google Sheets - something that violated W3C standards... the Google employee's response was "we'll just change the standard".

    14. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by omnichad · · Score: 1

      This is a non-story. They wanted to move Youtube onto Polymer sooner so they did it before Polymer supported a higher version of Shadow DOM than the v0. A good move to be ready for the next version. Chances are good a new version of Polymer will be out before 2019, since it relies on an API that is going away.

      Firefox is blowing it out of proportion simply to get people to ignore the "v0" in the equation. Firefox has been working on adding Shadow DOM support for 3 years and still aren't there yet.

    15. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by Guspaz · · Score: 1

      Chrome already deprecated support for v0, with support being entirely removed from Chrome around 9 months from now. So yes, it was a bad decision for them to use v0, but that particular decision is hardly anti-competitive. Their own browser is going to break the framework in a few months.

    16. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "deprecated Shadow DOM v0 API"

      DEPRICATED --- on a protocol that was a WORKING DRAFT, of an old version of a working draft, where google itself only implements support in chrome April, 2018

      https://caniuse.com/#feat=shadowdomv1

      https://www.w3.org/TR/shadow-dom/
      https://www.w3.org/standards/history/shadow-dom

      What google is doing is MALICE when its forcing this onto other browsers.

    17. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by POWRSURG · · Score: 4, Informative

      The point of mentioning version 0 is because every major browser that is working on Shadow DOM is developing towards version 1. The v0 implementation was more experimental that made its way out there because Google doesn't always go through the proper standards practice. Version 1 is actually going through the normal standardization process. Firefox and Safari have the version 1 code in development, while Edge has it marked as a high priority consideration.

      To be clear, Chrome deprecated v0 in April 2018 and will remove in 2019. If Google does nothing than Chrome will slow down on YouTube as it will have the same issues Firefox and Edge currently are feeling.

    18. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WORKING DRAFT and RETIRED -- so this isn't even a standard, nor close to it.

        It's one step above a bar room napkin drawing of an Editors Draft -- it needs 3 more levels of maturation to become a wc3 recommendation.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web_Consortium#Specification_maturation

      https://caniuse.com/#feat=shadowdomv1

      https://www.w3.org/TR/shadow-dom/
      https://www.w3.org/standards/history/shadow-dom

      The fact that chrome even supported this only on apri ---- abrust it would be forced onto other browesers by a company which is probably the most sophisticated in the world, from a technology and standards side.

      this is pure malice by google.

    19. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by BronsCon · · Score: 1

      A version of Polymer that supports the current version of the API already exists. Google chose not to use it.

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
    20. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Or, they chose to eventually use it and Youtube doesn't work well with it yet. Seems a lot more likely.

    21. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by BronsCon · · Score: 1

      When they chose to use Polymer v1 YouTube didn't work with it at all; they had to rewrite parts of the site to use Polymer at all. At that time, they could have chosen Polymer v2, which uses the Shadow DOM v1 API.

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
    22. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by ichimunki · · Score: 3

      I never said it would fix the problem. I am simply attempting to clarify the situation regarding statements about what is and is not deprecated. If Google were to switch to a library using v1, then at least Firefox users could turn on Shadow DOM support, which is available as an experimental feature. And as it stands, Firefox has Shadow DOM enabled in the nightly build, so I would assume "it's coming soon". As it stands, I'm not sure how one tests FF + YouTube with the experimental Shadow DOM enabled since YouTube is using a deprecated version of Shadow DOM.

      Given that Google have had Polymer 2.0 in general release since March 15, 2017, and they're currently on Polymer 3.0... perhaps they should feel some sense of urgency in getting one of their flagship web properties up to date? That's an awful long time to sit on a library that relies on an API that was deprecated back in April of this year.

      --
      I do not have a signature
    23. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by omnichad · · Score: 1

      And they must have run into some problems with that, right? Problems that apparently were quicker to solve with an older version of Polymer on a temporary basis.

    24. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by BronsCon · · Score: 1

      Let's see... YouTube worked before Polymer was brought into the fold, no new features were added in doing so, and they felt the need to use an older version just to push it out faster? No, the entire feature was the addition of Polymer, which could have been put off while issues were solved. Using a deprecated version to get it out the door sooner might be an acceptable choice (it's arguable) for an initial release or an experimental new feature, but when they use of the library in the first place is the feature, it's bad form.

      If v1 and v2 are different enough for what you posit to even be possible, anything written against v1 will have to be rewritten with v2 is finally used. Hell, it's not even like Polymer 2v is new, Polymer v3 was released in January!

      Are you saying that Google's engineers are too incompetent to release using the newest version of a library they developed in-house? Or that the Chrome team is too incompetent to maintain functional compatibility (e.g. not remove useful functions from new versions) between versions of a library they lead the development of?

      In either case, the fault lies with Google. Whatever their reason for not using v2 (or v3), they chose not to use it.

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
    25. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      Their own browser is going to break the framework in a few months.

      So you're saying YouTube is going to break and Chrome users will be out of luck in a few months?

      I mean, the only alternative is that YouTube engineers are working on getting shadowdomv1 working now so it's ready for newer Chrome and newer Firefox soon, but then what could the MoFo guy complain about if the solution to his problem is already in the works?

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    26. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, nobody but the summary anyhow.

    27. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by omfglearntoplay · · Score: 1

      If it looks like anti-competition, smells like anti-competition, and involves Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon or similar... guess what?

    28. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the fucking article summary says it you numpty

    29. Re: Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by chris-chittleborough · · Score: 1

      Firefox's implementation is planned to be enabled by default in version 63. Safari supports shadow DOM already, and Edge is working on an implementation as well.

      https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Web_Components/Using_shadow_DOM

      And Firefox 63 is due to be released in October.

    30. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      No one said Shadow DOM is deprecated.

      TFS:
      "In a thread on Twitter, Mozilla's Technical Program Manager has stated that YouTube's Polymer redesign relies heavily on the deprecated Shadow DOM v0 API, which is only available in Chrome."
      Which is almost verbatim from Twitter which came right from the fingertips of Chris Peterson of Mozilla.

      I know, reading is hard.

    31. Re:Shadow DOM is a W3C standard by ichimunki · · Score: 1

      I can see where you think reading is hard. Because the summary is clearly referring to v0, which is deprecated, not v1 which is not.

      --
      I do not have a signature
  8. Pornhub vs Youtube by sycodon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Pornhub wins every time.

    Loading speed, Video smoothness, lack of interruption.

    Every time Youtube content gets the spinning circle, I check Pornhub...Yep, smooth as silk, or a freshly shaven...

    Then YouTube tries to blame my provider.

    Pornhub is the Future of the Internet!

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:Pornhub vs Youtube by Kokuyo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's a reason gun enthusiasts have started using pornhub instead of youtube ;).

    2. Re:Pornhub vs Youtube by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Midget porn?

    3. Re:Pornhub vs Youtube by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AFAICT we are not talking about the actual streaming speed of the videos here, we're talking about the rendering of the pages.

    4. Re:Pornhub vs Youtube by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you mean full30.com?

    5. Re:Pornhub vs Youtube by Mal-2 · · Score: 0

      There's a reason gun enthusiasts have started using pornhub instead of youtube ;).

      There's a reason detractors call them ammosexuals, too. Maybe, just maybe, these two facts could be related.

      --
      How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
    6. Re:Pornhub vs Youtube by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It may be the Future of the Internet but your demise.

    7. Re:Pornhub vs Youtube by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's incest pron!

    8. Re:Pornhub vs Youtube by Agripa · · Score: 1

      There's a reason gun enthusiasts have started using pornhub instead of youtube ;).

      That worked until Pornhub started kicking them off also for politically incorrect content.

  9. Fight back - make your site slow too by raymorris · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm going to give Google a taste of their own medicine and make my site slow too. CNN is leading the fight in this; their site is super slow in all the major browsers.

    1. Re:Fight back - make your site slow too by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Me too! I'll make my own site! With blackjack! And hookers! In fact...

      Wait, why reinvent the wheel?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:Fight back - make your site slow too by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 1, Funny

      CNN is leading the fight in this; their site is super slow in all the major browsers.

      Since the only thing worse than fake news is ... slow fake news

    3. Re:Fight back - make your site slow too by slipped_bit · · Score: 1

      Forget the blackjack!

    4. Re:Fight back - make your site slow too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For the love of both God and Satan, use only Wall Street Journal.
      The only word-neutral and cold/scientific report site that I know of on account that its main readership are economists trying to analyze and compare effects of news on the market which require cold and unbiased reporting for accuracy, and also since it's the hub of global journalist unions regardless of their political affiliation who need a pure source before shitting it up with their bias.
      If someone can name a few more news sites like Wall Street Journal, please do.
      Even Washington Times - Milk: The new symbol of racism in Donald Trump's America and NYT have gone down the shitter with stupid shit like moronism like the "racist milk" articles.

    5. Re:Fight back - make your site slow too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sure that's because on CNN a video starts blaring an ad at 200% max volume at 1080p (scaled) while the rest of the page struggles to load behind it. I stopped browsing news stories CNN for just that reason. YouTube is just copying everyone else right now. They must have changed their slogan to 'Google: going with the flow' now.

    6. Re:Fight back - make your site slow too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Turn off auto-start. Done.

    7. Re:Fight back - make your site slow too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Reuters
      APNews
      And frankly I've found the BBC to be less manipulative with their US News, but YMMV

    8. Re: Fight back - make your site slow too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Awww, the AC thinks WSJ journalists are unbiased. That's soooo CUTE!

    9. Re:Fight back - make your site slow too by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Forget the site, send the hookers, the booze and the card sharks over to me.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  10. Recaptcha Too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They don't seem to trust anyone unless they're running mainline Chrome. With Waterfox, whatever else, they make me redo the captcha several times and take the sweet time to fade out and in more image tiles. Literally every site within reason uses their shitty captcha and so I end up wasting time to simply respond to a comment in many cases.

  11. Google did something evil? Do tell! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey, it's not like an out-of-control overgrown ad agency that makes its money in a fundamentally evil way by strip-mining your privacy and selling it to anyone who wants to pay for would have any scruples about underhanded behavior with it's spyware, er, browser.

  12. When a browser is slow by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Add more CPU, RAM and GPU to a desktop computer.
    See if that can outpace the software of an ad company.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  13. Whose problem is this? by bigtech · · Score: 1

    So, let me get this right. YouTube uses Shadow DOM v0, which while currently supported by Firefox has slow load-times. Wouldn't the best solution be to have Polymer use Shadow DOM v1, and for Firefox to load this at competitive speeds?

  14. This happens with their captchas too by ilikenwf · · Score: 1

    Chrome, one and done with recaptcha. Firefox/Waterfox, it forces you to do 3-4 proper captchas and takes the sweet time to load new tiles by fading them out and in...

  15. Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually the problem is two-fold and not only on Google.
    YouTube is coded like shit, while Firefox is littered with Memory Leak problems and also shit interpreter code.
    It's been like this for the past almost a decade now.
    It's a problem that both the Browser coders and the webcoders are at fault jointly, and the infinite circlejerk between the two parties throwing blame at the other doesn't help.
    Until someone consolidates a nice map of how bad webcode in conjunction with bad browser code both result in the consumers having to upgrade their god damn CPU's and RAM to run "modern" webpages which have the same amount of fucking UI elements as over 10 years ago, yet somehow eat 10 times more performance and memory now; this whole shifting the blame ad infinitum game of Catch 22 will never be the answer.
    We can start with purging Java and JavaScript from existence just for fucking starters.

  16. Obvious Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Obviously, what this means is that Google would prefer that people make their own front end, and just use youtube-dl to get the videos. That way, you can fully enjoy them without any inconveniences or slowdowns. And as a bonus, also without ads and Google getting revenue.

    I, for one, think it's very interesting that they went to the trouble and expense to create this new incentive. But it's not unprecedented: Hollywood adds DRM to encourage people to pirate their media, for example. For whatever reason, the theme of 21st century media business always comes down to pure asceticism and altruism, over selfishness.

    I can only conclude that media companies always put in the effort to make themselves unprofitable due to the examples provided by their subject matter, e.g. politicians in the news. (It was so nice, for example, of our president to offer free money to that playmate.) Why don't more types of businesses become charities like how Youtube and Trump's business try so hard to?

    1. Re:Obvious Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've been using MPV + Youtube-dl + Open With to view YouTube vids just because of this retardation, so i don't have to open a new page for every vid to kill my computer but just right click a link so MPV loads it fast and nice, and due to the nature of this system it's one of the reasons i'm still on FF56 and not updating ever again. Both Mozilla and Google have started wasting my limited time with each their own type of shit, and i've fucking had it.

    2. Re:Obvious Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I also use mpv with its youtube-dl hook, but I also go a bit further for my subscriptions by using newsboat.

      First I grab the RSS feed links out of the channels I want to follow, put them into newsboat's urls file, then I play them with mpv and youtube-dl with this macro in my config file:

      macro m set browser "mpv %u" ; open-in-browser-and-mark-read ; set browser&

      Getting the RSS feed links is easy, too. Go to a channel, click the Videos link, then view the page source. It's in there somewhere, just search for "rss". For some reason, this only works for channels with names set up for their URLs, even though technically every channel has an RSS feed, even the ones with those long hashes in place of where the channel's name would be in the URL. For hashed channel URLs, just append the hash from the URL to this string to get the RSS feed: "https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id="

      Watching YouTube over a text-based newsreader is amazeballs. You can even do it without Xorg if you're at console, just use this newsboat macro:

      macro c set browser "mpv --vo=caca %u" ; open-in-browser-and-mark-read ; set browser&

      Okay, I admit that last one is more of a novelty than something practical, but it's a neat trick for showing friends at parties. :)

  17. We neec to get Chrome away from Google by xack · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Development of Chrome should be sent off to an independent organization (perhaps forced to by anti trust courts). Chrome now has more market share than internet explorer used to and also owns phones and schools with chromebooks. We also need to force Google to code to standards and work on all of the competition’s browsers under interoperability laws. this includes minority browers like waterfox and falkon.

    1. Re:We neec to get Chrome away from Google by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      ShadowDOM is a W3C standard. Firefox and Edge have not implemented it yet.

      The complaint in the article is that Firefox is behind Chrome in implementing a W3C standard, and somehow that's Chrome's fault.

    2. Re:We neec to get Chrome away from Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My sarcasm meeting is flickering... yet I somehow suspect you are being serious.

    3. Re:We neec to get Chrome away from Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One of the most basic strategies in, oh let's call it "making your computer not totally suck" is that you have to avoid as much vertical integration as possible. Vertical integration always results in major shittiness where you don't ever want to be standing in the user's shoes. More specifically: you want your hardware, your software, and the services that you use, to never be the same. The aforementioned must be at least three different parties.

      If you fail (your hardware and software come from the same vendor, or your software and a service come from the same company), that vendor's inevitable conflict of interest will negatively impact you.

      That means if you use Chrome, you probably don't want to use Google's websites. Or if you really like Google's websites, it might be a damn good idea to make sure you're not running Chrome. Fail, and you'll be living like an iOS or PlayStation or XBox user: you'll have "convenient" integration, but you'll also be looking at the world with blinders on, as a captive.

      Google has great incentive for users to have good-enough browsers. mobile personal computers, etc. It was a good idea for them to create things like Chrome and Android. And those things really did up the benchmark for what is now considered a tolerable browser or mobile OS. Good for them. Thank you, Google. BUT, if Chrome and/or Android is what you choose, then you probably don't want to be using Youtube, gmail, etc... You damn well know that the whole point is to deliver ads to you.

      Nowhere is this more apparent, than in the ultimate user disaster that I've experienced, as someone who does(!) like both Chrome and Android: Chrome for Android. What a piece of shit. The one browser where you can't even install ad blockers. Ridiculous.

      And my point is, the only reason that particular browser is so horrible, literally over a decade behind the state of the art, is that it's by Google, the ad company.

    4. Re:We neec to get Chrome away from Google by butchersong · · Score: 1

      I thought firefox supported this behind the "dom.webcomponents.shadowdom.enabled" flag but the bigger question is why Youtube chose v0 rather than v1 that everyone is working to support. Chrome itself has deprecated v0: https://www.chromestatus.com/f...

    5. Re:We neec to get Chrome away from Google by Arkham · · Score: 1

      Development of Chrome should be sent off to an independent organization (perhaps forced to by anti trust courts). Chrome now has more market share than internet explorer used to and also owns phones and schools with chromebooks. We also need to force Google to code to standards and work on all of the competition’s browsers under interoperability laws. this includes minority browers like waterfox and falkon.

      So I'm not fan of Google, but this is 100% crap. Some actual facts:

      • Chromium is open source -- -- the only parts that aren't included are the the commercial codecs like H.264, and those will never be open-source because Google pays the licensing costs and gives away the results for free
      • Google does code to standards. Shadow DOM v0 API is a standard. It's just an old one (relatively speaking)

      Google does a lot of things that I don't like, but Chrome on the whole is a net positive contribution to the web-going world. They push companies like Apple and Mozilla to move faster and do more. Suggesting that someone "take it away" is absurd. Fork the code, release your own browser, have a nice day.

      --
      - Vincit qui patitur.
    6. Re:We neec to get Chrome away from Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shadow DOM v0 is not a W3C standard.

    7. Re:We neec to get Chrome away from Google by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      It is a W3C standard that has been deprecated in favor of v1. It's still a standard. One that Mozilla decided to not implement, largely because they could see v1 coming.

      But v1 coming does not require Google to not write anything in v1, especially since it was probably the active standard when they started the project.

      Also, v1 is a superset of v0. So v1 support would probably give Firefox the higher speed anyway.

    8. Re:We neec to get Chrome away from Google by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      but the bigger question is why Youtube chose v0 rather than v1 that everyone is working to support.

      My guess is Youtube probably started on the project when v0 was the active standard.

      Also, AFAIK they didn't do anything that is v0-specific. So v1 support in Firefox should give it the same "higher speed" as Chrome.

  18. I am APK the LORD of HOSTS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I am APK the great "LORD of HOSTS", a.k.a. AlecStaar or Alexander Peter Kowalski.

    See subject & APK Hosts File Engine 2.0++ 64-bit for Linux h t t p : / / I . a m . a . f u c k i n g / a s s h o l e . r e t a r d . z i p (remove spaces between characters & download).

    I am the godlike creator of various GUI front-ends for other people's configuration files.

    Calling people ne'er-do-wells or Jealous JOWIEs is how I think I win every argument

    When people state the truth about me I get really mad and accuse them of projecting which is something I do all the time.

    Don't call me out on anything unless you are willing to prove you too can write some strings to a file programmatically

    Spamming and being a general pain in the ass is what I do

    Listen as I relive my glory days of being a college athlete in the early 80s

    You must be conspiring with the Jews and Soros if you disagree with me

    Bask in my greatness as I can do a ping as a non root user.

    Watch as I whine about my work being flagged as malware by anti-virus software.

    Witness my descent into madness

    APK

    1. Re:I am APK the LORD of HOSTS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hahahahahahaha oh my god man that made me laugh my ass off, thank you so much for that :D

  19. quality too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mobile Firefox has less YT quality than approved Google ways of accessing YT.

  20. Chrome is IE all over again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Users were dumb enough to be drawn into Chrome and now its come back to haunt everyone just as IE did when it completely dominated the web. Even other browsers like Opera and Brave along with other have all just become more Chrome clone's. You either use Chrome or a clone or face issues with some web sites. Its just that simple and frankly I don't see any light at the end for any other browser including Firefox and Edge. Chrome like IE is it and everything else is a second class browser.

  21. Polymer expects avantgarde web features ... by Qbertino · · Score: 1

    ... and if they're not there polyfills them. ... That means it lazy-loads JS libs that emulate those features. This may make some browsers slower if those features need polyfilling.

    The goal of Polymer is to offer the cutting edge of web features today and wither away as these features become native in all browsers everywhere.
    It's that simple. No rucus required. Move along.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
    1. Re:Polymer expects avantgarde web features ... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      That's great, but what is fine in some library can become anticompetitive when a massive monopoly does it.

      If you make Qbert's own video site slow on Firefox, nothing much changes. If you make your own browser (with a high usage share) and make one of the largest websites in the world much worse on a competing browser when you've already been levering other monopolistic advantages to squeeze out the browser then yes there is a problem.

      Google are behaving like the bad old Microsoft.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  22. Fast or Slow now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From an outsider's perspective with competition, I'm not sure it is important if one browser is currently faster than another with Youtube. What I'd like to know is, has any browser become SLOWER with Youtube's "upgrade"? If so, then that may be an issue.

    Could someone more knowledgeable than me clarify this please.

  23. More exigents than google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When I made a website my clients ask me if it work fine in the all browsers, they are more exigents than google!

  24. It does not matter because by Gabest · · Score: 1

    Because Chrome plays videos in VP9 format and it is slower to decode, older hardware has no acceleration either.

    1. Re:It does not matter because by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If that's an issue to you (I like software VP9 fine, I dislike everything else that makes youtube slow and glitchy) there are browser extensions to force request H264.
      You can get 1080p and such, because that's what is served to iPads among other things.

  25. Since the 90s my main browser has been Mozilla... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since the 90s my main browser has been Mozilla Firefox. And I must say that I have never noticed performance issues with YouTube.

  26. I agree. by TheCastro1689 · · Score: 1

    It won't even load on my edge or IE browsers, but man it loads on Chrome.

  27. Break up Google! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This study should be expanded to include streaming devices, like RokuTV and Apple TV, and apps like the youtube app on mobile devices. Certainly youtube performance sux big time, and chrome is never used on my computers to deliver youtube content. I block ad-tracking websites on my computers, which results in instability on youtube. My browsers are constantly crashing on youtube.

    The solution: break up Google. The European Parliament has fined Google heavily for anti-competitive practices. Yes, it is time for content providers to be independent of search engines. We need more diversity in the content delivery arena. Google should be aware of what happened to AT&T, when it grew too large.

  28. APK needs to understand this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Obligatory XKCD that you need to read and actually understand.

  29. Milk... seriously?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Inclusivity has gone around the bend. Milk is racist because some people are lactose intolerant? WTLF? I would say it is the ones who are intolerant who are the racists. I tolerate milk fine, and if not for milk, what would I put on cereal? It is half of the product known as Half and Half, so without milk, what would I put in my fucking coffee? More coffee? Without milk there would be no cheese or butter, nor buttermilk, so no buttermilk pancakes, and no cheese on that pizza. So no pizza. Fuck. One hundred percent. Of that shit.

    Only a moron or a troll would really assert that because you like, buy, have, drink, or use milk, you are somehow a racist. That stretches the definition of the word well past itâ(TM)s breaking point and I will tell you something. If that somehow makes me a racist, then I guess I no longer care about whether or not I, or anyone else, for that matter, is a racist.

    But in reality, I think the people who claim milk is somehow an indicator of the users or drinkers racism are themselves racist. To suggest that because, allegedly, some ethnicities are predisposed to higher incidences of food allergies or intolerances that whatever it is they are intolerant of we cannot eat means no one can eat anything if anyone cannot eat it, and since, I can assure you, there is at least one person out there who is unable to eat anything at all you can think of, and that person belongs to one or more ethnicities, anything at all you eat makes you a racist. And so we are all racists, and suddenly racism does not matter anymore.

    We have reached that magical, horrible point where something has gone so far as to become meaningless.

    But if milk makes you racist because supposedly neo-nazis drink it, I hear they also wear clothes and breathe air. So I guess if you wear clothes or breathe air, that too makes you a neo-nazi.

    Oops, look at that. I am out of milk. Guess I need to put on my SS uniform and goose-step down to my local supermarkkket and buy some more milk.

    P.S. If you really think that drinking milk is the new tiki torch... fuck you. And have some milk. It is good for you. We are mammals and drinking milk is part of our shared heritage and the only reason we drink cow milk is because if we drank milk from women we would need a lot more women to have gotten pregnant and live on a dairy farm, and I doubt very much many would put up with it, or that you would be able to find it for only a few dollars a gallon.

    1. Re: Milk... seriously?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Humans are only of the only animals that don't go lactose intolerant as an adult.

      The more Neanderthal DNA you have, the more likely you're not going to be lactose intolerant.

  30. Magic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have found just the right combination on Firefox of Adblock and no script that lets me watch almost anything on YouTube with no ads. Long as that works I continue to watch YouTube. When they find a way to break that, I will watch something else. In any case, I existed before the high speed, broadband internet, and remember a mostly text web. I also existed before the internet was something most people had even heard of, and somehow survived that era. (Depending on how you define internet, I existed before it did.). So if it ever goes away, I have these magical things called BOOKS and these days, I spend increasing portions of my time reading and less of it watching tired, stupid bullshit on YouTube so I am not that fucking worried even if YouTube goes tits up. I will survive somehow and YouTube (and Google) need to understand that the fact that they are popular does NOT mean they are essential, and it sure as fuck does not mean they can do whatever they want and people will still use their increasingly tiresome, pain-in-the-ass services.

  31. I call BS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That feature is already marked for removal: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=671907

    You should investigate on the reasons why polymer is not being updated, perhaps by asking the YouTube developers.

    But checking sources is not necessary for clickbait shitty online journalism, amirite?

  32. Use the old Youtube by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Change your cookies to use the old youtube https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/834a9k/want_the_old_youtube_format_back/

  33. Title click bait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The title made it sound like Google intentionally did it. It's more like Google move to early draft tech that's never in the final standard and adopted by other browser.

    The article also give work around it.

  34. deprecated hate that. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In this case I would have to tell them then it had been deprecated and is now reprecated.

  35. slow you tube by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Know ain't that too damn bad"
    nod to Bloody Mary

    NB:Drying paint does not require great speed.

  36. Just switch to Liveleak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    90% of its content is from youtube nowadays anyway!

  37. Youtube sucks dick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who the hell uses Youtube anymore? It's sucks more dick than

  38. Google becomes Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    More and more I look at Google, more it looks like Microsoft from 2000. What a pity that the once not evil company took this path.

  39. It's not just Youtube by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That crappy new interface for GSUITE is also slowing it down. It's optimised for Chrome... I run them side by side on beefy hardware and beefy connection.

  40. Google is Evil. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sneaky sons of bitches. This is only the tip of the iceberg.