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798 points bertman | 76 comments | | HN request time: 1.066s | source | bottom
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embedding-shape ◴[] No.45900337[source]
Seems its already in Arch's repositories, and seems to work, just add another flag to the invocation:

    yt-dlp --cookies-from-browser firefox --remote-components ejs:github -f "bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best" 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXX'
It is downloading a solver at runtime, took maybe half a second in total, downloads are starting way faster than before it seems to me.

    [youtube] [jsc:deno] Solving JS challenges using deno
    [youtube] [jsc:deno] Downloading challenge solver lib script from  https://github.com/yt-dlp/ejs/releases/download/0.3.1/yt.solver.lib.min.js
It would be great if we could download the solver manually with a separate command, before running the download command, as I'm probably not alone in running yt-dlp in a restricted environment, and being able to package it up together with the solver before runtime would let me avoid lessening the restrictions for that environment. Not a huge issue though, happy in general the start of downloads seems much faster now.
replies(8): >>45900780 #>>45901047 #>>45901146 #>>45901292 #>>45902245 #>>45902494 #>>45903312 #>>45906436 #
1. WD-42 ◴[] No.45901047[source]
Glad to hear it’s faster now!

YouTube barely works in a full-on browser these days, props to the team that keeps it accessible via a Python script!

replies(6): >>45901546 #>>45901717 #>>45901739 #>>45902053 #>>45902158 #>>45903145 #
2. gilfoy ◴[] No.45901546[source]
I use YouTube daily in safari and edge, this is complete hyperbole.
replies(4): >>45901585 #>>45901960 #>>45901961 #>>45902316 #
3. phplovesong ◴[] No.45901585[source]
Youtube is pretty unusable, as they throttle videos, and links sometimes dont work. It has gone downhill fast in recent years.
replies(4): >>45901660 #>>45901854 #>>45902513 #>>45903198 #
4. ConceptJunkie ◴[] No.45901660{3}[source]
I have no problems with YouTube at all. Perhaps it's because I pay for Premium (primarily to get YouTube music).

Regardless, Google services getting worse over time is becoming a law rather than a tendency.

replies(3): >>45902182 #>>45902311 #>>45902729 #
5. ElijahLynn ◴[] No.45901717[source]
I use YouTube in a browser (Brave) almost everyday. Works great for me.
replies(2): >>45901976 #>>45902218 #
6. recursive ◴[] No.45901739[source]
I use YouTube on a daily basis. I haven't seen any of these problems.
replies(8): >>45902304 #>>45902798 #>>45903326 #>>45903405 #>>45903763 #>>45904977 #>>45905212 #>>45908012 #
7. shermantanktop ◴[] No.45901854{3}[source]
No idea what you are talking about. I don’t have premium and use in both logged in and logged out.
replies(1): >>45902127 #
8. komali2 ◴[] No.45901960[source]
I run it in firefox. Today a video kept freezing when I scrolled down to load the comments. Sometimes I bizarrely have to scroll super far down to get past recommended videos to see the comments, which sometimes crashes the tab.

On mobile (Firefox) I frequently have issues with videos freezing or videos crashing when I try to replay a section.

I freely admit to holding google software to a higher standard than e.g. random FOSS tools I use or saas from startups, however I also believe google has the talent, time, and money to where their software should basically be the best on Earth, and it's kinda shocking how often it's not and in what ways it's not. And YouTube is how old now?

The fact alone that I still can't toggle off Google maps "we found a faster route, tap ok to not change the route you change" thing...

9. zimpenfish ◴[] No.45901961[source]
As a counter-anecdote, I use YouTube daily in Safari and it will not infrequently hang for tens of seconds when trying to load a video, occasionally play the sound without the video, reasonably frequently put the video over most of the page with no way to get to the controls, etc.

(This may be because I have a whole swathe of adblockers, etc., plus I do a lot of `yt-dlp`ing from the same IP which may have me on a naughty list.)

replies(1): >>45902225 #
10. qwerpy ◴[] No.45901976[source]
Also on Brave and uBlock Origin. Mostly works great but every video now has a 3-4 second pause before starting. Pretty sure it's an anti-ad-blocker measure. Because I'm not watching their ads, I have no room to complain, just throwing out the data point that it's not a flawless experience anymore.
replies(1): >>45902048 #
11. ◴[] No.45902048{3}[source]
12. tux1968 ◴[] No.45902053[source]
Do you use Firefox on Linux, too? 4K Videos freeze so often for me, I don't even try watching them online, and always just download them with yt-dlp. It doesn't bother me enough to give Chrome a try, but maybe that'd make a difference.
replies(1): >>45902073 #
13. embedding-shape ◴[] No.45902073[source]
I do too use Firefox on Linux, 4K videos seems to work fine for me, but I've never been able to download higher than 1080p with yt-dlp, seems it's just not available without DRM as far as I can tell, so now I'm curious how exactly you've been downloading that?
replies(1): >>45902144 #
14. nancyminusone ◴[] No.45902127{4}[source]
If I'm logged out, I get "Sign in to confirm you're not a bot" about once a week from both home and the office.
15. do_not_redeem ◴[] No.45902144{3}[source]
yt-dlp + 4K works fine for me. The only special thing I remember doing is adding the impersonate feature (which it prompts you to do if it needs it). In other words, instead of `uv tool install yt-dlp`, run `uv tool install yt-dlp[default,curl-cffi]`

The version in the Arch repos does not include the impersonate feature.

16. mschuster91 ◴[] No.45902158[source]
> YouTube barely works in a full-on browser these days

Agreed. Shorts about half the time don't display comments, the back button breaks in mysterious ways. And I use Chrome on both Intel and M macOS machines, so the best in class there is, but my Windows Chrome doesn't fare much better. And Adblock ain't at fault, I pay for premium.

And that's just the technical side. The content side is even worse, comments sections are overrun by bots, not to mention the countless AI slop and content thieves, and for fucks sake I get that high class youtubers have a lot of effort to do to make videos, but why youtube doesn't step in and put clear regulations on sponsorship blocks is beyond me. Betterhelp, AG1, airup, NordVPN (and VPNs in general) should be outright banned.

And the ads, for those who aren't paying for premium, are also just fucked up. Fake game ads (Kingshot who stole sound effects from the original indie Thronefall ...) galore.

Google makes money here, they could go and actually hire a few people to vet ads and police the large youtubers with their sponsors.

replies(1): >>45902566 #
17. cons0le ◴[] No.45902182{4}[source]
I don't get the value ad of youtube music. Everything's already on youtube and they let you make playlists, and they have playlists of the top charts already.

What else does youtube music get you? I can play on my phone with the screen off with yt vanced ( and I would never pay just for that feature, because I remember when it was free and they took it away )

replies(5): >>45902638 #>>45902793 #>>45902859 #>>45905030 #>>45905763 #
18. cons0le ◴[] No.45902218[source]
you don't get the "are you still watching" popups? sometimes it buffers hard for me. They also removed dislikes and constantly push shitty clickbai AI thumbnails. They're also adding shitty ai translation, so if you like learning languages you're SOL. They also changed thier rec algo to be more "right wing\tech bro" leaning
19. sebra ◴[] No.45902225{3}[source]
I have the same issue. I think it's because I'm adblocking because if I try in chrome with no adblocker it loads the ads instantly.

But eh either 5s of black screen or 60s of ads. I tried watching a 15 min yt video without adblock and it had 5 ad breaks with some unskippable ads.

replies(1): >>45907928 #
20. latexr ◴[] No.45902304[source]
Are you using Chrome or a Chromium browser? From experience and reports I’ve seen, that seems to make a huge difference.
replies(1): >>45902593 #
21. anonym29 ◴[] No.45902311{4}[source]
Quick, everyone start sending unwanted junk mail to this guy's house, he'll pay you to stop!
replies(1): >>45902645 #
22. embedding-shape ◴[] No.45902316[source]
That's a bit like complaining no cars have trouble because your Fiat doesn't have a problem. There are more browser engines out there than the ones you use, some in direct competition with Google themselves, maybe people using those engines are experiencing issues? Jumping to calling out "hyperbole!" sounds like hyperbole itself, since you don't actually have broad experience enough to say if that's true or not.

FWIW, when I use Chromium (logged out/in) on Linux, everything works fine. If I use Firefox (logged in), it works worse. If I change the user-agent to Chromium in Firefox, I get faster buffering than when I use the default user-agent. Make of that what you will.

replies(1): >>45903477 #
23. ranger_danger ◴[] No.45902513{3}[source]
No issues here for me with uBO, logged in or not, no premium
24. ranger_danger ◴[] No.45902566[source]
I use an extension that turns shorts back into regular videos, and another one that undoes the auto-dubbing when watching videos in a (different) language that I understand.

With that, uBO and Sponsorblock, I never see any ads and have a great YT experience. (I don't have premium either)

25. recursive ◴[] No.45902593{3}[source]
Firefox
26. weaksauce ◴[] No.45902638{5}[source]
> I can play on my phone with the screen off with yt vanced

there's a lot of iphone/ipad users out there.

> Everything's already on youtube and they let you make playlists, and they have playlists of the top charts already

I don't use it but ui probably. ads maybe. plenty of people have money and don't want the inconvenience of trying to get around it.

27. dyselon ◴[] No.45902645{5}[source]
Heaven forbid someone pay for an online service they use and enjoy.
28. supportengineer ◴[] No.45902729{4}[source]
No one ever got a promotion for maintaining software
29. j45 ◴[] No.45902793{5}[source]
You can play youtube videos (ad free) as music on any chromecast device including chromecast homes with the microphone turned off.

Also, when playing music you won't be hit with ads.

Your setup can move with you wherever you are, home, travel, in the vehicle. This can be helpful for engaging the audible sensors of small aliens sans screen.

Youtube without ads on every device, anywhere, is quite a different experience.

30. NooneAtAll3 ◴[] No.45902798[source]
do you never encounter opening youtube video in a new tab only for video itself to load, while rest of the page doesn't?
replies(9): >>45902861 #>>45903142 #>>45903270 #>>45903397 #>>45903509 #>>45903894 #>>45904748 #>>45905686 #>>45905780 #
31. charcircuit ◴[] No.45902859{5}[source]
No ads on music, no ads on shorts (shorts are allowed to freely use copyrighted music unlike long form video), background playback, downloading music to your device. These all are big value ads for me.
32. mikkupikku ◴[] No.45902861{3}[source]
That happens to me about 50% of the time. I assume it's google engineers not testing on Firefox.
replies(1): >>45903409 #
33. kiwijamo ◴[] No.45903142{3}[source]
That's never happened for me and I normally watch 5-10+ YouTube videos daily. Firefox.
34. WorldPeas ◴[] No.45903145[source]
I'm n=1 using chromium but the only problem I have is the video losing focus when maximizing, meaning l/r/space don't work for video controls anymore, happened about when the liquid glass styled interface did
35. kiwijamo ◴[] No.45903198{3}[source]
They limit the buffer to around 30secs or so like all other streaming services but otherwise 95%+ of the time it just plays smoothing with no buffering at all from start to end. YouTube is generally in the top 3 of the video streaming services I use. Even on 4G wireless (which I occassionally use) it works well enough which is impressive as other video steaming services struggle (with the sole exception of Netflix which is probably the only one better than YouTube).
36. gaudystead ◴[] No.45903270{3}[source]
I experience this, but only with YouTube Shorts. Video loads, but none of the elements around it.
37. shevy-java ◴[] No.45903326[source]
Since some days I suddenly get freezes in the tab; these unfreeze after some time, say 20 seconds or so, but I notice a delay.

Something has really changed to the worse lately. I think it has to do with anti-ad programs as well as AI, like the UI also changed. It is important to point out that while you do not have any issues, other people do or may.

replies(2): >>45903519 #>>45904974 #
38. thenthenthen ◴[] No.45903397{3}[source]
I have, and recently, i nothing is loading until i open a new video in another tab, then all of a sudden both pages start loading and playing :s
39. mavamaarten ◴[] No.45903409{4}[source]
Hah. I always assume it's them actively trying to make the experience worse on anything that is not Chrome.
40. darkwater ◴[] No.45903477{3}[source]
> That's a bit like complaining no cars have trouble because your Fiat doesn't have a problem.

No. Because even if it might be complicated, any website developer can test their website against a wide array of browsers, in a more or less automated way.

replies(2): >>45903573 #>>45906462 #
41. riidom ◴[] No.45903509{3}[source]
Yes happens sometimes to me, Vivaldi.
42. embedding-shape ◴[] No.45903519{3}[source]
I had that happen some week ago too! I had to clear site data + cookies for YouTube in Firefox before I got it to work again.
43. embedding-shape ◴[] No.45903573{4}[source]
So you're expecting Google engineers and managers to prioritize adding broad cross-browser support, which adds more work for them, when the same company is also developing a competing browser?

No, Firefox always been a second-rate guest at Google properties, and I'm not expecting it to change soon either. Why would they make it better when status quo means more Chrome users (in their mind)?

replies(1): >>45903844 #
44. PuercoPop ◴[] No.45903763[source]
It is likely you use Chrome or a browser that uses Blink for its engine and the OP uses a non-blink browser like Firefox. I use Firefox and I can cofirm since the last few months Youtube usability borders on usable
replies(8): >>45903856 #>>45903878 #>>45904585 #>>45905055 #>>45906105 #>>45907132 #>>45907311 #>>45907992 #
45. badlibrarian ◴[] No.45903844{5}[source]
It's not 2003, the browser isn't the battle.

I would expect YouTube managers to pressure the Chrome managers, because YouTube brings in billions of dollars every month. Likewise I would expect the trend to move in favor of YouTube, because the browser loses money at an increasing amount and YouTube generates money at an increasing amount. 70% of YouTube happens on Mobile, and in the US more people are now watching on TVs than phones. Source: Nielsen, the old-school company that has huge influence over ads.

The site pops a literal warning saying "having problems? turn off your ad blocker" so I'm not sure where the mysteries lie here.

They're testing on thousands of devices. And they're probably even testing against ad-blockers on your bro-browser. But they're certainly not motivated to optimize that experience, so you get what you get.

46. MrNeon ◴[] No.45903856{3}[source]
I use Firefox with uBlock and besides a couple of times where video start was delayed by a few seconds it has been working as well as before.
replies(3): >>45904453 #>>45905815 #>>45906745 #
47. recursive ◴[] No.45903878{3}[source]
I'm using Firefox.
48. recursive ◴[] No.45903894{3}[source]
I've never seen that. I use Firefox.
49. viftodi ◴[] No.45904453{4}[source]
Google does A/B testing for anti ad blockers.

Not only do I get slowdowns and some videos don't load at all at times, but I also get a notification that explains that the reason is using adblockers.

50. TiredOfLife ◴[] No.45904585{3}[source]
I use Chrome and it's not good. They recently removed ability to force AV1 to only low resolution videos and as a result I had to disable HW acceleration in Chrome because accelerated AV1 decoding is broken on Steam Deck.
51. busymom0 ◴[] No.45904748{3}[source]
This has happened to me frequently.

Also many times, the video won't play. If I reload the page, then it will play.

52. BrenBarn ◴[] No.45904974{3}[source]
I've been seeing weird stuff where the video will play but the page is unresponsive: can't click to pause, can't click the time index bar to move to a different point in the video, etc. Then I close the tab, and the audio keeps playing! It will play for 10-15 seconds before cutting out. Bizarre. . .
53. johnisgood ◴[] No.45904977[source]
Well... I have many new, emerging problems with YouTube as of lately.

For example I have to scroll down a lot to get to the comment section, the suggestions are all over the place, and so forth. Annoying.

Also due to uBlock Origin, some videos do not start and I have to refresh. It is not much of an issue for me but the fact that apparently I need a huge monitor to see the "old layout" is a problem for me.

54. jack_pp ◴[] No.45905030{5}[source]
You get music discovery, radios, go to album, go to artist
55. rubyn00bie ◴[] No.45905055{3}[source]
Yeah, big same here. It’s pretty frustrating, because I pay for YouTube premium, but cannot use my preferred browser. I have to use Chromium in order to have it work reliably. Doubly so considering it worked fine in Firefox for YEARS… until maybe six months ago?

It feels like something the FTC should be investigating, or perhaps a European equivalent, but I doubt it will.

56. tuhgdetzhh ◴[] No.45905212[source]
Only if you use Googles Chrome Browser. Other browsers have issues like Firefox[1].

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41379517

replies(1): >>45905353 #
57. metalliqaz ◴[] No.45905353{3}[source]
I can no longer watch videos on YouTube with Firefox.

When Firefox dies, the last glimmer of hope will go out.

replies(1): >>45907237 #
58. raydev ◴[] No.45905686{3}[source]
Are you running any extensions that modify content?
59. raydev ◴[] No.45905763{5}[source]
For me, it just comes with Premium, and I buy Premium to support the creators I watch often without having to watch ads. I want them to get paid.
60. wiml ◴[] No.45905780{3}[source]
That sounds pretty nice. Is there a way to do it on purpose?
61. o11c ◴[] No.45905815{4}[source]
Recently I've found Youtube to just show a white screen if it detects Firefox+uBO.
62. jorvi ◴[] No.45906105{3}[source]
They've also started to be really aggressive against VPNs. I've tried Private Internet Access, Mulvad and AirVPN and often I have to cycle through 5-15(!) servers before YouTube stops saying "sign in to confirm you're not a bot".

Discord has started to become absurdly aggressive with it too, to the point that they don't even let you load messages whilst logged in if you're on a VPN.

It really makes me feel like there will be an inflection point in a few years, where the internet is cleaved in two. You'll have the 'free' internet that is full of interesting stuff but also full of malware, spam and scams, and you'll have the squeaky clean corporate internet, basically a facsimile of WeChat's super-app, of which you'll only have access with a government ID. No VPNs or anti-fingerprinting allowed.

replies(3): >>45906620 #>>45907226 #>>45908092 #
63. Too ◴[] No.45906462{4}[source]
When it comes to video it’s not only the browser. It’s also your gpu, your OS and your gpu drivers.

Notably, YouTube these days prioritize AV1 codec even if you don’t have gpu acceleration for it, making lots of systems fall back to CPU decoding and making it completely unusable. Install the h264ify extension to force h264 during content negotiation and get your gpu decoding back.

Even if you can make a matrix of all those combinations, it’s even more complex than that to test in practice. Take my laptop for example, it starts off good and manages the cpu decoding for a while, a few minutes into a video it overheats and throttles, causing stutter.

What YouTube should do on the other hand, and I’m sure they already do, is to collect metrics from all playbacks. That should show black on white how many users struggle with each codec.

I don’t think I’m in any minority here given how many million installations the h264ify extension has. Google simply care more about their bandwidth cost than the user experience.

64. galaxy_gas ◴[] No.45906620{4}[source]
For Discord it is basic rate limiting ( anty-VPN is other separate thing require phone number )

There a bunch of bad actors doing mass scrape of all public server and history via all of those VPN

65. tedivm ◴[] No.45906745{4}[source]
For the last two days I haven't been able to watch youtube videos on Firefox without disabling uBlock.
66. jcalvinowens ◴[] No.45907132{3}[source]
YT works pretty flawlessly for me with firefox on debian. What's the issue you're seeing?
replies(1): >>45907236 #
67. immibis ◴[] No.45907226{4}[source]
it's already like that
68. therein ◴[] No.45907236{4}[source]
If you are blocking ads now, the videos will start in a very delayed fashion almost as if the server is waiting the length expected for the ad to take before streaming you any bytes.
replies(1): >>45907626 #
69. immibis ◴[] No.45907237{4}[source]
I considered it as motivation to switch more from Firefox to Zen, where it works, I guess because Google doesn't recognize it as Firefox and doesn't apply the anti-competition script?
70. velcrovan ◴[] No.45907311{3}[source]
I use it on Firefox and Safari on Mac OS (mainly Safari), and it's been OK except it's started doing a thing where it blips a bit after roughly the first 1sec of video plays.

I wonder if being a YouTube Premium subscriber is also a factor here. I do pay for it so I don't see ads. But maybe the way ads are being served/injected has changed things for the worse for people that get them.

71. ciberado ◴[] No.45907626{5}[source]
Same here. Still, I prefer to wait instead of suffering those aggressive ads.
72. zimpenfish ◴[] No.45907928{4}[source]
> I tried watching a 15 min yt video without adblock and it had 5 ad breaks with some unskippable ads.

Yeah - I watch most of my YouTubes on the Apple TV and the ads are a pestilence. Sometimes it'll be 50s pre-roll[1] with multiple 30-50s breaks for a 10m videos.

Luckily there exist[0] many fine technologies that let you view them without ads via something like Infuse with a DLNA server if you're that way inclined.

[0] Currently. YT-DLP is fighting the good fight but I don't know how much longer they'll be able to keep in front. But then I'll just stop watching YouTube, really, because it's a horror show without adblock/circumventions.

[1] The video doesn't appear in your history until the pre-roll has finished which means if you can't be arsed sitting through a 50s pre-roll just that second and - at least on the Apple TV - you've not clicked on the video from your homepage / subscriptions, good luck trying to find it again unless you remember the name + channel etc. (which it also won't properly show you until after the pre-roll!)[2]

[2] I hate YouTube corporate.

73. RHSeeger ◴[] No.45907992{3}[source]
Interesting. I use Firefox and it works flawlessly for me. I wonder if it's a computing power thing?
replies(1): >>45908271 #
74. Khaine ◴[] No.45908012[source]
Airplay from youtube is broken for me. I airplay and instead of english, I get german and no way to change the language. This is not an isolated incident.

See https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1id4amh/youtube_ch... and https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255931836

75. Eduard ◴[] No.45908092{4}[source]
> It really makes me feel like there will be an inflection point in a few years, where the internet is cleaved in two.

Hasn't it been like that for already many years?

arguably, already 90's AOL very much pushed its users to stay within its walled garden.

76. rajamaka ◴[] No.45908271{4}[source]
I am constantly having serious issues running YouTube (Pentium II, IE3, Windows SQL Server 2003)