cross-posted from: https://lemmy.wtf/post/50662684

Did you all noticed from recently that youtube is giving only lov quality opcion (360p) in mozilla firefox, despite youtuber uploaded that video in high quality (1080p)..?

I think this is another move where they are using monopoly to ruin firefox and leave only chrome as only webbrowser..

First time i thought hm this is strange why is this video in so poor quality and i saw that only 360p opcion iz awailable.
This youtuber for sure wouldnt upload video in this bad quality so i copied the link and pasted it in another browser chrome and it showed in 1080p and good quality and everything was normal.
So i think its must be on purpose to ruin firefox.

Huh. One more reason to sail the high sees. I am so invidious >:D

Change your browser's user agent. This basically makes Firefox wear a Chrome mask to fool websites.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/uaswitcher/?_gl=19wp2ne_gaMTQ2MzI4MTMwMC4xNzkyMzMxNjA0_ga_2VC139B3XV*czE3OTIzMzE2MDQkbzEkZzAkdDE3OTIzMzE2MDQkajYwJGwwJGgw

I also recommend using Ad Nauseum and Sponsor Block extensions. In addition to blocking ads, Ad Nauseum also sends bogus data to trackers and fakes a click on ever ad, which throws off metrics and forces Google to pay for ads people didn't see.

I'm a Firefox user and no. I still have 1080p available.
The only thing I noticed, that the comments moved to the right side and the suggestions got removed. Comments on the right side do suck hard though and on most comments, I can't expand them.

ReVanced had recently some problems, stopping playback after 30 seconds.

That's certainly one option for some things. But, continuing to use YouTube in a way that negatively affects Google is still possible.

Firefox, Ad Nauseum, and Sponsor Block is my formula to never seeing ads while making sure creators still get paid for fake views and poisoning their metrics with fake ad clicks.

and forces Google to pay for ads people didn't see.

You seem to have this backwards - Google gets paid for clicks on ads. It's the advertisers that pay Google, and they are the ones that lose out on this.

Works on my machine

While this works for third party websites, just changing the User-agent string does nothing to convince YouTube, which is developed by the same corp developing Chrom(e|ium), that it's a Chrome. And it's mindbogglingly simple for YouTube to check it: Firefox (and its forks) lack Bluetooth API, File System API, Sensors (accelerometer and gyroscope), WebSerial, among many other HTML5 (mostly useless) features currently only available in Chrom(e|ium). Yes, a Firefox extension could theoretically implement faux shims for Chrome-exclusive HTML5 APIs (e.g. setting a fake/blank navigator.bluetooth.requestDevice method before YouTube's frontend loads so YouTube's frontend could check it's not undefined when doing typeof), but some of these HTML5 APIs are actually used for YouTube's functionalities and they don't even required user intervention (e.g. accessing gyroscope/accelerometer sensor data, which is also only a Chrome thing for now), meaning any "pretending to be an available API" wouldn't work the same way when compared to an actual implementation of said API.Also, there are codecs and Widevine (which is owned by Google as well). An extension couldn't possibly implement a support for a video codec that only exists in chrome, or the proper signature/keys to pretend to be a DRM. I imagine it's the trivia Google is weaponizing to serve high-quality versions of the video for chrome, with said high-quality versions using a codec that Firefox doesn't currently support.This said, I proudly say I haven't used YouTube since I deleted my YouTube account (iirc) three years ago. I don't even use circumvention tools, I simply stopped using YouTube altogether. And I recommend that people do the same, because YouTube only exists and continues to enshittify as long as there's audience (both viewers and content creators in some kind of ouroboric relationship wherein creators keep uploading videos because there are viewers, and viewers keep watching videos because there are creators, none dare to think of leaving as Google makes the experience further awful for both). If you people continue using any platform from a big tech corp (YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, etc), you can't really expect anything other than enshittification, it shouldn't be so surprising, you know...!asklemmy@lemmy.world

I only use Firefox and I haven't noticed this at all. A video I was just watching went all the way up to 2k resolution. Closest I've seen to this was a YT to mp4 converter that couldn't go above 360p.

Not noticed this, still get 4k. YouTube doesn't do HDR on Firefox though....

Are you watching videos right after they're uploaded? Iirc Youtube takes a bit longer to make 1080p available, so there's a bit of time after upload when it only has lower options.

Also, I'm using Chromium, and Youtube sometimes just gives me the 360p version, but the 1080p is available to switch to. But it's been doing that since forever.

edit: misspelled longer as lower

The only shady shit I see is Google deliberately buggering at the start of a video then have the gaul to show a popup saying "expericing issues? Click here to tshoot" when we both know its googles own antiadblock detection trying to annoy you.

Yeah, then a portion of that money goes to creators in the form of adsense revenue.

One of the main criticisms I hear against what I do, as opposed to paying for Premium, is that it takes money away from creators, which is why I mention it.

Thank you for sharing your opinion. I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing and let you keep doing what you're doing.

No I can still get the higher resolutions but they look meh because the bitrate is low in the free tier.
Also there's always a delay when starting a video in firefox.

"Youtube doing some shady stuff" could be their trademark. Well, it could be all of the enshittified Web2.0's trademark.

FWIW I use yt-dlp and get exactly the res I asked for.

Yep, fair enough.

YouTube dislikes my set up so much I cannot search on the site. Have to search videos on a search engine and then follow the link. I never see a single ad due to UBO. A lot of videos show as unavailable and ask for a log in. I just download any videos I want to watch as mp4. Fuck YouTube

IIRC, it could be an encoding thing. They've nerfed their old video encoding to push the newer format that is more "data efficient" (read: looks like shit). They've stopped hosting higher quality "legacy" encoded vids.

It's why sometimes in FreeTube when YouTube decides to cut off the stream they're not getting ads from, it'll switch protocols and reload with the 360p-only encoding.

Not sure what would lock you into legacy formats in FireFox, though.

Just download what you want to watch, fuck em!

I'm "Safari on Macos", and apple's portals are suddenly fully compatible with my Firefox, where they were broken before. The modern internet is a crime bouquet.

Or you could just not use YouTube and stop supporting their bullshit. A back door is still a view and it counts to their advertisers. Regardless if you see the ads or not-

In simpler terms you’re helping YouTube to get paid.

I haven't had it only give me lower quality options, but awhile back I noticed it was always defaulting to lower quality so I installed the YouTube High Definition extension. Haven't had an issue since.

Surprised Pikachu

Either download it using yt-dlp or refresh the page until it offers you a good resolution.

It must be a day of the week.

I could stop consuming YouTube for entertainment, but I legitimately have no idea how to replace the educational value. I only know how to tackle basic DIY jobs around the house because I've looked up how-to videos for everything under the sun. Reading a book doesn't cut it, it's not feasible to hire a handyman for every little thing, and I refuse to go back to the dark ages of "wing it and hope for the best" that whoever owned this house before me seemed to live in.

Firefox with youtube on in the background. Just looked and it's 1080p.

Yea i dont say that its like this for every video, but it started happening from recently and now it happenedes offten.
Majority of videos are stil in normal resolucion but just saying whats happening and it shows the direction they are headed to..

No am not watching videos afther they are uploaded, it happeneds for the videos months old and years old..

What's the ask here?

YT stopped working for me completely some time ago. I just load the first minute of any video and they dies. I set up metube to download videos from few channels automatically and I watch them in Jellyfin.

I use morph and it works like a charm.

Morphe?

I tried refreshing the page but no matter how many times i do it, its still the same. Only 360p opcion 🫤

Yea for most videos it probably is but for a lot of them it started doing this.
If i copy the link, paste it in Brave for example (same web engine as google chrome) and it shows all the opcions from 1080p to 360p it clearly isnt problem with video, in in youtube chosing to work diferently depending on the browser..

The ask here is do you gyes noticed the same thing, is the same happening on your computers also. And do you meaby know more about this..?

Hm interesting, i use Lbry it works like torrent youtube.. When ever i can but unfortinetly its not that popular as youtube.