The last 24 hours have been frustrating for most Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge users, as YouTube is allegedly experiencing a 5-second delay. However, reports claim that the delay goes away when users switch their user agent to Chrome, indicating that the switch could be browser-related.
Mozilla Firefox user vk6_, a Redditor, showed a five-second lag when loading YouTube videos. Interestingly, this delay was alleviated by manually setting the user agent to Chrome. Therefore, it’s probable that YouTube is purposefully implementing this restriction for certain specific browsers.
The Redditor found that the YouTube desktop client’s JavaScript code is what causes this delay, rather than being a problem. In particular, he located a section of code that adds a fictitious five-second delay. Viewers can confirm that this code is present by looking at a YouTube JavaScript file if they are observing the five-second lag before the video starts playing.
Although some users reported no problems with other browsers, several complaints were made about Firefox and Edge’s delayed behavior. Interestingly, customers claimed that even with all browser extensions removed, the delay still occurs. It suggests that it may be applied to individual accounts.
Reacting to this issue, the video sharing and social media platform, said the delay is related to ad blockers and not with browsers: “To support a diverse ecosystem of creators globally and allow billions to access their favorite content on YouTube, we’ve launched an effort to urge viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad-free experience.
Users who have ad blockers installed may experience suboptimal viewing, regardless of the browser they are using.” Users claim that every time they visit YouTube in a new tab, there is a recurrent delay. It recommends a methodical approach as opposed to a one-time occurrence.
Talk about this problem suggests that the embedded code is a way to combat ad-blockers. Some people suggest that this might be a sloppy way for YouTube to implement an ad fallback system, which guarantees that advertising would appear on the platform at least five seconds before the video content begins.
