Youtube's war against Firefox! Add in a User-Agent string changer...

[DreadStorm]

As we all (might) know, YT has been in a war against ad-blockers. I just learned the long and difficult way, that they are not, not really. It might be a part of it, but not as a be-all-and-end-all. It turns out that they are actually in a war against any non-Chrome browser users. (Typical Google monopoly.) Ad blocker plug-ins are something of a necessity nowadays, as ads are more of a nuisance than any form of information. All browsers have them, and most people use them, knowingly or not. Well, I found a way to beat them at their own game.

You see, there is undeniable (and quite obvious) code in Google-owned websites. They deliberately designed their pages to inject a 5-second pause before loading and/or playing video, that identifies the browser you use and if it's using a Firefox identifier (as named in the code) the pause executes, ads blow up, and messages about disabling add-ons slam you.

So what I'd done is change the identifier using a plug-in called "User-Agent Switcher" and suddenly all websites suddenly work flawlessly. I set it to Mac OS X/Safari 17, and everything works as it should. This told me 2 things: 1) It's not ad-blockers they're against, its OTHER browsers, and 2) that other browser is actually Firefox.

My idea is either add in a User-Agent string changer, OR a filter of some kind that if a website is owned by Google, that it reports another User-Agent string altogether, completely automatically.

[Jon]

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

Do you know
Responsive Design Mode

Other tests with Responsive Design Mode only
https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/devtools-user/responsive_design_mode/index.html

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/using-different-user-agents-for-different-web-pages/idc-p/44265...

Responsive Design Mode
For illustration Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:14.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/14.0.1

[magicsmith]

Up please

[adniL666]

I'm using version 144.0 (arch 64) on Mac OS Sequoia 15.6. The first time I noticed an issue was yesterday.

YouTube just plain doesn't work. No ads, no content. I wanted to listen to a Heart song, and it went through song after song without playing anything. Spoofing the browser signature sounds good or if nothing else works, how about just muting them and blacking them out?

[adniL666]

I'm using Firefox 144.0(arch 64) with Mac OS Sequoia 15.6.  Yesterday I tried to play a Heart song on YT, and the preview screen showed up but nothing happened: no ads, no content. Instead, it stepped through song after song, showing the screen with the album cover and playing nothing.

Spoofing the application signature seems like a great idea. I haven't programmed since System 7, so I don't know how to get to that any more.

-Linda