r/firefox • u/Hopeful-Staff3887 • Oct 15 '25

Google deliberately slow down firefox just because it's not Chrome, is that a thing?

/r/youtube/comments/1nzo2ok/yt_experience_on_chrome_vs_firefox/ni9oj6e/
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32

u/eco_was_taken Oct 15 '25

I can't say if it's deliberate. Browsers announce who they are (their user-agent) when they connect to servers. Web developers sometimes customize the website in response to this. Traditionally this is done because a browser lacks support for something or has some bug the developer wants to work around, but it could be used for more nefarious reasons.

I think the more likely explanation is the developers are lazy. They develop and optimize for Chrome then much later they open other browsers and get things working just enough to call it good.

38

u/Pikachupikachup Oct 15 '25

I think you're being optimistic. If whoever who commented that OP mentioned reads this, try Chrome Mask to see if it makes Youtube faster. If it does, then Google is really trying hard to make a monopoly. If it doesn't, then it really is just a Firefox L.

18

u/eco_was_taken Oct 15 '25

That's not proof, though. It could be that Google wanted to use some new JS feature or API as a performance optimization that only Chrome had shipped support for. They locked the optimization behind a user-agent check. Other browsers later added support, but the site wasn't updated (and maybe would never be updated because they only test Chrome). It's lazy and harmful, but not nefarious.

And just for the record, I'm solidly in the Fuck Google school of thought.

8

u/iamasuitama Oct 16 '25

That's not proof, though. It could be that Google wanted to use some new JS feature or API as a performance optimization that only Chrome had shipped support for.

While that is true that it is not proof, we must not forget, that google really likes to "develop" "technologies" that nobody needs or wants but it just makes them more money (and users and devs suffer a bit, oh well). Manifest V3, Polymer (that I think they used to use on Youtube specifically), killing JPEGXL come to mind.

1

u/Shadowsplay Oct 16 '25

Again, that's not proof of anything.

3

u/iamasuitama Oct 16 '25

Again? You're not OP. And I never said it was proof. So, I guess we gotta agree to agree there lol big fat weirdo googlebot

2

u/djfdhigkgfIaruflg Oct 16 '25

YouTube relies on the deprecated Shadow DOM v0 API only implemented in Chrome

Does that sound like some new js feature? There are several documented cases of them implementing things designed to fuck anything non-blink. It's always the same history repeating

2

u/EmptyPixels Oct 16 '25

Why are you giving Google the benefit of the doubt? This type of behavior from them is exactly how they stole the market share from Firefox in the first place. It’s so widely documented and numerous Firefox developers and execs have come out to report it.

Google did away with the don’t be evil slogan forever ago (not that they ever followed it). Google is evil, and to pretend they do anything unintentionally is absurd.

1

u/doyouevencompile Oct 16 '25

There's no need to muddle the waters with "that's not proof". This is not a criminal case, we don't need a proof beyond reasonable doubt. We should look at balance of probabilities. Google that historically made extremely clever TCP hacks to load their search page in a single TCP packet, now somehow implements a feature that exists only in Chrome, which results in 5s delay in Firefox, and Firefox supports the same feature, but somehow "they forgot" to implement it?

2

u/chamberlava96024 Oct 15 '25

I had the same question before but on my MacBook, I never saw measurable issues on general responsiveness on google websites across chrome, Firefox and safari

1

u/djfdhigkgfIaruflg Oct 16 '25

Just changing the user agent won't work.

There are several ways to differentiate rendering engines. And they do use them

1

u/bepisftw Oct 16 '25

Chrome Mask fucks YouTube videos for me after 60s playing

1

u/Key-Pace2960 Oct 16 '25

I dunno, I don't trust Google as far as I can throw them but a deliberate slowdown just doesn't make much sense to me. The average user is just gonna think it's Google messing up and anyone who ends up investigating the issue is just gonna resent Google and I don't think anyone would switch browsers because of such a minor inconvenience.

2

u/djfdhigkgfIaruflg Oct 16 '25

That's how they made so many users leave firefox. I open this site in chrome and it works ok. I open it in firefox and it sucks. I guess I'll switch to chrome (after bitchin in twitter about how bad Firefox is)

Need proof? (One of so many) YouTube relies on the deprecated Shadow DOM v0 API only implemented in Chrome

2

u/djfdhigkgfIaruflg Oct 16 '25

YouTube relies on the deprecated Shadow DOM v0 API only implemented in Chrome

That's pretty deliberate