Technology @lemmy.world Lee Duna @lemmy.nz 7 mo. ago

YouTube uses lower quality options on browsers running on Arm-based systems — misreporting as an x86 CPU appears to be a widespread browser fix

www.tomshardware.com YouTube uses lower quality options on browsers running on Arm-based systems — misreporting as an x86 CPU appears to be a widespread browser fix

Firefox on Linux appears to get punished for truthfully reporting 'aarch64' on Arm.

YouTube uses lower quality options on browsers running on Arm-based systems — misreporting as an x86 CPU appears to be a widespread browser fix

51 comments

What the heck...? My CPU is none of their business.
- Google chooses codecs based on what it guesses your hardware will decode. (iPhones get HEVC, Android gets VP9, etc) They just didn’t put much thought into arm based home devices outside of a specific few like the shield.
  
  Why wouldn't it be my browser asking for the codecs it prefers instead of the website trying to guess my computer's hardware ?
  
  My by now rather ancient rk3399 board can hardware-decode both at 4k 60Hz. Which has nothing to do with the fact that it's aarch64, but that Rockchip included a beast of a VPU (it was originally designed for set-top boxes).
  
  How about, dunno, asking the browser what kind of media it would prefer?
- If you use any Google service, everything of yours is their business. You are their product, voluntarily.
  
  No.
this prolly wasnt a bad decision early on... why push something to a population who cant utilize it... but shit changes fast, google.
- It seems somewhat damning that Google’s own browser had a workaround for this, though
  
  was it ignorance or malicious intent?
  
  if it was a person, i would try and assume ignorance.. im not sure google the company deserves such respect
- The weirder thing is Firefox on ARM being detected as a HiSense TV. I did a cursory search to see if HiSense ever used Firefox OS on the TV and it doesn't seem like it. Panasonic seemed to be the only manufacturer using it.
  
  Could be that the developers for the HiSense TV just copy-pasted whatever UA into their browser codebase and called it a day.
YouTube is having a lot of totally not anticompetitive "bugs" in these past couple of weeks
UA sniffing again? What was it with feature detection and whatnot?
Does this include Apple Silicon Macs? That would be a bold move.
- This issue was detected when running Firefox on Linux on Apple silicon. Firefox on Mac just identifies as x64.
  
  It's probably not on purpose by YouTube. It's stupid they put restrictions on some heuristics to begin with but maybe because otherwise people would think YouTube is not loading properly while it's the software decoding on the not capable arm PC that can't handle the resolution.
- Nope, my work Mac has 1080p\4K playback no problem.
Seems like my Samsung TV app is being hit by stuff too, I had 5 unskippable ads and can't seem to get stable 1080p at 60fps any more despite gigabit fibre and cat6. Meanwhile getting 4k on my YouTube app on Android on WiFi.

Go figure.

YouTube is so desperate to fight this war that they're harming legitimate watchers meanwhile my rockpi running Android TV seems to keep running sTube just fine.
- The nic on TVs tend to be awful. I can barely break 100mbps on my lg wired or wireless.
  
  100mbps should be enough for a few 4K streams, and I imagine you’re not streaming more than one thing to your TV at any given time.
Repeat after me kids. It's not an "oversight", or "mistake", or "bug", or "misunderstanding"...

IF

IT

KEEPS

HAPPENING
Enshittification intensifies!
Does this apply to Windows on ARM as well, or is it just Linux specifically for some reason?
- It's a processor variable, not OS
  
  That's what I figured, but every article I've seen on this calls out Linux specifically. I'll have to give it a try from my Surface Pro X when I get home and test.
Sounds like a raspberry thing
Use piped
- They still have no app. Viewing anything on that site through your mobile browser sucks ass.
  
  NewPipe for android
  
  Libretube
  
  Piped is based on NewPipe's extractor.
  If you want an app it's available on f-droid or with sponsor block on Izzy's repo.
  
  Grayjay
- Thank God someone finally said something! There was probably a Lemmy user somewhere who hadn't heard of it yet.
- So many pipes! https://youtu.be/8g2KKGgK-0w?si=CmYDo3NBZdxgaBNR
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  
  https://piped.video/8g2KKGgK-0w?si=CmYDo3NBZdxgaBNR
  
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

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