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Comment by yipinwong | Hacker News Reader

Nope. I watch a lotta youtube on a PC, FF runs vids like crap because Google changes something, and FF struggls to play well unlike Chrome or Edge.

That's the only reason I am not switching to FF 100%. I do use it though but not as a main driver.

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They do that on purpose. To keep you using Chrome.

Some of the related posts:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/youtube-is-slowing-video-loads...

ty. This... yes, you know why I don't use FF for Youtube...

This is why you should only use firefox, with a proper adblocker, for youtube.

Interesting, YouTube runs fairly well on my system with Firefox. I do get the "Experiencing interruptions? Find out why" pop-up often. It's funny though, the only interruption I actually experience is the pop-up. If the pop-up went away, so would all interruptions.

I have a paid sub, and runs youtube without any ad blockers on chrome and FF. The issue happens only on FF

Yeah, I would not be surprised at all if there's "if not Chrome UA, show popup" code somewhere.

I have the same in Safari when I have uBlock on, initial video load takes forever and i get an occasional interruptions pop up in the bottom left of the screen

Many replies about Firefox having no problems on Youtube but I will confirm your complaint that it's an ongoing issue for some of us.

I keep retrying Firefox over multiple years and it's still not quite equal to Chrome for Youtube 4k playback ...

2021: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28783904

2024: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42176450

2026 still talks about the problem: https://go.tabbit.ai/blog/firefox-youtube-4k-stuttering

And a recent Youtube comment (2026-September) notices that Firefox doesn't run as well as Chrome on his modern high-end laptop with 64GB RAM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIE_PkuFeng&lc=UgxfGeBL6sopr...

4k? That might have something to do with it. Though given a big enough box that too shouldn't be an issue. But I'm using a decade+ old thinkpad driving a fairly high res dell and it works well enough.

I use 4k without issues

"Works on My Machine" reply.

I sometimes have difficulty with YouTube 4K on Firefox on my Mac Studio (M2 Max with 64GB). I don't really care though, because 1440p is always well and truly good enough. (And really 1080p is more than good enough except that the default bitrate is absolute dogshit. Most of the time I'm choosing 1440p is because it's bitrate is not dogshit.)

I've had zero problems with Youtube on FF for I don't remember how many years. I'm on Mac though.

I've used FF for the past 20 years (Linux and Windows). I have seen thousands of youtube videos in that time without a glitch. So have many hundreds of other FF users.

If FF is not working on youtube for, it's not working for you and you alone.

I've been using FF across Linux, MacOS, and Windows for years. I can't remember the last time I had an issue playing YT videos in it.

I just use Brave for YT. Adblock built in!

I used to use Brave and it had no issues on YT.

I stopped using Brave for no reason i don't remember. (no, not to do with the CEO)

> Nope. I watch a lotta youtube on a PC, FF runs vids like crap because Google changes something, and FF struggls to play well unlike Chrome or Edge.

I generally use Safari on my Apple devices (and YT works) and Firefox on any Linux machines. If something does not work on Safari I try Firefox on my Mac. In the past I've also sometimes used Chrome when no other option works.

So one option could be to use Firefox as a 'general use' browser, and switch to something else on an as-needed basis.

A bit of a hassle, but it may be the best compromise currently.

Never had a problem with that.

"Nope. I watch a lotta youtube on a PC, FF runs vids like crap because Google changes something, and FF struggls to play well unlike Chrome or Edge."

You must have a hardware problem, as I'm playing 4K videos on a 1st-gen Ryzen and GTX 1080 using Firefox and I've never had a single issue since I got the machine, around the 4th week the processor was available to purchase.

r7 1700 and GTX 1080 was my setup for a long time. still is, just relegated to an htpc (albeit not a very power friendly one). the 1080 in particular was (and remains) such a reliable card.

The 1080 was quite amazing when it came out. I still have one here that I use as a test card. Of course it can't do anything useful for the amount of power that it consumes but still, the amount of horsepower in there was very impressive.

"Of course it can't do anything useful for the amount of power that it consumes"

Until about the top-end of the 3000 RTX series released, the GTX 1080 was still king of raster performance.

I'm playing modern games like Marvel Rivals at 1440p no problem. Risk of Rain 2 4k no problem. STALKER 2 1080p no problem. It even runs most of my VR games perfectly fine, with me only needing to switch to my RTX 5060 machine for Into the Radius 2.

Even today, it is a very capable card, despite the power draw.

Ah yes, my bad, for gaming it is still usable depending on the games but I don't play games. A lot is expensive, it needs power and you only have so much of them. Currently running 2x modded 4090 with 48G VRAM each, 2x 3090 and 4x RTX 4000. Adding a 1080 would be silly :)

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