YouTube appears to be slowing down the site for adblocker users again – Update

YouTube appears to have started slowing down the site for ad blocker users again. That happened earlier in November. There is an automatic delay in the site’s code.

Many Reddit users are noticing the slowdown and 9to5Google writes about it too. It’s not the first time it’s happened. YouTube confirmed in November that it would give users of ad blockers a suboptimal viewing experience. This is setTimeout(function() { c(); a.resolve(1) }, 5E3), where ‘5E3’ corresponds to five seconds.

The intention of YouTube parent company Google is to encourage more users to become paying customers with a Premium subscription. With Premium, customers will not see advertisements on the video service’s site and apps. In addition to slowing down the site, Google also tried to increase the number of advertisements displayed as a test. YouTube briefly blocked adblock users, but has stopped doing so.

Update, 4:36 p.m.: it appears that the site slowdowns are not a deliberate action by YouTube, but are caused by bugs in Adblock and Adblock Plus. Other sites would also suffer from delays as a result. A developer of both ad blockers says that a fix for the problem will be released ‘as soon as possible’.

YouTube videos slowed down