Users of Adblock and Adblock Plus are affected by YouTube performance issues. If you’re experiencing the same problem, don’t look too far for the source of the problem.
At first, users attributed the problem to Google. However, upon closer inspection, it appears that these widely used ad-blocking plugins may be the main culprit. Here’s everything you need to know.
YouTube performance issues: What’s the problem?
A Reddit post last weekend revealed that videos on YouTube buffer slowly when an ad blocker is active, causing delays in video loading, thumbnail previews, full-screen transitions, and even basic scrolling. Some users even experienced browser issues during video playback, affecting overall operating system performance.
After installing the Adblock Chrome extension, further investigation confirmed the reported issues. The conclusion was clear: YouTube was slowing down significantly, making navigating difficult, and videos loading very slowly.
Initially, users were puzzled, thinking that it was an internet speed issue or a memory leak. However, it soon became clear that the problems were mainly affecting those with the Adblock and Adblock Plus ad-blocking extensions active. Strangely, YouTube Premium subscribers seemed to be unaffected, adding another layer of complexity to the situation.
An investigation into the Adblock extension revealed that the performance issues were caused by version 1.1.1 of the extension engine, which is available in Adblock 5.17 and Adblock Plus 3.22. While some believe that Google is deliberately degrading performance for ad-blocking users, uBlock Origin, another popular ad-blocking extension for Chrome, was not affected.
Raymond Hill, the developer of uBlock Origin, explained that changes in Google’s code did not cause the problems but were inherent to Adblock extensions. Using browser profiling tools, he found that the Adblock Plus content scripting code on the YouTube website was spending too much time, causing serious performance issues.
There is a lot of chatter in the last days about how Youtube is slow with content blockers.
Those performance issues affect only the latest version of both Adblock Plus (3.22) & AdBlock (5.17), and afflict more than just Youtube.
uBO is *not* affected.https://t.co/O3g48d2DT9
— R. Hill (@gorhill) January 13, 2024
Disabling Adblock Plus or Adblock alone does not immediately fix the performance issues. In order to completely disable the extension, users have to reload web pages several times or open them in new tabs. However, tests have shown that disabling Adblock and refreshing pages allows YouTube to load videos quickly, even with uBlock Origin enabled.
The Adblock developers are aware of the performance issues and are actively investigating them. While they acknowledge user reports, they are currently unable to reproduce the problem. Users are encouraged to provide feedback to help identify the cause of the issue and develop a fix.
It is not yet known how the YouTube performance issues will be resolved. We anticipate that the issue will be fully resolved in the future.
