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Youtube on Firefox for Windows 10 always forces me to play at the highest available resolution

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 13 views
  • Last reply by dem.nisbet

dem.nisbet
dem.nisbet
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I'm using firefox 88.0.1, Windows 10. I also use "Adblock plus" and "YouTube enhancer". When I watch a YouTube video, it almost always forces the highest resolution. I don't mean "default", I mean "force". When I change the resolution to 480p (or anything else) it immediately reverts to the highest setting. Then it buffers (preloads) the video, using much more bandwidth than just the "per minute" toll for 1080p, because it is using bandwidth for the preloading as well. Is anyone else experiencing this (I think it started just this month, May 2021, or not long before that)?

I'm using firefox 88.0.1, Windows 10. I also use "Adblock plus" and "YouTube enhancer". When I watch a YouTube video, it almost always forces the highest resolution. I don't mean "default", I mean "force". When I change the resolution to 480p (or anything else) it immediately reverts to the highest setting. Then it buffers (preloads) the video, using much more bandwidth than just the "per minute" toll for 1080p, because it is using bandwidth for the preloading as well. Is anyone else experiencing this (I think it started just this month, May 2021, or not long before that)?

All Replies (3)

dem.nisbet
dem.nisbet Question owner
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Further to the above: it is doing this because youtube is detecting the addon: adblock plus.

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 25 Contributor
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That's a weird behavior. I assumed YouTube would lower the resolution for users doing things it doesn't like, not raise it. Is it possible Adblock Plus has some special code to compensate for that?

Might be some discussion over here: https://adblockplus.org/forum/

dem.nisbet
dem.nisbet Question owner
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that's a better resource - thankyou, I'll try that forum, since it's more directly relevant. Yes, very strange behaviour. I should add that I'm not certain it's the adblock thing, but it is very consistent with what I've noticed elsewhere, and private browsing on firefox somehow doesn't have adblock, and, hey presto! - no resolution problems. But I can't do this all the time - I need adblock not just to remove ads - it stops the video thumbnail preview where you get a 3 sec preview when it detects a mouseover event (roll the cursor over a thumbnail, video starts playing)