Pointed out that YouTube reduces video resolution when using Firefox on Linux-equipped ARM devices
Hector Martin, developer of
Hector Martin: 'Today I learned that YouTube i…' - Treehouse Mastodon
https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/111567255619206929
When evaluating browsers that support an arm-based system reporting 'x86_64', YouTube only allows for lower quality options - Game News 24
https://game-news24.com/2023/12/12/when-evaluating-browsers-that-support-an-arm-based-system-reporting-x86-64-youtube-only-allows-for-lower- quality-options/
'Today we learned that YouTube is intentionally crippled Firefox on Asahi Linux, which reduces video resolution,' Martin wrote in a post on December 12, 2023. I reported.
According to Martin, YouTube reads the user agent string that identifies the OS and browser used and determines ``whether the device uses the ARM architecture for the CPU.'' If it is an ARM-equipped device, it is determined that the system performance is low, and the default video resolution is lowered.
YouTube's default video resolution is 1080p, but Martin explains that the resolution will be reduced to 480p if the number of CPU cores is 2 or less, and 240p for ARM-equipped devices. Also, even if the video should actually be viewable in 4K, it seems that Firefox on the relevant device cannot play it at 4K resolution.
In addition, the user agent string of Chromium used in Chrome and Edge disguises ARM's 64-bit instruction set AArch64 as x86_64 , which is the same as AMD and Intel, so there will be no impact. Also, since Firefox already disguises its architecture on Windows and macOS, it seems that the effect is limited to Firefox on ARM-equipped devices running on Linux.
In fact, when Mr. Martin replaced the user agent string from ``aarch64'' to ``x86_64'' in Firefox on a Linux-equipped ARM device, the video resolution problem seemed to be resolved.
Mr. Martin has reported this issue as a bug to Mozilla, which develops Firefox.
1869521 - YouTube is capping resolutions to 1080 on Linux aarch64 user agents
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1869521
The social news site Hacker News also talked about this issue, saying, ``While it is unlikely that YouTube is intentionally targeting Asahi Linux, assuming that the devices in question are generally low-performance, 'It seems reasonable to lower the video resolution,' one commenter said.
YouTube is crippling Firefox on Asahi Linux? | Hacker News
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38611248
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in Web Service, Hardware, Posted by log1h_ik