YouTube says latest browser slowdowns aren’t part of crackdown

YouTube’s crackdown on ad blockers has had a lot of effects for users, but according to YouTube, the latest wave of browser slowdowns aren’t actually a result of the company’s actions after all.

Back in November, YouTube users with ad blockers enabled found that their browsers were slowing to a crawl whenever YouTube.com was loaded up. It wasn’t a particularly widespread issue at the time, but YouTube directly took responsibility for it, saying:

In the past week, users using ad blockers may have experienced suboptimal viewing, which included delays in loading, regardless of the browser they are using.

Fast forward to last week, and what appeared to be a new, aggressive form of this action rolled out. Users have noticed over the past couple of weeks that YouTube has been very slow when an ad blocker is installed, as our Andrew Romero first reported this weekend. It was also noted by PC Gamer that the latest browser slowdowns on YouTube were spiking CPU usage on some machines.

But, now, YouTube says that this latest browser slowdown actually isn’t its own doing after all. Speaking to Android Central, YouTube says that these slowdowns are “unrelated” to its ad blocker detection.

Recent reports of users experiencing loading delays on YouTube are unrelated to our ad blocker detection efforts. Our help center offers troubleshooting tips for users experiencing issues.

It’s also pointed out that the popular ad blocker, AdBlock, has found a bug in its latest updates that seem to be the culprit for these slowdowns.

On GitLab, a member of the AdBlock team says that the issue is being fixed in response to users who have found slowdowns on YouTube and other pages around the web including Google Translate, some Microsoft websites, and more. A developer for uBlockOrigin also notes that, apparently, the slowdown never affected that ad blocker.

In a statement to 9to5Google, AdBlock says:

AdBlock and Adblock Plus users have recently experienced a slow down in performance and a higher use of CPU when browsing on YouTube and other websites. Our engineering team fixed the problem and released ABP 3.22.1 and AB 5.17.1. The new versions are already available in the Opera and Edge extension stores and are currently in review in the Mozilla and Chrome extension stores. This means the problem is solved and AdBlock and Adblock Plus users should not experience issues that are related to the fixed bug, as soon as their extension is updated to the new version. Our team will closely monitor the situation and is ready to make further adjustments should it become necessary.