it's not your internet, youtube now makes you wait 5 extra seconds as a penalty for not using google chrome this "issue" is 100% artificial and hardcoded, changing the user agent to google chrome magically fixes the timeout

if you have the same issue, here's how to fix it in ublock origin:

it also seems to be in a/b testing because i don't have it in firefox but do have it in safari many others have it in firefox and brave though:

the suspected function is this, seems to not be doing much aside from delaying the resolving state (?) not sure how chrome avoids it as it uses the same js file as other browsers

entire function is this, aj is used when resolving check is needed

source file can be found here: or archive link if they update the web app by the time you see this tweet:

it's related to new adblock checking which hangs for 5 seconds if ad stub isn't loaded still doesn't explain why it didn't like my clean safari but was fine after i changed the user agent to chrome

chrome is also prone to this, just way less often (?), this could simply be a bug with new adblocking detection filter (or intended behaviour, who knows) either way, just add the filter line to ublock origin and move on

this is most likely related to tracking protection in all affected browsers (or browser + extension combos), chrome obviously doesn't block in-house trackers which is why it's less affected

summary: 5 sec freezing is caused by new anti-adblock functionality which is being a/b tested mostly for 3rd party browsers. those that have tracking protection enabled are most likely to be affected. don’t disable adblockers or tracking protection, use workarounds instead.

if anyone can correct the community note from “firefox” to “safari” then it’ll be perfect