google.com / youtube issues

[jebzilla]

where to begin: first i'm brand new here and google.com issues (really, youtube issues) are what brought me here.

ive been using NoScript for a few years now and love it. google and all their products have been on a boycott list for some time for various reasons. i was really irked when they bought youtube and started forcing their scripts and account linking on users. (i was similarly irked when the first time i sign up for this site I also had to allow google.com just to use the captcha to verify my new account. i was mildly taken aback by that requirement but i realize my google hate is a bit more than most.)

until the last few days, i only had to allow youtube.com and ytimg.com but now the videos refuse to play. im curious why google now requires more than those two scripts to see the videos and when they made the changes. i was literally watching videos there 4 days ago and now none are viewed until i allow the google.com and googlevideo.com. im also unsure how benign those two scripts are but in the last year google has added more scripts to require functionality. a year ago i only had to allow youtube.com. then it was also ytimg.com and now more.

im sure they are aware of script blockers but are they also forcing ads and cookies on users disguised as functionality necessities? i already never see ads but now i dont want to be tracked all the time with required cookies or some such. i dont have an account i have to log in to and i dont participate in comments sections, just occasionally watch some vids.

(btw, since this topic was on the front page i thought i'd add this question here rather than start a new thread. if this is bad etiquette then i apologize. i also don't mean to hijack this thread but i also don't want to 'flood' forums with excessive new topics. i just thought the whitelist might be a close enough topic.)

thanks
jebzilla

[therube]

> i only had to allow youtube.com and ytimg.com but now the videos refuse to play. im
> curious why google now requires more than those two scripts to see the videos and
> when they made the changes

It's probably a change you made, like updating to a current FF.
More recent Mozilla are served html5 rather then Flash, & html5 requires googlevideo.com.

When?
It's been some time now (you could check https://noscript.net/changelog, it's probably noted when googlevideo.com was added).

There is an easy way around it - avoid Youtube.
Or you could get an extension or some other manipulation to get Youtube to serve you Flash again.

[barbaz]

Test URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJkb2Esf9Fc
I block google.com *completely* on youtube and I can watch videos fine. HTML5 requires googlevideo (for video objects and/or XHR) & ytimg whitelisted, Flash only requires youtube.com whitelisted. Your UA string gives me the html5 player but I don't see why you need different, more lenient permissions than me to make it work.

(btw, since this topic was on the front page i thought i'd add this question here rather than start a new thread. if this is bad etiquette then i apologize. i also don't mean to hijack this thread but i also don't want to 'flood' forums with excessive new topics. i just thought the whitelist might be a close enough topic.)

thanks
jebzilla

Yeah, it's not the best of forum etiquette but we can forgive sinners who admit up front that they don't know whether they're sinners or not Splitting to a new thread. I've also put the OP's authorship under your account so that you can pick a better topic title if you want.

[Guest]

>It's been some time now (you could check https://noscript.net/changelog, it's probably noted when googlevideo.com was added).

There is an easy way around it - avoid Youtube.
Or you could get an extension or some other manipulation to get Youtube to serve you Flash again.

well if 'sometime now' is the last 4-5 days then i get it. but i was watching them on the two scripts only just 5 days ago. and of course i can avoid youtube altogether, but i watch things like how-to videos for artwork or crafting and rarely the sponsored stuff like some clip from Last Week Tonight or something.

i did check the changelog but i was looking for things specific to youtube or google. i guess i just missed it or didnt know a flash/html5 change was the source. anyways, thanks for the reply.

and thanks for handling the post etiquette, barbaz. forums all have some subtle differences in how they want new posts so it's good to know it here. thanks.

any idea how benign googlevideo.com is? any hidden tracking or anything?

[therube]

v 2.6.9.19
=============================================================
...
Added googlevideo.com to the default whitelist because it's
now required to play Youtube movies (thanks barbaz for RFE)

Circa 03/20/2015.

If you do not have googlevideo.com allowed, but do have yahoo.com & ytimg.com allowed, Youtube will first attempt to use html5 player, but then - after a bit of time, will automatically load the Flash player version. So to a user, it ends up being (kind of) transparent, only there is a delay in the loading of the video.

If you were using an old enough (perhaps FF < 37 or so, not sure offhand) FF version, Youtube will serve you Flash (even today).

So Youtube serving html5 to FF users, & so requiring googlevide.com, & NoScript whitelisting googlevideo.com, all happened quite a while back (relatively speaking).

[Guest]

v 2.6.9.19
=============================================================
...
Added googlevideo.com to the default whitelist because it's
now required to play Youtube movies (thanks barbaz for RFE)

Circa 03/20/2015.

If you do not have googlevideo.com allowed, but do have yahoo.com & ytimg.com allowed, Youtube will first attempt to use html5 player, but then - after a bit of time, will automatically load the Flash player version. So to a user, it ends up being (kind of) transparent, only there is a delay in the loading of the video.

If you were using an old enough (perhaps FF < 37 or so, not sure offhand) FF version, Youtube will serve you Flash (even today).

So Youtube serving html5 to FF users, & so requiring googlevide.com, & NoScript whitelisting googlevideo.com, all happened quite a while back (relatively speaking).

yeah, i looked again and just now saw 2.6.9.19 but i didnt see the date. i thought the delay after the two scripts was due to trying to get past the pre-video ads they use. (didnt even know they used them until i was on a friend's computer and saw those ads maybe a year ago.) and my FF is the current version. i only have maybe 3 addons from FF: NS, AdBlock, and TinyEye Reverse image search (which i only used once). But just checking the addons again, there are a lot there for youtube tweaking too. I should probably look at those to see if they are worth it.

thanks
jebzilla

[barbaz]

@jebzilla/Guest Remember to log in before posting so that you don't need to solve the CAPTCHA all the time (click "Login" in the upper right corner).

AFAICT googlevideo is just hosting the videos themselves. The video URLs do contain parameters that seem to be just information about you, but the information appears to be just the same info that is sent with any request made by a browser...

[jebzilla]

@jebzilla/Guest Remember to log in before posting so that you don't need to solve the CAPTCHA all the time (click "Login" in the upper right corner).

AFAICT googlevideo is just hosting the videos themselves. The video URLs do contain parameters that seem to be just information about you, but the information appears to be just the same info that is sent with any request made by a browser...

ah, thanks. i was wondering why, when i would click 'quote' or 'reply' it asked for login (above the subject line), i'd put it in and it would tell me someone is already logged in with that name. i somehow assumed i was already logged in or some script here was conflicting. but i just officially logged in and dont have to do the captcha thing.

im also still ignorant of many html5/flash issues. NoScript was its own learning hurdle but well worth it, imo. but thanks for dealing with my drama, haha. i may start enabling googlevideo.com now that it doesnt seem too invasive. youtube is full of awesome homemade videos, i love DIY kind of stuff.