Utube Works Best On Chrome - Is That A Surprise?

[Tas_mania]

We recently lost broadband for a week due to a huge storm that lasted for days. It brought down big trees that took out power lines. Power lines that supply the broadband infrastructure and people's homes. We didn't lose power but had to adapt to no internet for awhile.

When we got internet back I noticed something I had been ignoring for some time. Utube was stopping at higher resolutions and I was having to drop lower, often to 360p or 240p. I was mostly using Firefox from an AppImage. I noticed the ads seem to work just fine. Speedtest seemed normal for us.
 
   

I checked Utube with Chrome and so far no slow-downs. It's definitely working better than Firefox with Utube. I'm currently watching Tassie Boys Prospecting because Levi often does 'sniping' in remote and dangerous areas.






Due to Tasmania's bizarre history gold found here by small time prospectors belongs to the King of England. For some reason he never shows-up to collect it.

[PixLab]

I did read somewhere that Google do few things on purpose, for instance if you use FireFox you have a delay of 3 seconds before the video shows up, which you don't have with Chromium, and it's something like a year for me.

EDIT
Pfff. I did try just right now, so it seems that for months I had this delay when opening a video on a new tab, but right now it's instantaneous, maybe even better than Chromium
I tried to click multiple videos in a row, all starting right away full hd even before all the lateral thumbnails (which are fast)... go figure it out

[Tas_mania]

Hi Pixlab, it's worth experimenting with your local internet connection. In Australia we have the NBN or National Broadband Network. It was paid for by taxpayers so in theory we own it. In reality it's cut-up like a big cake with lots of vested interests making money out of it. 

The government even decided to use it as a surveillance system so people don't do the wrong thing. Unfortunately this 'surveillance' does nothing against scams and frauds.  

I wanted a cable to the home but they said my distance from the street was too far. Instead I got 'wireless broadband' from this giant tower.

   

This big tower would carry thousands of connections. I noticed videos drop-out during peak periods like 7pm -9pm every night. The tower would carry 'streaming services' that we don't use. At other times videos play OK on any browser. I just switched over to Chrome at around 8pm and it's problem solved.

I think big sporting events also soak-up bandwidth. This probably happens around the World. Australians love sport but they are also very gullible. Fake emails with fake websites from fake financial institutions gets them a lot. They still have not worked-out who pays when somebody empties a bank account. At the moment its 'sucker beware'.

[rich2005]

(09-23-2024, 10:07 AM)Tas_mania Wrote: I wanted a cable to the home but they said my distance from the street was too far. Instead I got 'wireless broadband' from this giant tower.
.......
This big tower would carry thousands of connections. I noticed videos drop-out during peak periods like 7pm -9pm every night. The tower would carry 'streaming services' that we don't use. At other times videos play OK on any browser. I just switched over to Chrome at around 8pm and it's problem solved.

Here in the UK I used cable for years, originally telewest then taken over by VirginMedia now largely owned by the evil Global Media. Finally got sick of being ripped off by their yearly price rises and now use 4G wireless (might get 5G sometime - the UK is way behind the rest of the world.

When it comes to speed, where I live it all depends on the amount of traffic passing the tower, peak commuting times = very slow, rest of the time is just slow. 

I do not watch much youtube these days, the advertisements really annoy.

[PixLab]

(09-23-2024, 10:34 AM)rich2005 Wrote: I do not watch much youtube these days, the advertisements really annoy.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox...ck-origin/ the only one by Raymond Hill, I never ever seen an advertisement on youtube or somewhere else

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(09-23-2024, 10:07 AM)Tas_mania Wrote: I wanted a cable to the home but they said my distance from the street was too far. Instead I got 'wireless broadband' from this giant tower.
This big tower would carry thousands of connections. I noticed videos drop-out during peak periods like 7pm -9pm every night. The tower would carry 'streaming services' that we don't use. At other times videos play OK on any browser. I just switched over to Chrome at around 8pm and it's problem solved.

I had that 4G router, I even bought an expensive one and got 40-50mb max, and it was limited in data (200Gb/month), needed to buy more data each time, then the ISP blocked the speed to 10mb on their side as many people did like me (bought a good 4G router), and before that I had only DSL at 10mb for over a decade (from when I arrived here), in all case I was too far for the fiber in the beginning, then they never came to my location
happily StarLink arrived just in time a year and a half ago when Local ISP throttled the 4G because of good routers, a new world opened... literally

   

[Tas_mania]

I'm glad Starlink solved your problem Patrice, I remember when you changed. It would be good if you clicked Speedtest.net 
so Rich and I can compare it with our wireless broadband  

Starlink avoids local 'peak' slow downs because their satellites are spread out (the constellation) and moving. There is good info on Starlink here.
I guess when satellites fail they are replaced by another batch.

Starlink is more expensive than my ''unlimited'' broadband
'Residential Starlink plans in Australia cost $139 per month for unlimited data. However, you'll need to buy or rent hardware to access the services. Your options include: Paying $599 upfront or $299 for refurbished hardware'.


This is what they used to get my internet back while they fixed the downed power lines.

   

A 3-phase diesel generator. It's quiet and could power-up a house easily. I think it could be re-fueled while running. The issue was so many damaged power lines at once.

[PixLab]

(09-23-2024, 11:02 PM)Tas_mania Wrote: I'm glad Starlink solved your problem Patrice, I remember when you changed. It would be good if you clicked Speedtest.net 
so Rich and I can compare it with our wireless broadband  

I stopped with speedtest.net, it is not consistent and has very strange result depending the test server, speedtest.net also insist to connect me to Manila or suburb, when I'm passing by ground-stations in New-Zealand, Japan, whatnot country, I think their system is not good for satellite...

Anyway, here is one with speedtest.net , although I have one screenshot at 5Mbps which is ridiculous, the test server was in Quezon City near Manila ➤ this 5mbps screenshot I'll keep it, it's just laughable  

   

(09-23-2024, 11:02 PM)Tas_mania Wrote: Starlink avoids local 'peak' slow downs because their satellites are spread out (the constellation) and moving. There is good info on Starlink here.
I guess when satellites fail they are replaced by another batch.

SpaceX is sending around 2 Falcon-9 per week just for Starlink, each fly is a batch of ~20 satellites, that's why they are pushing the FAA with the Starship, each batch will be around 200 satellites of the latest generation (bigger satellites)

(09-23-2024, 11:02 PM)Tas_mania Wrote: Starlink is more expensive than my ''unlimited'' broadband
'Residential Starlink plans in Australia cost $139 per month for unlimited data. However, you'll need to buy or rent hardware to access the services. Your options include: Paying $599 upfront or $299 for refurbished hardware'.

Woowww I'm literally shocked with this price, here we pay 2700 PHP per month (Philippine's peso), which is as of today's change on google ➤ 48.21 United States Dollar, or 43.36 Euro, for unlimited data and up to 200 Mbps (average is between 160 and 180 Mbps)

Also even if my "dish" (it's furnished with router and wiring) I did paid 28000 PHP (499.73 USD), as I was one of the first in this country, this beginning of 2024 it decrease to 19000 PHP (339.02 USD), and it even got a promo end of August and this September at 14000 PHP (249.76 USD)  

   

(09-23-2024, 11:02 PM)Tas_mania Wrote: A 3-phase diesel generator. It's quiet and could power-up a house easily. I think it could be re-fueled while running. The issue was so many damaged power lines at once.

All diesel can be refueled while running  
How this happened? A typhoon?

[Tas_mania]

Thanks for the speed test info Patrice. I can see it's different to measuring on the ground internet speeds (like comparing apples to oranges). Looks like the satellite system must also use on Earth connections. They don't have their own DNS servers. I found discussion about how the system works but its a lot of reading.

Quote:here we pay 2700 PHP per month (Philippine's peso), which is as of today's change on google ➤ 48.21 United States Dollar, or 43.36 Euro, for unlimited data

At the moment 1 US dollar is worth 1.46 Australian. So Starlink in Australia costs around $95 US a month. About twice as much as the Philippines. Starlink must have relationships with every country it's used in? I bet Elon wishes there was a global currency

Typhoons - we don't call them that here. They issue 'severe weather warnings'. We had at least a week of 'gale force' winds, heavy rain and low barometric pressure. Wind speeds were up to 187km/h.
Because the ground was wet big trees were felled by the wind often by the roots. This weather system was coming from Antarctica or the South West.

[Tas_mania]

I think I discovered why Chrome handles peak time congestion better than Firefox.

Google developed the BBR Algorithm in 2016.  BBR ("Bottleneck Bandwidth and Round-trip propagation time") is a congestion control algorithm.

     

It's open source on GitHub. More details are here.  I don't know if it needs to be implemented at both ends using a 'handshake' signal or not. if so, with YouTube and Chrome a Google product is at both ends of the connection. I can't find anything about Mozilla implementing this algorithm (but I didn't look very hard)

I'm now watch YouTube in HD at evening peak in Australia on wireless broadband for the first time.

I found this algorithm while reading about Starlink.
I think Starlink satellite internet could be another topic. It's certainly big enough technically for that