So, Few minutes ago I opened incognito window just to watch a video on youtube from a particular channel, I was about to click the youtube and I noticed something real bad and untrustworthy from a browser which claims to be “more privacy focused browser”
What I noticed you may ask?
Well, The video I was about to open was showing that I have partially viewed the video. And was showing a red indicator which tells user how much video they’ve watched.
I have not had any incognito windows open before and just opened the browser. And Not have any extension that may have using some account proxy.
I noticed this same behaviour about one month ago but thought to myself “It may have been some bug” or “I may have active incognito windows open in which I may have viewed the videos” but today there is only one incognito window open and right now I am writing this I just opened the new incognito window again and looked for the same video and same watch time line is showing.
How is it possible in a newly incognito window which provides cleared cookies and everything. Is it Youtube’s fault, I don’t think it is.
I am using cloudfare DNS but I strictly think, It is not possible.
I also uploaded the screenshot and I can also record a video if you want but I will have to download the recording application to record the full OS’s screen.
@SpaceY0 opening incognito does create a new session with no cookies. What most likely happened is you allowed the video to autoplay. Let me show you a quick example of what I mean. When I travel to YouTube just now, I see the below:
The difference is the video played while I had my mouse over the area, which is where you see it highlighted. Also, if you aren’t careful when clicking, it can be like below:
But I haven’t watched any of it yet! All that happened is I let it play a bit and even just quickly clicked on the 4:45 marker as shown in prior screenshot. Yet YouTube sees that the thumbnail was able to play and is showing then that I made supposed progress. They basically have us watching videos even without us watching videos.
And a lot of times people aren’t aware of it because it’s muted by default.
@SpaceY0 I would be interested to see your recording if you make it. One of the other things I do ponder is I see you have extensions running. In private, they should be disabled. So it looks like you have permitted things to run in private window. I’m not sure if uBlock Origin is the only one you have permitted or what else might be allowed to run in private?
I guess the long and short of it is I’ve tried to replicate and no luck. In fact, opening private window and then going to YouTube presents me with the screen below:
@SpaceY0, as you work on the video (you may need to upload it to a hosting site and share the link), I also suggest testing a session without allowing your extensions to run in private mode. No need to remove them, just toggle them off as shown below for each one:
After that, make sure to exit Brave completely and then open a new Private session. This will help rule out whether one of the extensions might be contributing to the behavior you’re experiencing.
@Saoiray I have recorded the video. (I blurred out or painted out some of the taskbar icons for obvious reasons) You can clearly see that I have only have one window open in which I have opened the Brvae community page and there is no other private window open. I even disabled ublock origin for youtube.com.
I suggest you to downlod the video first and then view it in your OS because right now in website, Brave icon in taskbar is not showing in player, which I suppose the only way to know that I don’t have any active incognito window or any window.
It’s a bug in YouTube! I just opened an Incognito Window, did the same search “ladybird browser”, scrolled down to find the relevant video “We’re on the brink of another world browser war” - it wasn’t at the top for me - and the progress bar shows the same amount of red “watched” bar as your screenshot.
It seems like this issue isn’t related to cookies or any specific browser, but rather something within YouTube for this particular video. I’d suggest checking in other browsers as well, and you’ll likely see the same results.
I appreciate you sharing this and helping us pinpoint the issue. I was trying to replicate it with various videos, but it seems this one video behaves differently, regardless of the browser used.
Woooow! That’s why (Now I know). That’s all I wanted to say. Everybody can leave the room/thread now and do their useful work. and Sorry @Saoiray for increasing your stress.
You’re good, @SpaceY0. Always can be helpful to get additional eyes on things and I think is beneficial when having doubts. At least glad was able to figure this out and hope you’re feeling more comfortable on things.
I’m going to go ahead and mark this as Solved, but do feel free to follow up if any other concerns.
Oh, and would be much appreciated if you update your Reddit post so can be known this was resolved and possibly you share what you found out. Thanks again!
