Two Very Different Browser Problems in Linux Mint

Nov 20, 2009
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First problem: Last night I discovered that Firefox 82.0.2 would not play any videos on YouTube above 1080P when the same exact videos in Google Chrome did. This was even the same 4k60 video samples on YT. I searched and already found enabled what some on the web suggested but that didn't help. So, last night I had to use Chrome to watch 4k60 videos on YT.

Second problem: this evening Chrome decided to stop working. Oh, it launches both regular and Incognito windows but nothing I type into the URL or any of the many bookmarks no longer do anything other than time out. I thought I had a local network issue, but I was pinging stuff just fine, and then realized I could surf just fine in FF. Something tells me I had this issue before and I think the only way for me to resolve it was to literally uninstall and reinstall the browser--but that may have been a former FF issue.

Anyone got any ideas on either of these two problems?
 
Nov 20, 2009
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OK, solved the second problem. Seems that I had this exact problem back in August and I solved it by removing and adding back. I noticed what got added, though, is a forced prompting of setting Chrome as the default browser. I can no longer disable this in settings.
 
Nov 20, 2009
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And that second problem continues. Seems I came across an initiative by Google to not allow Ublock Origin to run on their browser. This time around instead of reinstalling the browser I reinstalled the extension and it worked again. But apparently there is a known current and recent initiative of Google to not allow anything that would inhibit its browser users from skirting advertising.

As for the first problem, I recently loaded up Groovy Gorilla onto another PC and low and behold right out of the Firefox played YT 4K videos with zero problem. This other PC only differs slightly in case and processor (i5 instead i7). So, whatever the problem I am having with LM18.4 on my main (i7) PC must me operating system related.
 

Steltek

Diamond Member
Mar 29, 2001
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I don't use Chrome on Linux, so I wasn't aware (though I'm really not surprised) that Google is trying to lock it down.

Have you tried Chromium instead of Chrome as it doesn't have any issues with extensions or default browser settings? Microsoft's Edge Linux preview is also...surprisingly good.