YouTube Kills Background Playback on Third-Party Mobile Browsers
8 86YouTube has confirmed that it is blocking background playback -- the ability to keep a video's audio running after minimizing the browser or locking the screen -- for non-Premium users across third-party mobile browsers including Samsung Internet, Brave, Vivaldi and Microsoft Edge.
Users began reporting the issue last week, noting that audio would cut out the moment they left the browser, sometimes after a brief "MediaOngoingActivity" notification flashed before media controls disappeared. A Google spokesperson told Android Authority that the platform "updated the experience to ensure consistency," calling background play a Premium-exclusive feature.
8 comments
Properly enshittifying (Score: 5, Funny)
by yanestra ( 526590 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @12:12PM (#65966760)
Smell and distribution of the brown stains cannot be overlooked any further.
Only an Insucure Browser Would Allow Detection (Score: 5, Interesting)
by BrendaEM ( 871664 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @12:15PM (#65966770)
No private browser would allow the detection of user activity--got that Firefox?
Re:Only an Insucure Browser Would Allow Detection (Score: 5, Informative)
by Dusanyu ( 675778 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @12:23PM (#65966786)
I was thinking the same thing because i can still do this without issue in brave.
Google Must Die (Score: 5, Insightful)
by greytree ( 7124971 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @12:21PM (#65966778)
If they had said "We're doing this to make more money from advertising" one would merely by pissed off.
But when they say shit like "The platform updated the experience to ensure consistency" they are showing themselves to be complete and utter cunts.
Fuck Evil Google
Re:Google Must Die (Score: 5, Informative)
by taustin ( 171655 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @12:35PM (#65966808)
They are ensuring consistency. They are insuring it is consistently shitty.
Re:Google Must Die (Score: 5, Informative)
by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @12:48PM (#65966834)
"they are showing themselves to be complete and utter cunts"
Heh... We Dutchies had to come up with a word for Enshittification, and it looks like it will be Verkuttificatie, which translates back to "Encuntification". Maybe it's a good word to describe not the products being enshittified, but these companies slowly but consistently turning ever more evil.
wait, so they don't do this on chrome? (Score: 5, Insightful)
by snowshovelboy ( 242280 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @12:22PM (#65966782)
If I was alphabet I would be extremely careful to make sure I don't prefer my own browser. That is.. unless I wanted the government to break me up.
The smell of desperation (Score: 5, Informative)
by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @12:34PM (#65966804)
You can smell the desperation as they fail to keep people from blocking ads. They're just so so so so greedy and grasping that they piss themselves into a frenzy if they think they're losing ad views.
Remember, if you go to the bathroom during a commercial, you're breaking the implicit contract to watch every ad they show you, or you'll be STEALING from the advertisers. (Some ad exec actually said something to that effect but I can't find the quote.)