A recent Youtube Web update has added a canvas whenever the seek bar is visible, an HTML5 canvas pops up. This was not asked for and not needed. If you disable canvases for privacy, this will cause a horrific red bad to cover half the screen until you hide the seekbar. Canvases can be used for fingerprinting, which I’m sure Google is doing here.
What exactly is HTML5 canvas image data?
It’s just an API that allows a web page to draw in a box. The problem is, that for a bunch of technical reasons that I’m mostly not aware of, it can be used to fingerprint you.
You can keep canvas blocked on YouTube. To stop the red lines, do this:
Click uBlock Origin icon (top right of the browser, small red shield).
Click the gears icon (“Open the dashboard”).
Click “My filters” tab. Make sure “Enable my custom filters” is checked.
Add the following string to the list of filters:
www.youtube.com##.ytp-gradient-bottom
Click “Apply changes”.
Reload your youtube video page.
Wait… so the red lines are added ON PURPOSE to deliberately degrade experience, and are not a side effect of having Canvas disabled?
Maybe, I don’t know if it was on purpose. But the red lines are the red-fade-to-pink effect of the progress bar I believe, and I have not found a need for such a feature, so they might be using this feature as an excuse to claim the need of canvas.
Sure sounds like it’s just an excuse, since it worked swimmingly before the canvas claim.
Glory to Peertube!
They had a redesign and it looks pretty and is usable.
