Widespread reports of performance issues when extensions are enabled on YouTube from AdBlock users, and while suspicion has rightfully fallen on YouTube's head, the problem may not lie with the platform itself.

A thread posted on YouTube's subreddit over the weekend (thanks to 9to5Google) noted that enabling AdBlock slows load times and increases CPU usage. This disrupts overall computer resources.

I decided to test this myself and noticed that opening YouTube with AdBlock increased my rig's CPU usage by about 17%. The Chrome Web Store boasts 60 million users.

From what I saw, the increase was fairly consistent, so it wasn't a dangerous spike, but lower-end laptops used primarily for browsing could start having heat problems. It's inconvenient and annoying at best.

This led to a paranoia of troubleshooting, as sudden unexplained performance drops could be a sign of hardware problems. User JotaroKujoxXx said, "I was wondering why my laptop has been running like a fucking jet for the last few days," to which another commenter replied: "Yeah, I thought it was a storage space issue and was deleting shit at random."

The slowdown also appears to be affecting users who subscribe to YouTube Premium while using AdBlocker on other websites. Guide writer Sarah James tested the extension on Premium and noted an increase of about 15-18%.

YouTube has been under severe scrutiny, myself included, but the allegations were not entirely unfounded. Last November, TheVerge reported a five-second loading delay in other browsers running ad blockers, and the company's statement created a solid M.O. against this kind of thing.

In the report, Christopher Lawton, YouTube's communications manager, stated, "As YouTube's ad blocker detection methods improve, users will continue to see these problems. Such measures made the company the first to be blamed for any problems with these extensions, even if they were (relatively) innocent.

I received a comment from Christopher Lawton (YouTube's communications manager): "The loading delays experienced by Adblock and AdBlock Plus users are not due to our ad blocker detection efforts.

However, AdBlock's github page has some convincing evidence suggesting YouTube's innocence in the current fiasco, past transgressions aside.

As highlighted by beepingcomputer, the problem trackers on GitHub for both AdBlock and AdBlock Plus report problems with the latest updates to the extensions (5.17 and 3.22 respectively). This was further highlighted on Twitter by Raymond Hill of uBlock Origin.

"After a little investigation into the performance degradation, the cause lies in many different code paths and affects many sites," wrote Hill, who then highlighted dynamically updated sites.

"Since it affects both Adblock Plus and AdBlock, the performance setback hits harder those who had the bad idea of using both at once.

It should be noted that uBlock was acquired by AdBlock in 2018, but Hill is still working on an independent version of the extension, uBlock Origin, after uBlock's acquisition. [uBlock Origin is free, open source, and receives no donations. Instead, Hill writes on the project's GitHub wiki: "Think of the administrators of the various [block] lists. These lists are everything. I cannot stress this enough. "

So there's the rub: the blame probably lies with AdBlock, and the problem may affect other websites as well; YouTube, a very popular platform, is the most affected by the bug and, given its aggressive ad blocker measures in the past, is at the greatest disadvantage

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