Why does Firefox keep trying to access youtube.com in the background without my knowledge?

[Zwhaler]

macOS Sequoia 15.0.1 on a 2018 MacBook Pro Intel Core i9.

I recently enabled web restrictions on myself to block distracting sites like youtube.com and others. When I open
Firefox on Mac, I repeatedly get a pop-up telling me that "Firefox attempted to access a secure website" youtube.com, and that Screen Time restricts access to these websites.

How come this happens? I'm not searching for youtube.com nor did it have any business loading in the background. It's not in my browsing history. I have no extensions that access youtube.com. Any idea what's going on here?

Screen Time website restrictions to block youtube.com is the only reason why I was made aware this is happening at all. The warning pops up multiple times, say once every 10 minutes or so while browsing other sites on Firefox.

 

[iStorm]

The warning pops up multiple times, say once every 10 minutes or so while browsing other sites on Firefox.

Do these other sites have any embedded YouTube videos?

 

[bzgnyc2]

Do these other sites have any embedded YouTube videos?

And even if they don't there just may be other trackers sourced from Youtube that the site is using. As an example, here are all the websites pinged when looking for clips on NBC's website:

I wouldn't have expected Adobe to be involved...and who names their domain launchdarkly.com?

 

[ipaqrat]

Adobe operates a sprawling intelligence gathering network relying, in part, on so-called super-cookies, that track individuals' data across every website they have a hook into (not necessarily Adobe properties). And Adobe apps are notorious for mining PDF's via their free Acrobat Reader (which also has... wait for it... PLUGINS for office apps!). Google and YouTube are tightly integrated, obvz. Amazon is also huge in tracker intel. Apple could be, but we just don't hear much about them. Meta and X are also sneaking around everywhere, not just where they content is displayed.

There are lots of little feeder trackers rolled out with oddball names, spurious geolocations and scatterred nationalities. Some are shotgun iterations of other trackers that blockers have caught onto. You might be getting tracked by 15 different web-bugs, or they might be owned by only three major outfits, such as Google, Amazon, Meta, X, etc. They might be ad-driven, or might be mining loosely secured contact lists and calendars.

Browser makers have been shamed securing their attack surfaces. Some do to varying degrees, others just pretend until the attention dies down. You can't really trust them, per se, but yet, ya gotta trust something or revert to parchment, ink, quills, cipher wheels and expendable couriers.

For Firefox and Chrome, Consider NoScript, Leechblock, ghostery, uBlock Origin, and Unhook all at the same time. Safari has adequate - not particularly friendly/transparent - controls build in, but still needs an ad blocker such as WIPR. Are these extension makers trustworthy? Are the so-called "privacy oriented browsers? Rhy rho noh. Network monitoring with apps such as Lil Snitch or WireShark, one can verify if web traffic is more or less in line with your security goals.

For regular folks, it's simply exhausting to keep aware and ahead of it all. Enterprise (Gov't) expends much coin on counterintel and threatscape monitoring platforms. Some trackers are even deployed BY those enterprises and/or by those counterintel platforms attempting to assess their customers' visibility and vulnerability across the wider internet - yes including the "darknet" and yes, including TOR (You know determined persistent adversaries can see through those, now, right?)

Well, enjoy your tech! 👍

 

[bzgnyc2]

For regular folks, it's simply exhausting to keep aware and ahead of it all. Enterprise (Gov't) expends much coin on counterintel and threatscape monitoring platforms. Some trackers are even deployed BY those enterprises and/or by those counterintel platforms attempting to assess their customers' visibility and vulnerability across the wider internet - yes including the "darknet" and yes, including TOR (You know determined persistent adversaries can see through those, now, right?)

It really is exhausting. I don't do anything paritcularly interesting on my computer so at this point my goal isn't to be faster than the bear. Just faster than the next guy.

Well, enjoy your tech! 👍