Overview
- Non‑Premium playback now stops within seconds when the screen turns off, and lock‑screen controls disappear for most mobile web users.
- The change affects third‑party browsers including Samsung Internet, Brave, Vivaldi, and Microsoft Edge, with reports across both Android and iOS.
- Google confirmed the move was intentional to keep background playback exclusive to YouTube Premium and to ensure consistent behavior across platforms.
- Some users report intermittent workarounds, such as Firefox user‑agent tweaks, sporadic success in Brave, or Safari extensions, but results are inconsistent.
- The clampdown aligns with YouTube’s broader efforts to protect paid features and follows recent enforcement against ad blockers and other unofficial methods.