How YouTube is Restricting Background Audio on Mobile Devices

YouTube is once again taking steps to prevent users from accessing “premium” benefits without paying for a subscription. While the streaming service restricts many features to YouTube Premium subscribers, users have previously been able to bypass these restrictions by using a mobile browser.

In the past, this loophole allowed users to access features like picture-in-picture, which took a long time to be integrated into the app. However, YouTube eventually blocked the ability to use picture-in-picture in Safari, leading developers to find workarounds.

Now, YouTube is addressing another loophole: background audio playback. This feature has been available to YouTube iPhone app users for years, but officially restricted to Premium subscribers. Despite this, non-Premium users were able to access background playback through mobile browsers.

Google has now updated the experience to ensure consistency across all platforms, stating that background playback is intended to be exclusive for YouTube Premium members. This change came after complaints from Android users who noticed background play stopped working on browsers like Samsung Internet, Brave, Vivaldi, and Microsoft Edge.

Although Google has attempted to block background audio in Safari, a workaround still exists. Developer Zhenyi Tan created Vinegar, a Safari extension that tricks YouTube into using standard HTML video, allowing background playback privileges.

While Vinegar continues to work for now, it is possible that Google may find a way to block this loophole in the future. The developer has already had to release a new version of Vinegar following Google’s previous crackdown on ad blocking.

Overall, YouTube’s efforts to prevent users from accessing premium features without a subscription are ongoing, and it remains to be seen how developers and users will respond to these changes.