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Detecting if youtube is blocked by company / ISP

Answer 1

+5 A:

This should work. Basically, it loads a youtube.com javascript file, then checks if a function in that file exists.

<html>

<head>
    <script src="http://www.youtube.com/js/account.js"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;
    <script>
     function has_you_tube()
     {
      if(typeof addVideosToQuicklist == 'function')
      {
       return true;
      }
      else
      {
       return false;
      }

     }
    </script>

</head>
<body>
    <script>alert( "has_youtube: " + has_you_tube() ); </script>
</body>


</html>

Tristan Havelick 2008-11-13 02:02:28

Note, a nice way to test this is to add:127.0.0.1 www.youtube.comto your hosts file

Tristan Havelick 2008-11-13 02:04:22

What? Why would 127.0.0.1/js/account.js exist and have that function in it?

Karl 2008-11-13 02:22:55

@Karl: This is a way to test the case when youtube is *blocked*. Of course, the unblocked case would be tested by leaving this line out of hosts.

Tristan Havelick 2008-11-13 04:31:45

Answer 2

+8 A:

You can load an image from youtube using javascript and check its properties. The favicon is tiny and has a consistent url -

var image = new Image();
image.src = "http://youtube.com/favicon.ico";
if (image.height > 0) {
    // The user can access youtube
} else {
    // The user can't access youtube
}

I think this is slightly better than loading javascript because this won't try to run any code, and while youtube might rename their javascript files, or functions from those files, they are unlikely to ever rename their favicon.

lacker 2008-11-13 02:10:30

I like that better than my own solution

Tristan Havelick 2008-11-13 02:15:48

isn't this goin to have a race condition?

Simon_Weaver 2008-11-13 03:42:14

neat idea, thanks for sharing.

mmattax 2008-11-15 05:55:50

@simon how does this make for a race condition?

Tristan Havelick 2008-11-16 17:55:36

@DrFredEdison ok i actually tried it this time. the first time i got 0 and the second time I got 16. so presumably it was getting it from the cache the second time - hence the 'race' condition. i'm not sure if Image has event handlers that will tell me when its complete or not but ill look into that

Simon_Weaver 2008-11-17 02:34:30

I don't like this suggestion. If youtube is blocked, the blocking page may well have a favicon too, and this code will return a false positive

Colin Pickard 2009-11-26 16:36:47

Answer 3

+3 A:

I like lacker's solution, but yes, it creates a race condition. This will work and won't create a race contition:

var image = new Image();
image.src = "http://youtube.com/favicon.ico";
image.onload = function(){
// The user can access youtube
};
image.onerror = function(){
// The user can't access youtube
};

Tiangolo 2009-11-26 16:29:11

as with lacker's solution, if the blocking page has a favicon this will cause a false positive. You should check for the presence of something distinct to youtube.

Colin Pickard 2009-11-26 16:38:17

@Colin Pickard: Good point. Maybe you're right. But I guess that if there is a blocking page it would use a HTTP 404 (Not Found) or other Error Status Code, so I guess it will fail to retrieve the image.I guess the correct way would be to do a XMLHttpRequest and look at the response, but the favicon is easier to code and easier that, by example, a cellphone browser implements it

Tiangolo 2009-12-16 12:05:28

Answer 4

A:

This tutorial could help you access youtube even when it's blocked: http://www.tomatosoft.biz/blog/2010/04/11/download-youtube-while-its-blocked-by-isp/

jack 2010-04-12 03:29:37

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