YouTube’s background playback feature allows users to keep audio playing even when the screen is off or while using other apps. This feature is especially popular among music and podcast listeners. This feature has been a part of YouTube Premium for the past few years.
Although it is a paid feature, many users were using it for free through third-party mobile web browsers. Such browsers did not redirect YouTube directly to the Android app, allowing background playback.
Why were the brakes applied now?
According to new reports, YouTube has started closing all these avenues. The company has changed its settings for third-party browsers, due to which background playback will no longer work on free accounts.
This feature is only for premium users
According to YouTube, background playback is a feature built only for YouTube Premium. Earlier in some cases, non-premium users were able to use it through mobile browsers, but now the experience is being made the same across all platforms.
Although YouTube can’t completely control non-Google apps, it can limit features like background playback by making changes at the code level.
