If your computer slows down when YouTube is open, you’re not alone—many users are reporting the same issue.
The problem first appeared in late April 2026, with complaints about laggy videos and slow performance, especially on Mozilla Firefox. Since then, reports have spread to Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, suggesting the issue isn’t browser-specific but tied to YouTube itself.
Some users say the site is maxing out their GPU or heavily overloading their CPU, causing browsers to freeze entirely.
Early findings point to YouTube’s action bar—the like, subscribe, and share buttons—as the likely cause. The system appears to repeatedly adjust these elements to fit the layout, triggering an infinite loop that continuously requests animation frames.
This loop stacks up rapidly, consuming memory and system resources until performance drops across the entire device.
So far, YouTube hasn’t officially responded, but the issue is spreading quickly as more users encounter the slowdown.