You won’t listen to YouTube in the background anymore. Google blocks the workaround

The ability to listen to YouTube in the background, with the smartphone or tablet screen turned off, is a function reserved for Premium subscription users. The same applies to people who wanted to listen to music or podcasts in the background while using other applications.

However, there was a simple way to bypass this limitation. All you had to do was launch YouTube in a browser, e.g. Edge, Brave or Vivaldi. Then the sound worked even with the screen turned off. Past tense because it doesn’t work anymore. Google has blocked this method.

Users of the mentioned browsers report that the ability to play YouTube in the background on mobile devices has stopped working. Locking the screen turns off the sound immediately. The system also does not display a control panel that would allow you to resume playback. At least this is what happens on accounts that do not have the YouTube Premium package purchased.

A slight exception to the rule is the Brave browser. Tests show that in this case the background playback function works intermittently. Some videos turn off immediately, others after a few seconds, and still others work normally. However, I wouldn’t be too optimistic. This will probably be patched soon too.