title: YouTube embed request changed only for Safari –> chromeless player inoperable
body: <p>I have a site with an embedded YouTube Flash (AS3) player, and it's no longer working in Safari.</p>
  
  <p>Check out <a href="http://jsfiddle.net/q98x8/" rel="nofollow">this fiddle</a>, the code for which is merely:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;object type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
                data="http://www.youtube.com/apiplayer"&gt;
  &lt;/object&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>In Chrome, Firefox, and IE, the request to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/apiplayer" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/apiplayer</a> returns normally (200). In Safari, the server returns a 303 to <a href="https://youtube.googleapis.com/apiplayer" rel="nofollow">https://youtube.googleapis.com/apiplayer</a>.</p>
  
  <p>This player loads, but I am unable to interact with it in JavaScript. I assume that's because it's served over https — though I am explicitly requesting http — resulting in a mixed-mode security issue. Here's error I see when trying to do anything with the player (this is with the full chromeless player embed code):</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; player.playVideo()
  Error: Error calling method on NPObject.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>If I change Safari's user agent to something else, or even just mangle the word "Safari", then the correct player is loaded. I also have no trouble loading the Vimeo and Viddler players (<a href="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf" rel="nofollow">http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf</a> and <a href="http://www.viddler.com/player/key" rel="nofollow">http://www.viddler.com/player/key</a>).</p>
  
  <p>I see this both in the stable Safari release and in the WebKit nightly. It also occurs with my extensions disabled and in Private Browsing mode.</p>
  
  <p>I tried working around it by embedding <code>http://youtube.googleapis.com</code>, hoping that there would be no redirect and I'd get the player over http. But it still redirects to https, and it does so in all browsers.</p>
  
  <p>I filed <a href="https://code.google.com/p/gdata-issues/issues/detail?id=4887" rel="nofollow">this YouTube API ticket</a> last week, but there's been no response so far.</p>