YouTube recommended video thumbnails abnormally large compared to other browsers/incognito mode

I’m experiencing an issue where YouTube’s recommended video thumbnails on the right sidebar are displayed significantly larger than normal when using Brave browser in regular mode. The same page displays correctly in:

  • Other browsers (Chrome, Firefox, etc.)
  • Brave incognito/private window
  • Same Brave installation with all extensions disabled

What I’ve tried:

  • Disabled all extensions
  • Reset zoom level (Ctrl+0)
  • Tested Brave Shields (enabled/disabled)
  • Disabled hardware acceleration
  • None of these solutions resolved the issue

Environment:

  • Brave Version: [Insert your version from brave://version]
  • OS: [Insert your OS, e.g., Windows 11 / macOS Sonoma / Linux distro]
  • Issue started: [Insert when it began, e.g., after recent update / suddenly appeared]

Expected behavior:
Recommended video thumbnails should display at normal size, consistent with other browsers and Brave’s incognito mode.

Actual behavior:
Thumbnails are disproportionately large, taking up excessive space on the right sidebar.

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Open Brave browser (regular profile)
  2. Navigate to youtube.com
  3. Play any video or visit homepage
  4. Observe the recommended videos section on the right side

Additional notes:

  • Issue does NOT occur in Brave incognito mode
  • Issue does NOT occur in newly created Brave profiles [if you tested this]
  • Screenshots attached showing the difference between affected and normal display

Has anyone else experienced this? Any suggestions for troubleshooting?

@sung can you share a screenshot of how it appears on your end? I’ve seen this before and it may be changes on Youtube end.