So I’ve been using youtube ad blockers since pretty much when ad blocker extensions were first available. Lately though I’ve been getting hit more and more with these messages that YT was sending out every 5 or so videos telling me that adblockers aren’t allowed. No problem, just gotta wait 5 seconds to x it out and then close my video. The straw that broke the camel’s back though was when instead of a close-able pop-up, they just posted it in front of a video and wouldn’t let me watch anything until I disabled my adblocker.
So I disabled it and… wow. It’s just so, so, trash. 2 ads before a video plus midrolls and every video ever. I tried listening to a playlist of songs and was getting a midroll ad every single time. Imagine trying to just listen to music for 3 minutes and getting interrupted by a commercial for a chevy silverado! Half the ads were for youtube premium and they specifically mentioned that it would get rid of all the ads. It just felt so damn predatory. I couldn’t enjoy anything that wasn’t already demonetized.
And you know I’m fine with ads I guess. I could live with an ad before every video, but the fact that I was getting upwards of 5 ads in a 10 minute video was just plain absurd. I also hate that youtube got rid of the yellow markers to show you when an ad was coming up, so now it’s just out of nowhere and always interrupts a key part of the video.
E: I’ve been on Firefox for over a year.
I think ublock origin bypasses youtubes ad detection
Just tried. It does not.
EDIT: Needed to update my browser.
What browser? It works for Firefox on my PC and mobile.
Google has slowly been really pushing their way or no-way. They announced that 3 strike policy against your account for ad-blocking, from my understanding it had only rolled out to chrome but someone within the last couple months posted an image of Firefox showing them the adblock message.
Ublock Origin does still work for some, but I believe it’s per account. Honestly, the moment I heard about the policy I immediately switched to Piped. I don’t really care about the YouTube algorithm, I hardly use the site outside of information searching (guides mostly) and so the homepage always being YT front page doesn’t bother me. I can create an account with piped and have subscriptions, can make playlists and on the LibreTube app I can download videos. That’s all I need. Unfortunately there is some downtime sometime but you can host your own instance of it really gets to you - I’m nearly at that point myself just for the peace of mind.
So, fuck YouTube and Google tracking, fuck their forced ad policy, use a wrapper like Piped/Invidious and be done with them.
I might need to update my firefox. Think thats the issue.
Works on my machine
Firefox + uBlock Origin served me about 4 hours of video last night without an ad in sight.
Also NoScript!
I think ublock is working on a fix
It’s a cat and mouse game, except the mouse has effectively infinite lives.
except the mouse has effectively infinite lives.
Thats basically how rodent ecology works, already, isn’t it? Being an r strategy reproducer is pretty much just speccing into unlimited respawns.
That could feed a lot of cats
I think it’s dependent on whether the ads are served server-side or client-side. Server side ad insertion isn’t something that uBO can protect against. Twitch is a good example of this.
This was annoying when it happened. Fortunately there are adblockers specifically for Twitch that work fine.
I have never gotten a twitch ad in my life
I believe you but Twitch does use SSAI in some geographic areas and uBO is unable to block SSAI based ads
Any youtube specific extensions? Or maybe you could check out the enabled rules.
I used to pay for premium just because it was the simplest way to watch ad free on my phone (IOS so Vanced was not an option), and being able to download videos to watch later on a flight was nice.
But then they wouldn’t let you do Picture in Picture from the app, which, like, fine. Annoying but I’ll just play it in the background and just listen to the audio.
But then they started forcing the tiktok clone onto the home page and subscriptions page. I really do not like the dopamine disinformation vortex. So I deleted the app and just started watching them through the website, which actually enabled Picture in Picture and let me hide the shorts shelf (for 30 days before I have to click the X again.)
Now I’ve just stopped paying for it and just watch YouTube in the Firefox Focus IOS browser which completely blocks YouTube ads in my experience. It won’t let me do Picture in Picture or play audio in the background on their website, but I’ve noticed embedded YouTube videos on other websites will.
So now I’m looking in to using other front ends so I can have complete normal functionality without having to watch adds or pay them money and have their stupid tik tok clone shoved down my throat.
Good job Google, you managed to completely alienate someone who was paying you cash. Now I’m the definition of a free rider on your service.
ReVanced can patch your YouTube client (even without root) and add (your choice of) features, for example adblocking, picture in picture, playing in background as well ad quality of life improvents like hiding the “block” of news videos, remove reels or certain buttons
They said they’re on IOS.
Hmm. I’ve always had premium so never looked into ReVanced. I knew it existed, but didn’t realise it might be useful for more than just bypassing ads.
Most of these should be regular settings. I want several of them. My biggest bugbear is shorts. But I also want to be rid of those little popup things and the overlay cards at the end of a video.
The reviews on the play store make this sound like a pretty trash app. Maybe I’m looking at the wrong one…
Revanced isn’t in an app store (at least not a legit version), you have to build it yourself. Otherwise it would probably end like Vanced. Take care of scam websites, this is the real one: https://revanced.app/
Or check this guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/revancedapp/comments/xlcny9/revanced_manager_guide_for_dummies/ (yes, it’s Reddit, but the guide was really useful to me 🤷♂️)
Thanks, that’s much different! lol This looks pretty involved. Does it need to be updated all the time as Youtube updates, similar to NewPipe? Because NewPipe is a pain to keep updated but it also a lot less work. lol
What I usually do is tell the Play Store to not update it. Also, I don’t think it’s that involved. Take this with a grain of salt because I’m pretty experienced with phone modification, but I think it’s just downloading the file, opening it, selecting YouTube, choosing what modifications you want, and installing it.
I don’t find it at all annoying to keep NewPipe up to date.
I think you may need to take a look at Obtainium.
ReVanced doesn’t really require frequent updates. After modifying the YouTube app, I disable auto updates and keep using it until something doesn’t work properly (usually ads reappear)- Happens maybe every 4-5 months for me.
For example, the YouTube version I’m using right now is 18.23.35 from June 10th, while the newest version that can be patched with ReVanced is 18.35.44. But since I haven’t seen any issues, I didn’t even bother to check for updates. Only your comment made me check and realize that I can update it.
Anything revanced on the play store is fake. You cannot get Revanced from the play store. https://revanced.app/
If you’re open to recommendations, sideloading uYou+ (via altstore or other methods, no jailbreak needed) is sort of like ReVanced but for iOS.
There’s also Yattee which is on the App Store or you can sideload it. It can connect to a Piped or Invidious instance to play YouTube vids.
Both of them are open source if that’s important for you
uYou+ is no longer maintained. I use uYouPlusExtra: https://github.com/arichorn/uYouPlusExtra
Thanks, I’ll look in to that.
A bit of an aside, but did you use speech to text to post this?
No, I’m just bad at proof reading and a clumsy typer/ not the best with written grammar
That’s cool. Was curious more than anything else.
Impression I got, too.
Maybe it’s an iOS thing, but I can definitely do PiP with Premium on the official app on Android.
It may be different now, but when IOS first added PiP is was super inconsistent with the YouTube app, it worked one week, then the app updated and it didn’t work, then the next week it worked if you were logged in, then only with premium, then only if you were not logged in, then it would exit out of it it the first time you opened it but not the second time you opened PiP
It was just… a mess and it almost felt like there was some back and fourth going on between Apple and Google over how it was implemented.
PiP works on iOS, even without premium (with some restrictions). At least it did very recently, I have premium now though so I can’t verify as of today
I can do PiP on iOS with my premium subscription.
I can do PiP on Firefox android by playing the video in fullscreen and returning home. There’s an add on for FF, Video Background Play Fix, that allows me to play in the background as well.
Check out uYou+ with AltStore. It lets you enable PiP and background play, and I think you can disable shorts and such.
AdGuard for iOS blocks YouTube ads. Adblock Pro has an “open in PiP mode” button that lets you open videos in PiP without YT premium, which is cool.
I don’t use the app
Try Yattee. Piped client for iOS. You do have to do weird setup because the app needs to pretend to not be a Piped client. Otherwise, Piped or Invidious website.
I could live with an ad before every video
I can’t live with that. Often I don’t even know if I actually want to watch the video or not, and if I have to sit through three minutes of ads, only to close the video five seconds after the ad because it’s not what I expected… yuck. Preroll ads are often a deal breaker for me unless it’s content that I’m very familiar with.
Mid-roll ads I’m OK with - by then I’ve already decided the content is worth watching.
I don’t think I’m alone and YouTube seems to be very aware of this issue. They are selective about which videos have a pre-roll ad.
Mid roll ads are fine if the video was made with midrolls in mind that the midrolls actually happened at the times the maker of the video has set them up to happen.
Sure they are selective about which videos have ads, but not when the ads come on.
YouTube, with no adblocker or premium subscription has basically become an interrupting cow, making noise at the most innapropriate time and then you have to wat-MOOOOOOOOOO-ch the ad, then you rewind 10 seconds to get your cont-MOOOOOOOOOO-text back. There needs to be a legal limit to the number of midrolls you can stuff in a short space of time.
I’d rather watch a series of multiple consecutive midroll ads placed at a prespecified time than a random number of ads scattered at completely random intervals, Ruining the flow and mood of the video.
Its frustrating af.
deleted by creator
Exactly. With youtube’s shitty tutorial search functions ever since they removed dislikes, i kinda need to see the start of the video to know if its even relevant. But no. Full on 2-3 pre-video ads.
I mean idk I never really bothered with an ad blocker pre 2013 or so, back when you’d get an ad before the vid and the longer ones had mid rolls.
Add in sponsors that some ass holes throw 2-3 in a video (FU LTT) and I don’t know how people watch YouTube with ads. It sucks so bad.
I do pay for premium, but use smart tube on my android tv box and it feels so good when it rolls right past them.
sponsorblock is a godsend for that type of stuff
Sponsors are the biggest argument for not getting YouTube Premium, in my opinion.
You spend money on YouTube Premium and still have a bunch of ads, so you need to use sponsorblock, and if you’re using that just use an ad blocker too.
SmartTube is some of the greatest software ever made
At least you can skip LTT ads.Try that with YT ads.
Consider Piped, Invidious, etc. Yes you can’t log in, but on Piped you can create a Piped account and on mobile use Yattee (iOS) or Libretube (Android). No recommendations on home screen, but subscriptions feed and recommendations per video.
Meh. Revanced still working great for me and I have all my subscriptions, no ads, all the features.
No recommendations sounds better to me to be honest
This is why I use Smartube on my android TV and revanced/NewPipe on my phone.
The few times I’ve witnessed naked YouTube it’s made be realise that if any of the sources mentioned stop working then I’m simply not going to use YouTube.
Yeah it’s horrible. For it to somehow be worth watching with ads, the ads had to be for a legitimate and relevant product, and the algorithm / video quality had to be much better.
This thread is in c/technology, but I swear these are some of the least tech literate comments I’ve seen. Stop using Chrome, yesterday. Use Firefox, use ublock origin. On Android use Revanced. I never see an ad on my PC or phone using YouTube, including ads in the video by the content creators (sponsorblock is built into Revanced and can by toggled).
there have been many posts about YouTube detecting blockers recently and warning users it’s against the ToS. Not sure if they are widespread or not.
Because people are on Chrome.
I was already on Firefox.
I switched to ublock origin yesterday and it worked for about 2 hours before YT somehow detected it and shut down every video. My fix for that was to disable ublock, refresh, enable ublock, refresh again
Use Invidious while it still exists as a project I’m a fan of the yewtu.be instance. Pretty reliable. The Piped project is good as well. Don’t even use the YouTube domain at all, hate giving them analytics and site usage info nevermind ads
Something is wrong, this has not happened to me ever. Is ublock set up to automatically update itself and it’s lists?
I hate how this trend of “I’ll make my service shit so you’ll pay more for the not as shit version” seems to work out for these companies
“Here is how platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.”
I stayed at a place last year that had a RokuTV, YouTube was practically unusable on it due to the absurd number of ads that would play. Even more infuriating was that they were often the same ad, repeated.
For those with iOS, please watch through Firefox Focus. It blocks YT ads!
Or sideload uYou/uYou+, works really well!
Or use Yattee and Piped (no need jailbreak)
I prefer using yattee, but lately most instances throw an error and has been unusable for me, hopefully it can work more consistently over time
I tried to give YouTube ads a chance at one point but they got ridiculous to the point I just can’t.
Why are people not using Ublock Origin ?
Two words: Smart TVs
Need a hardware solution (pi hole/router with custom firmware) for that.
Please use Smartnext tube app for android TV.
deleted by creator
PiHole does not work for YouTube sadly. There’s no current solution for YouTube ads on (non-android) smart TVs.
Does Ublock Origin successfully circumvents the new system that is being tested in select countries?
I read that you need to update the filters to make it work however I can’t confirm.
I’m using uBlock, so far it works no problem for me :)
Yes. You need to not use any other content blocker (including potentially browser tracking protection) and keep uBo up to date. Occasionally it might not be up to date with latest YT changes but that’s pretty rare.
deleted by creator
The ads are just extremely bad in general. Betting ads for a legitimate casino would already be a huge step up form the shit I get…
I highly recommend using either Piped (has an app for android, too) or invidious (several instances to choose from). No need to use adblock or anything while watching from them. Some videos don’t play, seems more common with music videos, but for most stuff it’ll work fine.
Where is this mythical app 👀
IMO the best Piped app for Android is LibreTube
The two he listed are websites. On Android a really good Piped client is Libretube, and Clipious for Invidious is… eh. On iOS Yattee for Piped.
I use NoScript to block every script from google except for ytimg and youtube and I haven’t seen anything like that; though, I do only watch 1-2 videos at a time, maybe I haven’t ‘triggered’ it.
I can even disable origin and still not see any ads because NoScript blocks them from loading in the first place.
