YouTube isn’t happy you’re using ad blockers — and it’s doing something about it::undefined
I’d give up YouTube before ad blockers.
True, holy shit if they wouldn’t completely bomb you with ads everywhere it might change something, but I accidentally used the official app on my smartphone and I can’t even make out content between the ads in the UI.
Not to speak of the 50s ads for a 20s video, nah won’t ever go back to the official experience.
It reminds me back when ad blockers came around, nobody cared for the one banner or some pictures on the site, but they ripped your arm out and cried when there were finally solutions for solving that harassment.
I used the official app up until we got two ads before every video and the first one is always unstoppable. Now it’s unbearable to use so I use an adblock.
I’m considering giving up Youtube right now with how many times it tries to fuck up my recommendations by sneaking far right BS into my watch history. Especially you, shorts.
Try using third party clients like newpipe or piped
I really don’t give a fuck what Youtube is happy about
The day I can’t get around youtube ads is the day I stop using youtube. I already refuse to use it on my mobile device or my TV, due to the ads.
NewPipe is a YouTube app alternative that blocks ads
It doesn’t block it, it doesn’t even download them or even request them. There is no concept of ad in NewPipe.
Which one? There are 3 newpipe apps in the app store all by different developers, and all “contain ads”
The official newpipe isn’t on the play store because it breaks their terms of service, which makes sense considering 2 of the 3 “newpipes” on there are just completely different apps using the name and logo of newpipe. The third is actually newpipe but with loads of ads added, not sure how long it’ll last before Google nukes it.
But yeah for newpipe just get the offical ad free and open source version from TeamNewPipe on GitHub or on F-Droid in the main repo. Or if you want newpipe with no ads and also with sponsorblock, you want to get it from polymorphicshade on GitHub or through F-Droid with the Izzyondroid repo.
On the subject of newpipe, if you also view a lot of videos on NicoNico, Japanese yt, I recommend the pipepipe fork since it allows you to play both yt videos along with videos from NicoNico without ads. Also works with BiliBili in case you like listening to Chinese vocaloid songs or other Chinese content without ads.
Thanks!
The real version is on F-Droid
Smarttube is even more gooder.
SmartTubeNext for TV, ReVanced for mobile.
YouTube ReVanced gets you completely adfree, configurably de-shittified Youtube with sponsorblock on your phone. (And Youtube Music ReVanced is premium YT music, for free, of course also without ads.)
And Smarttube Next does the same thing on Android TVs, FireTV, and probably some others I haven’t used.
Smart tube is fucking amazing
I thought newpipe was dead now?
Still works for me without any issues
Newpipe’s last git commit was two days ago
My guy there are like 34 different ways to get around YT ads on mobile and TV.
On Android the Firefox app allows the use of extensions including all the adblock options you would find on PC. Works great and for YouTube as well.
Advertising is just legal targeted harassment
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THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!
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There are four candles. https://piped.video/watch?v=CNTM9iM1eVw
I think it’s it’s own thing.
The danger of advertising is not that it is able to brainwash you into changing your opinions. The danger is that repeated exposure to inauthentic stories changes your expectations, and plants paying advertisers in your memory.
This in turn allows your behavior to be controlled, especially in aggregate. You will remember company X sells a thing you want and go buy it, or you will think other people think company Y is environmentally friendly so you will pick them for your vegan barbecue party, or you will have heard of company Z and not automatically skip over their offering in a store. But since it all operates by tampering with your heuristics instead of trying to bowl over your adopted, explicit opinions, it doesn’t trigger any of your protective responses.
And that’s why you should never view an advertisement.
The thing is YouTube just can’t be nice about it. It just cannot. In times that it was adblocker resistant, they’d add more and longer and worse ads until they pissed off enough engineers who collectively declared it a crisis and built the many anti-YouTube-ad solutions we have, from alternative YouTube mirrors to the Firefox packages.
We’ve seen this play out in the tech industry multiple times, and always the public wins thanks, largely to programmers who just get ticked off and spend a weekend on pizza to create a bypass.
The executives at Alphabet know all they have to do is allow concessions to be only mildly annoying and leave them. Five minutes of commercials for fifty minutes of content? That might be fair so long as it’s pizza ads and not Jesus ministries telling us how sinful the LGBT+ are or Matt Walsh suggesting we make it illegal for some folk to vote.
But they can’t do that. Shareholder Primacy means Alphabet must push for record profits, even if it means enshittifying all their services, including YouTube, and that means a 1/4 ad to content ratio and increasing that until it’s intolerable and ad-based profit numbers go down due to failing viewership.
Five minutes of commercials for fifty minutes of content?
Yeah, and besides, that shit barely functions on TV/streaming because someone paid to have quality content created. When you’re clicking around yt and you don’t know if a video is decent or dogshit, why should you have to sit through long ads just so you can watch a minute before you decide the content sucks?
This is frequently brought up as a problem for twitch as well. On the rare times someone decides to check out a new streamer without many viewers they get ads before the stream and most people aren’t going to sit through that for a streamer of unknown quality so it makes it even harder for new streamers to get discovered.
How do you guarantee pizza ads if the jesus ministries are pushing that sweet money around, too?
Hell, no! The world is happier without the ad industry. The Internet was run basically on pure voluntary effort, and it was great. The ads didn’t make it viable, it always was.
What is even more infuriating, I’m from one of the countries that had YouTube Premium Lite available. €6,99 for adfree YouTube with none of the ‘offline’ or YouTube Music nonsense that I wouldn’t be using anyway.
My wife and myself have been subscribed for about 6 months now, totally seeing the value of it. Literally one month after signing my mum also onto it, she gets an email telling her that her subscription will end in a month from now.
Fuck that shit.
YouTube Premium Lite was perfect, affordable and removed exactly the main issue with YouTube: ads. Endless stupid amounts of ads.
I’ll go back to Firefox with any amount of extensions that block ads and block the ad-block blockers. Google would have to burn the browser market to the ground before I’ll consider subscribing again.
Google would have to burn the browser market to the ground before I’ll consider subscribing again.
They’re sure as fuck trying.
The irony in this? They have just announced this very subscription plan in Germany. Not even a week after axing the plan in some neighbouring countries.
To be fair, this is the most sane take I’ve seen about this from the pro adblock side. That’s actually fucked up if they killed it out of nowhere but also sounds like Google.
I won’t ever sub. I’ll find a different hobby/time sink. I won’t ever have to worry about it though, the high seas are always more inventive so there will always be content to watch.
with you all the way, brother.
I recommend going to India (VPN) in order to buy premium Together with the family option, you can get to about 1$ a month
I’m torn because fuck ads, but also YouTube is probably the most expensive website on earth to run (just the website itself, obviously a shipping company with a website will cost more.) Video is just obscenely expensive to store and they let free accounts upload 4k and keep it private.
I honestly don’t know the solution here because YouTube being free is amazing, but they’ve literally never made money. I think a business model like nebula is more sustainable, but it sucks for those that can’t afford it.
(To head off any arguments, I’m pro piracy, I just can’t blame YouTube to trying to stop people)
If the ads weren’t so intrusive I wouldn’t mind nearly as much. As it is, if you don’t block them, you’re watching ads as much as you’re watching content. In-line ads would be better I think, but forcing an ad before the video is annoying as hell.
True. Back in 2011 they didn’t bother me at all. I think the issue is once everyone started using ad blockers they had to start squeezing the schmucks that weren’t.
That and they started allowing unrestricted 4k uploads. That imo is their main issue with money.
I understand where the “everyone using adblockers, makes it worse for those who don’t” argument comes from, and it generally makes sense. But I also have my suspicions that the expectations of infinite growth in publicly traded companies would probably have made it happen, even if nobody used adblockers. That being said, as someone who is giving YouTube money every month to not have ads, there’s a reasonable argument that I’m enabling their bad behavior.
Fully agree on the 4k uploads thing though, and it also seems to be hurting the bitrate of lower resolutions. Up until around 2021 I primarily watched and preferred 480p when watching on tablets and sometimes even lower on my phone, for me it was a good balance of lower data usage and acceptable image quality. They’ve cut the bitrate so much at the low end though now, that sometimes even on a small phone screen I have to watch at 720p just to keep things from looking like they were recorded off a video conference from the early 2010s. Maybe 720p just is the new 480p and it’s using a similar amount of bandwidth, but it feels like they’re chasing the “bigger number better” crowd, rather than just defaulting to a reasonable resolution, with a high enough bitrate that most people won’t feel the need to adjust it.
It feels like we should have solved this issue a decade ago with bittorrent.
A website is just a frontend for a fileserver, so why are we not distributing these files across the globe, where we all volunteer a bit of storage and bandwidth to services we want to use.
Websites really need be nothing more than indexes and trackers which serve up a list of peers who are hosting the files we want.
I doubt a p2p network would be able to match YouTube:s current performance.
How would the content creators get rewarded in that system? Some of the YouTube ad money goes to the channel the ad is shown on.
It’s harder to profit from that, so obviously that’s not the direction things went.
To be fair, they aren’t exactly profiting from the current strategy.
Youtube itself might not be making a profit, but I double Google as a whole isn’t by having YouTube. They keep you in their ecosystem longer, and that’s good for them regardless of if you’re watching ads.
Because have you ever stumbled upon dead torrents? I see this more as a backup method to relieve the load rather than the only one.
(Wish I had a perma-online SBC to seed my torrents btw)
Another sane take. Seriously, a breath of fresh air after seeing people on both Reddit and Lemmy talking about this with the entitlement of the average r/ChoosingBeggars post
Meh, YouTube has been profitable for years now despite all the people using adblockers. They aren’t hurting for money anymore. I pay for it but I wish they’d separate out YouTube music from the sub because YTM sucks ass.
So if they stop people from skipping ads and the people then stop watching altogether, what’s the difference? They’d save on some bandwidth but look less inviting to advertisers since they have less viewers.
We need a new internet, one free from corporations.
Considering how prevalent scams and actively malicious content posing as ads are across ad services in general, having an ad blocker is just basic online safety at this point.
I still see fake download button ads distributed via Google’s own ad infrastructure to this day. I even reported a few that were taken down.
For all the AI prowess Google likes to brag about, why can’t they make a simple “does this look like a download button?” detector? The scams are not that clever, most of them follow one of a small number of specific patterns.
Malicious ad money is ad money
It’s not that they can’t, its that they won’t.
What’s worse is when corporations try to be funny put a fake download button and the entire ad is like “Wow can’t wait to click this skip button” and they don’t realize that sometimes youtube randomly makes those unskippable so it’s just awkward dead air for 30 seconds.
Why would they? They would lose money if they did that
Too fuckin bad for YouTube. I won’t change my behavior, I’ll just not use YouTube.
Fuck em
Many literally fucked them. This hack was working for a day
That’s amazing but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to here that anyone who did got it reversed if not just outright banned from Google. I certainly wouldn’t have tried in on my main Google account.
Its still working but who knows for how long. I doubt if google will ban it.
What happens when google decides to fix this? What happens to the data beyond the free tier? My guess is that it’ll be deleted, and you’d be screwed if you used this as your backup solution.
E: still a really cool hack!
Bruh anyone with half a brain cell won’t use google account to store personal data. All that 30tb goes to storing 4k movies and porn lol.
You… make a really good point, actually hahahahahaha
uBlock Origin for the win.
Yeah I blocked the little message with the dropper tool and the stupid clear background thing it makes too.
Make sure you clear all caches and update the filters in uBO, that’s the recommended way to prevent the message from popping up
stupid clear background thing
In web design that’s called a modal.
What is it with the number of people “happy” to pay for Youtube Premium? Like “why yes, I’m glad I can give a company that spies on me day and night for the privilege!”
What kinda bothers me is that I recognize that something like YouTube is expensive to run and just switching to an alternative isn’t super feasible. I would be more than happy to pay for a service like YouTube that I use everyday. HOWEVER, not with their bullshit double dipping. If I am paying a company like Google to use their services, I don’t think it’s unreasonable that their should be an expectation or mechanism where that means I am not just no longer served ads, but that all tracking and data collection about my account(s) are stopped.
That’s never going to happen though :/
You mean like cable that we paid for and got ads or like your cell phone/ISP provider charging you while selling your data simultaneously?
Yeah, I never said I thought it was tennable or that any system like I described has ever actually existed. Wishes and dreams, ya know?
That’s a fair criticism. I personally don’t care about it because I gave up on the idea of having any privacy ages ago but I get that people may not be happy with that.
If I were to play devil’s advocate, I can say that the data they collect is important for serving you the right videos but let’s be real here, Google definitely uses it to serve you ads everywhere else
Because their “spying” doesn’t really seem to have any down sides for me, and I get better, more useful, products from it. I don’t really care if they know what woodworking videos my boring ass watches.
They don’t just keep track of what videos you watch, they also keep track of what parts of those videos, as well as everything you search for and everything you begin to search for but never actually do. They also keep track of where you are when you watch the video and what device you are watching it on.
And?
Its weird that you are okay with some company doing this.
When if it was some stalker you’d be freeking out and going to the police and begging for help.
Because a stalker might actually cause you physical harm, while Google/YouTube just wants money, and not necessarily your money. I have no love for the ad supported business model, I’m definitely not defending it, but you’re not going to convince someone who doesn’t value privacy to care about it.
People who don’t value privacy, are always the ones that cry the loudest and say such iconic phrases like “WHO LET THIS HAPPEN” when their privacy inevitably gets violated.
Its weird that you are okay with some company doing this. When if it was some stalker you’d be freeking out and going to the police and begging for help.
ATTENTION STALKERS!!!
This morning I watched a video of a guy making a 5 drawer cabinet out of plywood on my Pixel 6 XL from my home. I skipped the last 30 seconds of the video because I got bored.I get it that marketing doesn’t bother you, but several tech companies have been found to give direct access to users’ data to their employees, who used it in all sorts of creepy ways.
GPS location please.
Obviously I don’t want to know it but be sure there’s hundreds of Google employees that can freely access it.
on my Pixel 6 XL
Congrats, you’ve already made hacking your phone 10x easier by telling a potential attacker what model you use.
lol
And if you are ever in a spot of trouble, they can and will hand that over to the cops to burn you with. Trouble you dont even need to be guilty of, mind you, so long as the data implies you could be.
Like how facebook had records of a girl searching for abortion treatments, and slipped those into uncle sams pockets to put her in jail for daring to want the right of bodily autonomy.
What thing do you do today that will incriminate you tomorrow?
They don’t just keep track of what videos you watch, they also keep track of what parts of those videos, as well as everything you search for and everything you begin to search for but never actually do. They also keep track of where you are when you watch the video and what device you are watching it on.
OMG, the horror…
It is for those of us who care about our privacy. I for one don’t want nebulous corporations with questionable ethics and data security policies knowing and tracking my every movement. And while yes, I recognize that to a certain extent that is unavoidable in this day and age, I don’t condone it nor do I want it to be easy for them.
People today are just too comfortable with the death of privacy and corporations spying what you do day in and day out.
Everything about us is up for grabs but god forbid anyone watches a meme without monetization.
Give me your current location, list of immediate interests and last 100 searched queries, if you’re so okay with that.
Of course, I don’t expect an obvious corporate shill to have any intellectual honesty.
What are you offering in return? Google gives me what I consider to be valuable services in exchange for that information.
I.e. you do care, so your position is bullshit.
My reply is consistent with every other comment I’ve made in this thread. Google offers me useful services in exchange for my information. You offer nothing.
I keep seeing these headlines, but my ad blockers all still work just fine. So, good job Google and YouTube lol
This is a naive take TMHO.
Youtube has been rolling this out, phased, slowly, for the last few months. Judging peoples reactions and engagement levels.
They are only mildly foolish and know that ad block users are some of their most engaged and tech savvy. Just like ad block users generally know that youtube can’t exist without ad, and if everyone used them, we might all be worse off.
Roll it out quickly, and you create awareness and ignite the fuckery out of the arms race, do it slowly, watch the engagement, and try to find the best messaging to bring “us” “back on side”, and maybe they stand a chance to shift the needle.
(Firefox nightly + ublock origin for the record, had ad block messages on/off from Youtube for about a week)
Before long, Google will kick Origin out of their stores for malware like behaviour. 😂
Add SponsorBlock and some extension that allows you to download videos and your gtg.
Again, im not naive enough to think that everyone can block all ads without consequence.
So I don’t use sponsorblock.
If I’m that offended by a sponsor spot, I can always skip it (an option usually unavailable with typical ads) or just close the video. If you’re pushing crytoscams, I’m pushing close.
Then you should support an opt in system for ads I assume. Opt in. Heart’s content. Bob’s your Uncle.
No.
I acknowledge I’m a selfish asshole with ads, but also that some ads and ad platforms are abusive and virus ridden.
I know that platforms like Facebook and YouTube couldn’t exist without Ads, but I choose to block them anyway.
I feel like their A/B testing also takes into account an individual user’s propensity to leave their service permanently.
Roll it out quickly, and you create awareness and ignite the fuckery out of the arms race, do it slowly, watch the engagement, and try to find the best messaging to bring “us” “back on side”, and maybe they stand a chance to shift the needle.
I think they are too naive then… I mean, how do they plan to win back people that use adblocker blocking the adblocker ? Forcing them to disable the adblockers ? It is clear that this action will start an armed race (not that it was never an armed race in this situation).
It’s an arms race. They block adblockers, adblockers block the anti-adblocks. It breaks for maybe like a few hours before it’s circumvented.
I think that just means you weren’t part of the test group.
I was part of it. It’s not that ad blockers don’t work - they still work fine. YouTube just doesn’t load the content; it’s a full screen modal telling you to disable it.
When it happened to me, I was able to just open the link in a private window and it loaded fine - ive_never_seen_this_man_before_in_my_life.jpg - but that may have just been because it was a test; if they roll this out to everyone everywhere I’m guessing that wouldn’t work.
The other thing that worked was yt-dlp … Hopefully that won’t be impacted by the adblock prohibition… That also gets around workplace filters (at my work anyway).
YouTube, I’ve been using ad-blockers since the advent of pop-up ads in the late 90s. You’ve never been able to stop this, and you aren’t going to now.
I don’t use the YouTube app or watch your videos on my browser. I use FreeTube on desktop, LibreTube and GrayJay on mobile and FCast on TV so 🖕
Thanks for mentioning LibreTube! I’ve installed it.
You’re welcome. I recommend disabling the Piped API as it will cause constant connectivity issues, and you don’t need it if you have a VPN.
Can you tell me more about fcast? I’m looking to get away from ads and app limitations on Chromecast but I need the same phone-based UX
we are not happy to endure 4minutes of ads for product we don’t care about, each time we play a video.
Fuck you YouTube/Google I’m gonna use an Firefox + ublock origin till death do us apart. If there’s no adblocker I’ll just quit the internet.
