YouTube's Ad Blocker Crackdown Is Getting Harder to Dodge
The video platform now requires users to disable their ad blockers with an immovable pop-up.
YouTube's Ad Blocker Crackdown Is Getting Harder to Dodge::The video platform now requires users to disable their ad blockers with an immovable pop-up.
Currently without issue using Firefox and uBlock Origin. No complaints from YouTube nor ads.
I'm certain that by "users" what they really mean is "people still using Chrome."
I've been having intermittent problems while using Firefox. Of course, all I need to do is clear the Ublock's filters and re-load them.
Oddly, my brother who uses the same ad-blocker as me and Chrome hasn't gotten a anti-AdBlock nag screen for months. No idea why.
That's the majority of people?? Looks like the most recent number is 64% of people with 20% on Safari and the remaining ~17% split among the rest with Firefox (3%) not even beating Edge (5%)
Honestly the process to get ublock origin working is identical between the two of them, so being a chrome user doesn't really make it any harder. Obviously still a better idea to switch, but for that specific problem, its the same.
It's being rolled out in waves. Seems like you haven't been hit yet.
I was having issues requiring cache dump/updates daily both on a Windows 10 machine with FF/UO and on an ipad with Brave and Orion (which can use UO) including total cookie wipes. Win 11 machines never blinked.
The last couple days or so, I've not seen the block message anywhere. Fun stuff.
Same here, chrome and ublock origin.. did nothing special at all, never seen any of these popups.
I assume it's a slow rollout and we've both been lucky.
I had to use element picker mode to select the popup to make it go away, but now i have two issues:
Unless you're doing something unusual, it's probably because you're browsing youtube without being logged in.
Some solutions:
Vinegar on iOS is also still working perfectly
Can’t say that’s it’s been working perfectly both on my iPhone and on my iPad, but it’s certainly helped a lot.
Nice, this is one of the primary reasons I haven't used Safari in my Apple noobness, relying on Brave and another browser for YT ad blocking. Going to give this a try too.
ReVanced still and option for Android, though I have to recommend NewPipe and sponsor block
Going to try Yattee tonight, thank you!
when following the guide for Yattee, does it serve as a drop-in replacement for the Youtube app, i.e. does it open Youtube links from other apps and everything? I don't use iOS, but I'd like to know how viable it would be as a recommendations for my friend who do.
I don't use iOS anymore and I don't exactly remember how Yattee behaves. Just recommend them to try it out, they can always look for another solution if this doesn't work.
I give it a year, tops, before they start serving ads in premium too.
But that's the only benefit of premium (on YouTube itself). I guess there are still YouTube originals but that kind of died as far as I can tell.
Yes. And? You think they care? Premium isn't there to benefit you, it's there to benefit Google. As soon as the money stops coming in, they'll look for other ways to squeeze it. We're already seeing it with streaming providers shoehorning ads into their paid services. It's not that much of a stretch.
The only benefit now, but what if they start to serve 30 non-skippable ads without premium and ONLY 5 with premium, what a deal! Right? If you hate ads you can just buy higher tier for ONLY $5 more.
Let's just keep fingers crossed for ublock...
They'll introduce premium platinum for 2x the price, and then normal premium will be changed to YouTube supporter class, with select advertisements
But they'll do this very quietly, and everyone will get grandfathered into YouTube supporter if they don't do anything. So in public they'll still say YouTube premium has no advertisements, even though they've moved the goal posts
It really isnt getting harder to dodge past the initial recent push. "Go to settings, purge cache, refresh list, refresh youtube" is just as many steps today as it was when this recent push started
I've still yet to see it.. not even had to do any of those things. Something about my setup I guess neutralises it.
Me neither.
Waiting for the hammer to drop. OTOH, I don't watch much Tube.
I was, but they stopped appearing once I completely cleared browsing history and cookies. I also did another purge and update for good measure.
The only pain in the ass was that I ended up changing the username of some of my accounts but forgot to update them in my account manager, so it took a bit to find and log into them. But that was completely on me and won't happen if you're not being an idiot like I was.
Big thing that helps is switching off of Chrome. I've been seeing a lot of people say that we should stop using Chrome and I just hadn't gotten around to it. Once the YouTube adblocker started picking up Ublock Origin even after clearing the cache I hard switched to Fire Fox and installed Ublock Origin.
I have not cleared my cache once and I haven't seen a single ad.
Firefox + uBlock Origin + PiHole = I'm wondering what all the fuss is about. I haven't seen a single adblocker warning on YouTube yet.
Stop using browsers based on Chromium people, it's not that hard.
YouTube thinks I'm using an outdated version of Chrome running in Windows 7
This. I've gotten this popup about four times since this happened, telling me the video player was blocked because I had an adblocker still. Each time, I purged cache and updated and it went away.
Fuck YouTube
YouTube had a good humble beginning before monetization fucked everything up. It was a bad idea to begin with. For now, best stick with piped and all the apps that use piped as backend. NewPipe and LibreTube. Want to support a creator? Go buy merch or something. Dont give Google a second of your time.
It wouldn't shock me if they removed ublock origin from the chrome store
Just use Firefox. It's better as a browser, anyway.
I will when they finally fix dragging tabs between windows
Edit: I'm not saying the operation isn't functional, I'm saying it lacks certain small visual feedback aspects like popping a tab out into a new window while dragging. This in and of itself isn't breaking, but Firefox had a lot of rough edges like that every time I used it, and I'm using this specific one as a benchmark to judge if I should give the browser a shot again
So they are cracking down on Adblockers and increasing the price of Premium as well.
I wish there was an alt platform that we could use, because even the FBI recommends using an Adblockers (and TBH what sane person would roll without one?)
I recommend Invidious.
Peertube, odysee
YouTube do not care if you buy the products or not, they care that they can tell the customer that you have seen it.
This made me think!
Would someone who was enjoying Internet services all the way from infancy (with no ad-blocking devices/apps), think that the amount of ads we have nowadays was the norm and that there was nothing weird or absurd about it?
I think they would be disgusted with it. I personally remember the Internet from the Dual Up days, and the amount of ads now is absolutely egregious.
The FBI does not recommend using adblockers so that you can avoid ads on YouTube. That's just 🤦♂️ worthy.
Every adblocker I know of can be disabled on specific sites.
I know this is an unpopular opinion here, but Google is within their rights to show ads or make you pay. It costs more than it probably should, and they serve more ads than they should, but their platform is unique and expensive to run; most uploads do not make them money.
That's not how I intended the phrasing here.
No one doubts Google is not entitled to money. The level of ads is excessive, and to be fair, we are served too many ads in our daily lives as-is, constantly, billboards, radio, Cable TV (to which you pay for the priviledge of watching ads), Gas Pumps, ect. It's everywhere and nauseating, and I'm starting to personally doubt the efficacy of them. People have become numb to them.
But they go on a crusade against Adblockers since the amount / type of ads is excessive, and then raise premium pricing : "The Solution".
It's almost like they have a monopoly and the moves as of recent are anti-consumer.
The FBI recommends an ad-blocker actually because of malicious.... Google Search, yes that same pesky Google, not filtering out dangerous websites in their search results under the "Suggested" part of the search (these sites spoof their web addresses and hope you click on them to deliver a malware payload on your system.)
Switched to Freetube and convinced my dad too as well. No ads, no algorithms, no shit yt search that never works. We're chilling.
Probably jinxing myself here, but I have yet to have a single problem. Linux, Firefox, ublock origin.
I'm using Invidious on desktop and Revanced on my android. No ads so far...
μBlock Origin works for me still (Firefox), but I had to remove my custom filter to remove Shorts from the Subscription page - seems like they can detect it if I have any YT-specific rules.
I've got FreeTube set up as a backup in case μBlock does ever fail - but its lack of tabs really make me not want to use it as my primary access yet. I think they could benefit a lot from creating a browser-based UI, kind of like what Plex has.
Freetube for the win. Built in sponsor block.
I’ve just installed Yattee for IOS. It works great. There was a post for this a day ago? Also for other platforms. Fuck YouTube.
Maybe I didn’t do it right. Nothing loads. Do I need to copy and paste each YT link to see something?
https://r.yattee.stream/manifest-invidious-piped.json
Settings——> locations manifest and add the above link. Restart the app and you are good to go.
** https://apps.apple.com/us/app/yattee/id1595136629/) with this guide - (Adding Piped/Invidious website to Homescreen)
Original part of og post.
Works for me if set to US location, does not work for some others i tried
Stop using butt adblockers. There's a reason why UBO has the highest amount of downloads, is a recommended extension, and is the highest rated extension on both chromium and firefox.
Weird. I've been running AdBlock and AdGuard for years and nary an issue with youtube. I just never see ads there.
FWIW it was only when I added a vpn to my mix that I started being made to submit to captchas whenever I do anything like search
This is the best summary I could come up with:
After beginning to roll out a healthy nudge to turn off ad blockers or subscribe to the platform’s ad-free Premium offering, YouTube is now forcing users’ hands.
As users continue to trawl the depths of YouTube, they will now be greeted with a pop-up warning them to disable their ad blocker saying “video playback is blocked unless YouTube is allowlisted or the ad blocker is disabled.” This notification began popping up for users across the platform earlier this month, but it was as simple as shrugging it off by closing out the message.
Shortly thereafter, YouTube forced users to acknowledge the message but still allowed them to exit out of it after a brief timer elapsed.
YouTube communications manager Christopher Lawton told The Verge Tuesday that using an ad blocker is actually against the platform’s terms of service.
He also told the outlet that “ads support a diverse ecosystem of creators globally and allow billions to access their favorite content on YouTube.”
Around the same time, the company reported its third straight quarterly decline in ad revenue, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The original article contains 320 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 43%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I've already switched to Freetube on my PC, and New.piped on my phone.
Looks like YouTube is the next tower to fall.
If they really stop people from watching it will just force people to straight up pirate their content.
They won't ever win this battle.
Youtube fell a long time ago. It's in ruins as we speak.
Im using Yattee on iOS with no issue. From the damn App Store, don’t think they’re cracking down very well.
I use a whitelist firewall. It is like a lock on my front door. I don't use an adblocker. I manually add only websites I wish to visit. Extorting me for only visiting websites I trust and wish to visit is criminal. I am the reason Ad Blocks are a thing. They are the lazy person's mostly effective whitelist firewall.
All ads are are serving you another website you didn't ask to visit and with unknown bad actors that are not effectively vetted. Ads are like a house party in your home where one of your guests opens a window in your bathroom and let's a dozen random people into your home without your knowledge. The person that let them in sneaks around the hidden guests while trying to prevent you from noticing. It is criminal behavior. This is privateering, aka pirates that have a legal charter from a criminal government.
Well, if you visit Youtube to watch a video, it will serve both the video and the ads from the same website. Ads are not necessarily being loaded from another website. If they were, we could just DNS-block YouTube ads, and they would be gone in your entire home network, for instance.
I don't understand why YouTube doesn't just put the video ads in-stream, just seems stupid for stupid's sake at this point.
Maybe this is some weird way of testing the waters. If they just solved the problem outright, users who wouldn’t put up with ads would just leave. This way they can see how many users will just tolerate the change without really committing.
That certainly seems like a possibility >_>
Gotta bleed them pennies dry.
Just stop using YouTube?
If content providers notice their viewership going down they'll surely raise a stink to YouTube once it starts to affect their income.
Using AdGuard on macOS and iOS. Works fine
Adblock detector blocker ftw!