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Youtube's frequency of ads has become so extreme that I've just yesterday opted to pay 11€/month for YT Premium. I had tried before disabling them with a Pihol

Youtube's frequency of ads has become so extreme that I've just yesterday opted to pay 11€/month for YT Premium. I had tried before disabling them with a Pihole or by blocking domains. It didn't work. Also, on a Samsung TV, you can't really install another front end.

nicoco 5y ago
I don't youtube that much but ublock+firefox and newpipe have been efficient for me. Edit: overlooked your comment and did not see you mentioned a smart TV.
ulzeraj 5y ago
I have a Sharp TV on my living room and the YT app crashes everytime a certain type of ad is played after the video starts. I don't know if its the video codec or if the TV is having a hard time going back to the original video. Out of nowhere a 5 second chocolate or cheese ad plays and the TV OS completely crashes. Tried attaching an ARM SBC with Librelec but the state of the Youtube apps are extremely broken in a way that you need api keys from a google cloud account and that allows you to only play videos. Your subscriptions and everything are not imported. PS4 runs fine but I don't want to run a 100W console to watch YT videos. Meanwhile I've found out that most of my favorite channels (mostly tech and retro stuff) are also uploading to Odyssey as a sort of backup strategy. That works very well for me.
- ajot 5y ago
  Can your SBC run Android (or even better, LineageOS)? If so, you can install Kodi for Android and launch Youtube or Newpipe within Kodi.
  - ulzeraj 5y ago
    It is a RockPro64. The stock image offered by Pine is borderline useless barebones without the store. Some complicated process involving connecting an usb-c cable and running ADB from Android SDK is necessary. I also tried some Android distribution called Slash TV which seems to be kinda complete but the videos keep defaulting to 480p even after I set my preferences to high quality. It seems Slash TV is a one man's project and it hasn't received an upgrade in a while. I was surprised how much of a nice product Librelec is but all the YT apps for Kodi (Youtube, Tubed) are in this broken state due to some API changes.
    - ajot 5y ago
      Yeah, I run LibreELEC on an x86 machine, but the connectivity to online providers is just not there. Netflix and Spotify are other two services with mostly broken plugins.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  Would a Chromecast cover your use case?
  - ulzeraj 5y ago
    Maybe but if the solution is throwing more money into hardware I'd rather get something like an Apple TV or Nvidia Shield.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
      Oh, good point; I was thinking from the perspective that a Chromecast is cheap, but it looks like an Apple TV is only $180 which probably is close enough if you use it any decent amount.
- aembleton 5y ago
  Get an Amazon Firestick and install SmartTubeNext on to it. The Firestick plugs into your HDMI so your TV doesn't need to do any extra processing.
omginternets 5y ago
This is cable tv all over again. Pretty soon there will be ads on paid YouTube subscriptions too, mark my words.
- emsy 5y ago
  There are: “now for a quick word about this week’s sponsor”
  - folkrav 5y ago
    I mean, that's on content creators doing live reads, and YT has nothing to do with it.
    - emsy 5y ago
      Exactly. So I’m paying 12$ a month, which is more than Netflix and still get ads. That’s actually the reason why I won’t get YT premium.
      - endisneigh 5y ago
        Why not just stop watching people who do that if you don’t like it?
        matheusmoreira 5y ago
        Because we don't have to. We have technology that fixes the problem: sponsor block and ublock origin.
  - dspillett 5y ago
    There is a difference there in that the sponsorship money all goes to the content creator, rather than to YT who may or may not (at their whim) share a small portion with whoever posted the video (which is far from always the content creator). They also aren't stalking you around everything you do on the Internet in the name of targetting.
  - 5y ago
fbnlsr 5y ago
I'm in the same boat. On desktop it's pretty easy to work around ads thanks to uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock. But on an Android TV it's becoming unbearable. It's like Youtube has come to torture and extortion to get our money so we can get a little bit of peace of mind.
- shultays 5y ago
  Try smarttube https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30802571 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30802571
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
I use NewPipe on my Nvidia Shield. It's not very polished but it gets the job done and is FOSS.
okkdev 5y ago
This is a godsend for Android TVs: https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext
pbasista 5y ago
With TVs it is especially important to look at the _software_ it comes with. If it is some locked-down piece which requires the blessing of the manufacturer to install anything on it, then I would stay away from such TVs. It seems to me that Android TVs offer at least some degree of customization because it is possible to install apps there. But the value you get from them depends on whether you can get the root access and on other restrictions the manufacturer has imposed on it. So, in general it is not an ideal usage model. In my opinion, a pure Linux TVs would be much better. For instance, running Kodi as a frontend with TVHeadend or minisatip as a backend. They would of course have plenty of possibilities to play other media and would be fully customizable, giving the customer a _choice_ to consider and utilize that capability. In my opinion, there is a reasonably sized market for such TVs.
- shultays 5y ago
  Android has smarttube app which is even better (imho) compared to official youtube app, even if you pay for adfree For starters, it supports sponsorblock which is even more adblocking. Secondly i think ux is miles better You dont need root but you need to manually download and install it
  - henriquecm8 5y ago
    That's really nice, I need to save this for when I buy an android tv
    - shultays 5y ago
      Be warned, even if you can block ads in youtube apps, most TV brands (and Google) started putting ads in their home screen. Mine was alright for 2-3 years but early this year there was an update that started putting "Watch these cool stuff in Disney app" and it is not removable. I rolled back the update for my home screen app, which works for now. I think you are able to use entirely different home screen apps but I didn't want to go that far yet. The moment I can't disable ads is the moment I will start using PI and using my TV as a dumb screen
nullandvoid 5y ago
I use ublock origin + sponsorblock + ddg privacy extension, and haven't had ads on YouTube in years Also you can just use invidious on mobile (and presumably on your TV) for the same experience (minus the sponsor / merch flogging skips which are fantasic)
999900000999 5y ago
I get YouTube Red with YouTube music, and for me it's more than worth it. You're going to pay about $10 a month for music streaming anyway, and I watch YouTube so much. If I didn't have premium, I'd be wasting at least an hour per day on ads.
moonchrome 5y ago
I've been using YT premium family for over a year now - I watch a lot of youtube in the background while working, it's a fair price for me - worth more than Netflix for sure since I spend more time on it. When I occasionally see YT on other peoples TV without it I'm shocked at how many ads they get. I'm not sure what's the alternative to YT but this insane ad spam might start driving people away to alternatives.
riskable 5y ago
I've never said no to anything more in my life than YouTube Premium.
withinboredom 5y ago
nextdns blocks them quite well, and it's a lot less expensive than YT premium (also blocks ads in games).
rmellow 5y ago
1. Get an Android TV device. This is not actually a TV, but a device that connects to your TV via HDMI. Prices vary, but it's not expensive. 2. Install SmartTubeNext on the Android TV. Now you have something better than YouTube Premium: This app supports SponsorBlock, which not only gets rid of YT ads, it also skips filler segments, self-promotion segments and sponsor segments. 3. You can also install a SponsorBlock browser extension. Both of these are Open Source Software.
- aembleton 5y ago
  You can also install SmartTubeNext on a Firestick.
  - malermeister 5y ago
    Which is running a fork of Android TV afaik
wintermutestwin 5y ago
You do realize that you are paying more than 11/month right? Google is also stealing your data. I don't know how you value yours, but mine is priceless.

nicoco 5y ago

I don't youtube that much but ublock+firefox and newpipe have been efficient for me. Edit: overlooked your comment and did not see you mentioned a smart TV.

ulzeraj 5y ago

I have a Sharp TV on my living room and the YT app crashes everytime a certain type of ad is played after the video starts. I don't know if its the video codec or if the TV is having a hard time going back to the original video. Out of nowhere a 5 second chocolate or cheese ad plays and the TV OS completely crashes. Tried attaching an ARM SBC with Librelec but the state of the Youtube apps are extremely broken in a way that you need api keys from a google cloud account and that allows you to only play videos. Your subscriptions and everything are not imported. PS4 runs fine but I don't want to run a 100W console to watch YT videos. Meanwhile I've found out that most of my favorite channels (mostly tech and retro stuff) are also uploading to Odyssey as a sort of backup strategy. That works very well for me.

ajot 5y ago
Can your SBC run Android (or even better, LineageOS)? If so, you can install Kodi for Android and launch Youtube or Newpipe within Kodi.
- ulzeraj 5y ago
  It is a RockPro64. The stock image offered by Pine is borderline useless barebones without the store. Some complicated process involving connecting an usb-c cable and running ADB from Android SDK is necessary. I also tried some Android distribution called Slash TV which seems to be kinda complete but the videos keep defaulting to 480p even after I set my preferences to high quality. It seems Slash TV is a one man's project and it hasn't received an upgrade in a while. I was surprised how much of a nice product Librelec is but all the YT apps for Kodi (Youtube, Tubed) are in this broken state due to some API changes.
  - ajot 5y ago
    Yeah, I run LibreELEC on an x86 machine, but the connectivity to online providers is just not there. Netflix and Spotify are other two services with mostly broken plugins.
yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
Would a Chromecast cover your use case?
- ulzeraj 5y ago
  Maybe but if the solution is throwing more money into hardware I'd rather get something like an Apple TV or Nvidia Shield.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    Oh, good point; I was thinking from the perspective that a Chromecast is cheap, but it looks like an Apple TV is only $180 which probably is close enough if you use it any decent amount.
aembleton 5y ago
Get an Amazon Firestick and install SmartTubeNext on to it. The Firestick plugs into your HDMI so your TV doesn't need to do any extra processing.

omginternets 5y ago

This is cable tv all over again. Pretty soon there will be ads on paid YouTube subscriptions too, mark my words.

emsy 5y ago
There are: “now for a quick word about this week’s sponsor”
- folkrav 5y ago
  I mean, that's on content creators doing live reads, and YT has nothing to do with it.
  - emsy 5y ago
    Exactly. So I’m paying 12$ a month, which is more than Netflix and still get ads. That’s actually the reason why I won’t get YT premium.
    - endisneigh 5y ago
      Why not just stop watching people who do that if you don’t like it?
      - matheusmoreira 5y ago
        Because we don't have to. We have technology that fixes the problem: sponsor block and ublock origin.
- dspillett 5y ago
  There is a difference there in that the sponsorship money all goes to the content creator, rather than to YT who may or may not (at their whim) share a small portion with whoever posted the video (which is far from always the content creator). They also aren't stalking you around everything you do on the Internet in the name of targetting.
- 5y ago

fbnlsr 5y ago

I'm in the same boat. On desktop it's pretty easy to work around ads thanks to uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock. But on an Android TV it's becoming unbearable. It's like Youtube has come to torture and extortion to get our money so we can get a little bit of peace of mind.

shultays 5y ago
Try smarttube https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30802571 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30802571

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

I use NewPipe on my Nvidia Shield. It's not very polished but it gets the job done and is FOSS.

okkdev 5y ago

This is a godsend for Android TVs: https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext

pbasista 5y ago

With TVs it is especially important to look at the _software_ it comes with. If it is some locked-down piece which requires the blessing of the manufacturer to install anything on it, then I would stay away from such TVs. It seems to me that Android TVs offer at least some degree of customization because it is possible to install apps there. But the value you get from them depends on whether you can get the root access and on other restrictions the manufacturer has imposed on it. So, in general it is not an ideal usage model. In my opinion, a pure Linux TVs would be much better. For instance, running Kodi as a frontend with TVHeadend or minisatip as a backend. They would of course have plenty of possibilities to play other media and would be fully customizable, giving the customer a _choice_ to consider and utilize that capability. In my opinion, there is a reasonably sized market for such TVs.

shultays 5y ago
Android has smarttube app which is even better (imho) compared to official youtube app, even if you pay for adfree For starters, it supports sponsorblock which is even more adblocking. Secondly i think ux is miles better You dont need root but you need to manually download and install it
- henriquecm8 5y ago
  That's really nice, I need to save this for when I buy an android tv
  - shultays 5y ago
    Be warned, even if you can block ads in youtube apps, most TV brands (and Google) started putting ads in their home screen. Mine was alright for 2-3 years but early this year there was an update that started putting "Watch these cool stuff in Disney app" and it is not removable. I rolled back the update for my home screen app, which works for now. I think you are able to use entirely different home screen apps but I didn't want to go that far yet. The moment I can't disable ads is the moment I will start using PI and using my TV as a dumb screen

nullandvoid 5y ago

I use ublock origin + sponsorblock + ddg privacy extension, and haven't had ads on YouTube in years Also you can just use invidious on mobile (and presumably on your TV) for the same experience (minus the sponsor / merch flogging skips which are fantasic)

999900000999 5y ago

I get YouTube Red with YouTube music, and for me it's more than worth it. You're going to pay about $10 a month for music streaming anyway, and I watch YouTube so much. If I didn't have premium, I'd be wasting at least an hour per day on ads.

moonchrome 5y ago

I've been using YT premium family for over a year now - I watch a lot of youtube in the background while working, it's a fair price for me - worth more than Netflix for sure since I spend more time on it. When I occasionally see YT on other peoples TV without it I'm shocked at how many ads they get. I'm not sure what's the alternative to YT but this insane ad spam might start driving people away to alternatives.

riskable 5y ago

I've never said no to anything more in my life than YouTube Premium.

withinboredom 5y ago

nextdns blocks them quite well, and it's a lot less expensive than YT premium (also blocks ads in games).

rmellow 5y ago

1. Get an Android TV device. This is not actually a TV, but a device that connects to your TV via HDMI. Prices vary, but it's not expensive. 2. Install SmartTubeNext on the Android TV. Now you have something better than YouTube Premium: This app supports SponsorBlock, which not only gets rid of YT ads, it also skips filler segments, self-promotion segments and sponsor segments. 3. You can also install a SponsorBlock browser extension. Both of these are Open Source Software.

aembleton 5y ago
You can also install SmartTubeNext on a Firestick.
- malermeister 5y ago
  Which is running a fork of Android TV afaik

wintermutestwin 5y ago

You do realize that you are paying more than 11/month right? Google is also stealing your data. I don't know how you value yours, but mine is priceless.