That doesn't seem to be what is happening, because then uBlock Origin couldn't work around it. Also things like Newpipe and embedding can be used to bypass the

That doesn't seem to be what is happening, because then uBlock Origin couldn't work around it. Also things like Newpipe and embedding can be used to bypass the block as well. I find all of this weird because it seems all so lacking in fundamentals. I'd expect indeed checking whether the content was actually downloaded. That'd be much harder to work around. In turn that should result in an ad blocker that downloads content but doesn't show it, completing the circle. I think properly doing it would require a specialized web browser, capable of keeping two separate models, one which it pretends to render, and one which is actually renders.