30 ms·

Show HN: YouTube banned adblockers so I built an extension to skip their ads

713 points by rKarpinski 3y ago

Hi HN! Since Youtube no longer allows AdBlockers, I built my own extension to get around their video ads. If there is an ad it temporarily manipulates the video; Mutes the volume, sets speed to 10x, and skips it if there is a button. Chrome Webstore link: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ad-accelerator/gpboiedfklodfhngobidfjecdpmccehg?hl=en https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ad-accelerator/gpbo... Code: https://github.com/rkk3/ad-accelerator https://github.com/rkk3/ad-accelerator

indianmouse 3y ago
Looks like YouTube is already detecting this or has some logic to detect that the ads were played at a different speed. Try moving through a video when this extension is active and you can see that the advertisement is getting active for almost every possible forward / reverse time selection on the video timeline. It is just too many blank screens and though it saves a couple of seconds in the actual advertisement watching space, it does provide an unpleasant experience of watching the black screen for a few seconds. I can live with that (and most should be!), but wanted to record this observation so that it get's to the developer's attention for improvements (if possible!) Hope it helps.
- rKarpinski 3y ago
  Thanks for trying it out! For longer videos Youtube will insert multiple ads during the content which you might be hitting if you search through. The extension should still trigger for those ads, but it's not as seamless an experience as the ad blockers. Is that what you're describing? Open to feedback! Have my email in profile & listed with the extension
trumbitta2 3y ago
I just skip and I'm thankful for the FREE content. I wouldn't pay for YouTube, so I'm fine with 5 seconds of something I ignore while waiting for the skip button to activate.
- trumbitta2 3y ago
  Downvoting honest people in a thread full of people discussing how to avoid paying for something. What did I expect?
- Rehanzo 3y ago
  [flagged]
triplemmm 3y ago
ublocker on chrome is working fine! just update de filter
mattkenefick 3y ago
I also made one a week or two ago. This one will swap out the video with an embedded player which generally skips ads. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/nhjphlheoepniijfpaoabmkbkhihbecm/preview?hl=en https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/nhjphlheoepniijfpao...
devilsAdv0cate 3y ago
[dead]
throwing_away 3y ago
What'd google do now? I've been watching youtube all day on firefox with ubo. No ads, no issues.
- Kamq 3y ago
  They really only did it on chrome, I think? At least at work, I kept getting modals saying adblockers weren't allowed, but I never got those on firefox. It seems to have gone away though (probably an update from ublock) even on chrome
  - slotrans 3y ago
    No, their adblocker detection definitely detects UO in Firefox. I've had to disable it (UO) the last couple months otherwise YT becomes unusable.
    - Kamq 3y ago
      Huh, fair enough. Guess it just missed me
  - moogly 3y ago
    I've seen those on Firefox. Disappeared after a week-and-a-half though.
- Groxx 3y ago
  They've been rolling out rapidly varying and inconsistently-behaving (between users/refreshes) changes in a pretty explicit attempt to break adblockers and complicate developing new ones. You're probably either just not in that cohort yet for some reason, or have already received the improvements that keep ubo working - people's experience varies widely with this wave, probably by design (difficult for blockers to study) and to try to judge impact.
- deleted 3y ago
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SeanAnderson 3y ago
I don't have any issues with my AdBlocker on YouTube? Also, not to be a downer, but CWS and YouTube are both Google property. If your extension does well then they can coordinate to make your life hard. I experienced this personally (https://thenextweb.com/news/how-youtube-killed-an-extension-with-300000-users https://thenextweb.com/news/how-youtube-killed-an-extension-...) where there was an implication my developer key would be revoked if I didn't delist.
- brucethemoose2 3y ago
  > CWS and YouTube are both Google property So is Chrome! I have to wonder when Google will will start using the browser itself as leverage (beyond the upcoming Manifest V3 changes).
- ravenstine 3y ago
  I still have not encountered any issues with uBlock Origin on YouTube. There's 3 hypotheses I have for why this is. 1. YouTube has been gradually rolling out the counter-blocking to an expanding number of randomly selected users. 2. YouTube doesn't bother blocking me because I've purchased a substantial amount of content from them. There's little benefit in discouraging me from buying more content in the future. 3. YouTube has done some analytics to figure out that I'm the kind of person who will never return if no ad blocking is allowed and doesn't trust them to keep ads out of Premium. I don't suppose you've purchased shows or movies through YouTube?
  - SeanAnderson 3y ago
    I think I purchased one movie through YouTube a few years ago, but it's been a while. I received a YouTube notification a few weeks ago letting me know that AdBlock was not allowed, but there was no follow-up. I feel that YouTube is very deeply entrenched in a streaming architecture which makes it challenging to serve ads that are indistinguishable from primary content. All of the pushback against adblocking extensions feels like an unwinnable arms race until Manifest v3 becomes mandatory. Contrast this with Twitch - where uBlock doesn't impact ads at all. I feel Twitch engineered their service to defeat adblock from day 1. YouTube wants to be in the same position, but doesn't seem willing or able to mirror Twitch's architecture.
nubela 3y ago
Extension takedown in 3.. 2.. Honestly though, it will come and it will be in a form of copyright infringement, or something vague like that. Good luck. Don't build your castle on top of another castle.
- deleted 3y ago
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- pvg 3y ago
  Omit internet tropes. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- stuckkeys 3y ago
  This is skipping their adds, why would that implicate him?
- Andrews54757 3y ago
  The Chrome Web Store already blocks any extension with the ability to download videos from Youtube with the excuse of it "enabling piracy." Ironic considering that they allow downloaders for any other site. Only Youtube.com is banned. It smells like anti-competitive behavior to me.
_dark_matter_ 3y ago
Add this to addons.mozilla.org, so we can use it on Firefox & Firefox for Android!
- rKarpinski 3y ago
  Will do!
- kspacewalk2 3y ago
  Been watching YouTube on Firefox (Android and MacOS) with uBlock Origin with zero ads ever. What am I missing?
  - jjeaff 3y ago
    it's a tiered rollout. I also had no issues until a few weeks ago. but I usually just need to update the unlock lists and do a hard refresh and I will be back in business for a few days.
  - throw101010 3y ago
    Nothing, it works just fine for now for me too. I'd still recommand an open source app called NewPipe over YouTube on FireFox, it seems way less hungry battery-wise... and there is likely also less data collection happening.
    - Modified3019 3y ago
      Unfortunately newpipe is bizarrely hostile to sponsorblock, which to me has become as important as Adblock itself: https://newpipe.net/blog/pinned/newpipe-and-online-advertising/ https://newpipe.net/blog/pinned/newpipe-and-online-advertisi... But I definitely also recommend trying out frontends that support it. I cannot imagine trying to use video while having to run a gauntlet of both YouTube ads and video sponsor segments.
      - viewtransform 3y ago
        What does sponsorblock provide that hitting the 'L' key a few times to skip ahead doesn't ?
Zak 3y ago
That's definitely a technique to keep in reserve if they get better at detection, but uBlock Origin currently works very well on Youtube as long as its filters are up to date.
- deleted 3y ago
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- ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  If i'm logged in it fails constantly when i'm logged in (a few videos daily seem to work ok, after that it refuses to load a video, even though a "anti adblock" popup is still blocked) ...but it seems to work ok in incognito tabs, so youtube gets even less data on me now.
  - sa1 3y ago
    ublock origin folks have asked people to not run any other blocker extension alongside, those seem to trigger the anti-adblock scripts. It might be the same case for you.
    - deleted 3y ago
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  - themoonisachees 3y ago
    Personally anytime I get a pop up I clear the filter cache and update it again and it's worked the 3 times it happened.
hawkilt 3y ago
They didn’t block the brave yet
- omginternets 3y ago
  I regularly get nag screens though.
  - RadixDLT 3y ago
    no you don't
    - omginternets 3y ago
      As a subject matter expert in things that appear on my screen, I assure you that I do.
orliesaurus 3y ago
Haha, good luck I'm behind 7 proxies
- chatmasta 3y ago
  I know you're being ironic, but routing through a proxy in a country that doesn't receive advertisements is a real technique [0] for ad-blocking on Twitch, where the ads are embedded as part of the m3u8 playlist. [0] https://github.com/pixeltris/TwitchAdSolutions/blob/master/full-list.md https://github.com/pixeltris/TwitchAdSolutions/blob/master/f...
  - orliesaurus 3y ago
    The irony/sarcasm refers to an old spider man meme. But yeah I am with you!
    - chatmasta 3y ago
      The spider-man meme was a derivative of a 4chan meme ;) https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/good-luck-im-behind-7-proxies https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/good-luck-im-behind-7-proxies
      - orliesaurus 3y ago
        Ah yes, I didn't know that one was the OG, but I did see it alot around 4chan
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krpovmu 3y ago
apparently it only happens with google chrome browser (what a surprise!), another reason not to use that spyware that only consumes RAM.
- zamadatix 3y ago
  What makes this apparent? I've not observed or heard this to be true yet, e.g. the same problem has occured to me in Firefox. I've found making sure the adblocker rulesets are updated faster than the normal update schedule was planning tends to fix it.
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snow_mac 3y ago
I use the Hosts file to block a ton of ads and that works really well. https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts Something worth considering if your ad blocker isn't working well.
- nullindividual 3y ago
  hosts file won't work for the in-line ads present in YouTube. The ads are served from the same domain as the video you're watching.
  - Gualdrapo 3y ago
    I think it's worth noting that it wasn't always the case - there was a hosts file repo used by pihole users that effectively blocked YouTube ads.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      You keep doing things based on historic knowledge and suffer those ads, while the rest of us will move along with the times and not suffer those ads. Lest we forget? sure, but it's not like they'll be going back to that technique as it's ineffective for them.
      - deleted 3y ago
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    - kazinator 3y ago
      I think it's even more worth noting that it wasn't always the case that Youtube started warning ad-blocking users and stopping playback! Even if we suppose that a simple hosts file could somehow block YouTube ads today, YouTube would detect that. It would not fare any better than any other ad blocker.
      - KTibow 3y ago
        [dead]
titaniumtown 3y ago
ublock origin works fine on YouTube, if not, couldnt this just be a filter rule?
- chii 3y ago
  It does. But i think youtube attempts to detect the adblock (which ublock origin continues to evade with new updates?). This extension does not block, but instead just fast forward the ad (playback speed at 10x - tbh, it could'be been at 100x probably!) and mutes it. So from the youtube js perspective, the ad has played and wasn't blocked.
  - deanc 3y ago
    uBlock Origin as far as I can tell has been winning the race. As long as you stay up to date and clear the cache now and then. I've had one occasion (recently) where I got some ads which was fixed by updating uBlock origin, but maybe I'm not in Youtube's anti-adblock cohort.
  - bc_programming 3y ago
    When they first started this, a month ago (or so?) I just right-clicked and used block element with uBlock Origin to block the popup and the div element that covered the page to dim it. I've not seen it since. Only side effect is videos sometimes pause right as they start. I assume because it stops the video and shows the pop up. I can just resume immediately though.
extheat 3y ago
Cool! I recently wrote my own user script to do the same thing. It's going to be very hard to patch or detect this, as updating video element props don't trigger DOM updates. They would have to either do lots of JS prototype trickery or check for playback rate when doing adblock detection. One thing to keep in mind here though since you're doing DOM lookups every time anything on the page changes, is that there could be some small overhead in page render time, and also that using fixed CSS classes means any small change to page code could break the checks. In case it's a problem in the future, checking .innerText is a hacky way to workaround it.
- rjh29 3y ago
  They could refuse to deliver the main video content until the minimum ad time has passed?
  - fennecfoxy 3y ago
    Well really they could include a hash with each frame of video data, timestamp when clients have started watching and only allow sending the next x frames once y time has passed. Really, they should just get rid of all ads and force everyone to pay a subscription, because apparently that's what everyone wants. Oh no, wait, they want neither; people want Youtube for free without ads. Sure, YT could make less profit and therefore serve fewer ads/lower premium price, but in order to convince them to do that, humans would actually have to work together and boycott it to send a message, and as we all know that ain't ever gonna happen.
  - brucethemoose2 3y ago
    This has already happend to me, probably unintentionally. Something in Cromite "broke" the ads and just showed a black screen before the video started. It was fine. I had no problem with it.
    - kurthr 3y ago
      I had something similar happen. I'm fine with a blank screen and waiting 5-30sec. I don't want intrusive ads before during and after a 5 min video on water heater maintenance.
throwaway5959 3y ago
Just buy Premium, no ads and creators actually get paid unlike when you block ads.
- omginternets 3y ago
  lol yeah, that’s what they said about cable tv. Fool me once, …
  - drekipus 3y ago
    "fool me once" only applies when it's the same entity doing the fooling
    - omginternets 3y ago
      Or the same process...
  - Vvector 3y ago
    cable TV had ads from day 1.
    - omginternets 3y ago
      It certainly did not.
      - Vvector 3y ago
        Cable TV started as a way to expand the reach of broadcast TV. Broadcast TV has commercials. Hence cable TV always had commercials.
      - shadowgovt 3y ago
        It depends on how you slice the question. The first cable-only station to do ads was USA in 1977. But since cable always carried local stations, cable always had channels where ads were run.
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axelfreeman 3y ago
If you have Problems in the chrome webstore than you could Build This for Firefox.
arsome 3y ago
uBO works for me, just requires a manual filter update once in a while. Though I like this approach in it's own way as it still costs advertisers but delivers no value to them, maybe something more like Ad Nauseum which would click the ads too.
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moonshinefe 3y ago
For the people saying it's fine for them, YouTube was blocking access but only doing it for certain accounts and only after you watched more than a few videos. My personal account was affected but not my work one. I was using Firefox + uBlock Origin and the site would periodically stop working. Clearing cache and updating the uBO lists would fix it, but only temporarily. No idea if the situation has changed. One alternative is pay for YT premium, but they still might target you with ads[1] which is risable. I've heard FreeTube is a thing as well. 1. https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/11/google-kills-web-integrity-drm-for-the-web-still-wants-an-android-version/?comments=1&post=42331265 https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/11/google-kills-web-inte...
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famahar 3y ago
I remember there was a point where ads on YouTube were tolerable. It's wild how aggressive they are now. I don't even bother watching so many videos now that I have to sit through 2 mins of unskippable ads what feels like every minute. My partner recently subbed to Hulu and it's worse. You still pay monthly and they shove 2 - 3 minute ads every 5 minutes.
- kristopolous 3y ago
  On mobile, they don't play videos unless the screen is on except if it's an ad, then they have all of these favorable bugs where your phone unexpectedly starts playing a whistling song with a twanging ukulele talking about mattresses. There's that other bug where they disable the navigation during the ads and you have to turn the screen off and back on to the lock screen to get rid of it. Such fortuitous defects. Brendan Eichs Brave browser bypasses the YouTube bullshit if you want a workaround on android.
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- lxgr 3y ago
  Hulu is not nearly that bad for me. I definitely couldn’t do ad interruptions every five minutes. I get about 1-2 minutes of ads, maybe 2-3 times per 40 minutes of content. Maybe it depends on the content? There’s also an ad-free plan.
lawrencehook 3y ago
lawrencehook.com/rys does this too
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nickphx 3y ago
I just refresh page when an ad pops. It may take a few before the ads go away but it's worked so far.
totallywrong 3y ago
I only really watch YT on my phone, and Youtube ReVanced has been amazing for an ad-free experience.
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Andrews54757 3y ago
There is a javascript library for interfacing with Youtube's API directly. It can also run on browsers. Using this, it's pretty easy to create a simple extension that replaces the default video player with your own. You can do a lot to improve your experience this way. I've made one which allows for higher quality streaming, pre-buffering video in the background, more subtitling options, etc... [2] [3]. [1] https://github.com/LuanRT/YouTube.js https://github.com/LuanRT/YouTube.js [2] https://github.com/Andrews54757/FastStream https://github.com/Andrews54757/FastStream [3] Chrome (also available for Firefox): https://chromewebstore.google.com/u/1/detail/faststream-video-player/kkeakohpadmbldjaiggikmnldlfkdfog https://chromewebstore.google.com/u/1/detail/faststream-vide...
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- corn-dog 3y ago
  Hey you should post about this on our extension devs server , people would be super interested https://discord.gg/mHPkCCBx https://discord.gg/mHPkCCBx
  - Andrews54757 3y ago
    I'll check out the Discord server because I want to see cool stuff other people are making, but I have no intention of seriously marketing my extension. I don't really want it to "take off" and become popular. To me, FastStream is just a fun hobby project, not a product. I intend to always keep it free without unnecessary bloat or spyware of any kind. So, I don't really have a desire for it to be "successful" beyond it being immediately useful to me and a couple of my friends.
    - corn-dog 3y ago
      That’s totally cool I appreciate your intentions with the extension :) people have built some really cool things with extensions
- eyegor 3y ago
PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
> Since Youtube no longer allows AdBlockers You mean "since YouTube attempted to bar adblockers, but instead entered into a war with them that it cannot win, most users of adblockers continue to watch YouTube without issues".
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- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  Why do you think it cannot win? I would bet on the opposite.
  - heinrich5991 3y ago
    Without hardware attestation/DRM, all detection methods served by the server can be rendered futile. It's an inherently lost game for YouTube.
    - lxgr 3y ago
      Why couldn’t they just introduce DRM? They already use it for paid “commercial” content on their site (like TV shows and movies, whether pay per view or in a subscription).
      - pvg 3y ago
        There are zillions of youtube client devices out there that rarely get updated or no longer get updated at all. It's tricky to 'introduce' a lot of things, never mind DRM.
    - nvm0n2 3y ago
      YouTube has infinite time and energy for this. Adblock developers do not. Some are already burning out. The biggest risk to YouTube's strategy isn't that they can't win technically, it's that the bitching from their employees internally grinds them down.
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j45 3y ago
It seems a lot of work to do this and worth it. As a surprised customer of YouTube premium having all ads gone across videos and music across all devices really might not be a bad deal for anyone on the fence for a family plan and all your devices. In terms of working around ads.. There are some neat solutions that seem to work ok for YouTube on tv.. but so far the family plan seems ok. Was anyone able tog eat off the premium plan and have no ads on their phones, computers, tvs and smart speakers?
- giobox 3y ago
  YouTube premium has no ads on the AppleTV app, which solves the TV side for my home. I have to imagine Android TV and other solutions are the same for the most part - is your TV using some kind of odd built in YouTube app that doesn't support the Premium subscription?
  - j45 3y ago
    The tech in my home also practices diversity and there's Android TV as well as Apple TV - my experience has been the same as yours that Youtube Premium is ad free on all of them. I have heard some folks using tools like invidious but I'm not sure how well they map to multiple screens. Being able to put the same account onto the built in youtube apps on TV's and mobile devices has been useful. No need to buy a white noise machine for kids, we just use a google mini in speaker mode only. Sure, I'd like it to be something else but premium has me on board for now.
Joel_Mckay 3y ago
Ultimately the conversion rate of spam continuously proves one of the worst advertising methods. They are ripping off companies they lie to about the conflated stats, and irritating the 80% of users that will never buy anything for various reasons. It is going to be an interesting waste of resources. =)
- Obscurity4340 3y ago
  Did you mean conflated or inflated, I feel vaguely like it could go either way here
  - Joel_Mckay 3y ago
    Tricky question, but yes... The fact is the CTR for brand aware consumers will be negatively affected by burning goodwill with peripheral viewers. Thus, while increased paid impressions will be good for Google/Alphabet short term revenue, the actual consumer sales for advertisers will show a degraded campaign performance. It was called a contaminated lead pool if I recall. If 80% of traffic now associates a brand as a nuisance, than it will cost >12 times whatever people spent on the bad Marketing plan to attempt to "fix". Spectacularly bad business decision, as someone is letting the dog drive =)
    - Obscurity4340 3y ago
      Thanks for clarifying, I didn't want to nitpick but my curiosity always gets the best of me. Sometimes it works out :)
dangus 3y ago
I just pay for the product rather than jumping through stupid hoops to avoid paying $3/month/user. Paying to remove ads is how you get no ads. Refusing to pay for ad-free services just tells companies that there’s no point in attempting to make a good user experience with no ads.
- totallywrong 3y ago
  It's $14 a month for Premium. Most casual users can't justify that.
  - zeroonetwothree 3y ago
    The average user watches 20 hours of content a month. So that’s not bad I think. Somehow I suspect the ones obsessively managing ad blockers to make sure they don’t see a single ad aren’t the ones that watch 2 videos a month or less
    - heinrich5991 3y ago
      I think that would be me. I don't think I watch more than 2 videos a month on YouTube.
    - dangus 3y ago
      Right, it confuses me that people think $14/month for YouTube is a bad deal and then turn around and pay $10/month for Spotify or buy three Starbucks coffees a month. Like, is it that hard to imagine someone using YouTube a lot and finding the premium service worth the cost?
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- timbit42 3y ago
  It's only a matter of time until you get ads even if you pay.
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Obscurity4340 3y ago
G needs to Google the Streisand Effect. The ideal amount of fraud or non-compliance is never 0 and they have enough dumb suckers to feast upon. Leave the clever-enough alone or perish reverse-insects-as-future-food in reverse style. This is live-action Silicon Valley and the truth can be stranger than fiction
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- recursive 3y ago
  What do you imagine is the down-side for google here? Non-compliance is getting lower, but maybe not to 0. Maybe you're just no longer clever enough. Personally, I pay for a YT premium subscription.
  - Obscurity4340 3y ago
    Don't you think Babs' lawyers told her the same thing till she was the poster girl for Google Maps? Oy vey, peopl3 (corporations) never learn Edit: in the spirit of dialogue, can you describe exactly how paying a company to spy and manipulate you more with zero gurantees they won't ban you for nothing ever is smart? I just don't get the rationale here, how are you in any way better off paying (to say nothing of the relying aspect which is not discussed nearly enough) Google anything for anything? You're already literally the product in more ways than anyone could ever fathom at the baseline and then you hand them more money to be even more—product(ive)? I just don't get but I also maybe was a but invective and i apologize for that
    - recursive 3y ago
      It's a subscription. If they ban me, I'd stop paying. The rationale is that it suppresses ads. And is bundled with YT Music, which I actually like and use. I've heard the arguments about ad blockers, but none of those seem to work across all the devices and networks I use.
      - 3y ago
matt3210 3y ago
Ublock origin still works
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tansan 3y ago
Youtube premium has no ads btw. It's really great for podcasts or music so you can just listen in the background without the app open.
- illumi2001 3y ago
  except that's a paid solution for something that you can easily achieve for free
  - jazzyjackson 3y ago
    all you have to do is violate the content creators consent and you too can distribute information freely
  - tansan 3y ago
    I have no issues paying for it given how much value I get out of it especially having no ads on their iOS app.
- bdw5204 3y ago
  You can do the same thing with a device called a computer. You can also do that on Android with Newpipe and could do that with Vanced before Google used (likely specious) legal threats to destroy it. There's no good reason whatsoever to pay the Danegeld[0] to Google for their "premium" subscription that sells you the right to use basic functionality that Google arbitrarily and maliciously attempts to block. [0]: https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_danegeld.htm https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_danegeld.htm
  - tansan 3y ago
    Are you okay?
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corn-dog 3y ago
Don’t know if you’re already a member of the largest server for extension developers at https://discord.gg/mHPkCCBx https://discord.gg/mHPkCCBx Awesome extension we need more like this to fight ads
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throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
More and more sites don't work with ad blockers. I like this. It means I will visit fewer sites that advertise. Over time the number of sites will dwindle. Eventually there will be a few community funded open sites, and a few paid sites that focus on providing valuable content for their subscribers. The result is better quality and less noise. And far less incentive to advertise on the web. Let the death of ads begin!
- deleted 3y ago
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- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  This seems unrealistic.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  Completely agree. I'd really enjoy it if the web went back to its roots. Driving their advertising ROI to zero will fix the web.
megablast 3y ago
Weird you use chrome, and not firefox.
_aqmj 3y ago
This is great, my annoyance with ads is their time-wasting nature. Skipping ads entirely isn't purely ethical, but this seems like a better compromise for both parties. We want to use YouTube free of charge and will see the ads in a short manner that satisfies YouTube (I hope).
- travoc 3y ago
  Skipping ads is perfectly ethical. Who didn't hit fast-forward on their VCR or go get a sandwich during half-time?
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    Something can be both unethical and commonly done. In fact, some quite seriously unethical things were commonplace for centuries and others are commonplace now even though most consider them unethical at heart. Skipping ads needs to be ethical or unethical because it is, that it is done is irrelevant.
  - amelius 3y ago
    The Bible definitely needs an update for these kinds of questions.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  > Skipping ads entirely isn't purely ethical It absolutely is. Nobody is obligated to look at this crap. Their entire business model is based on sending people free stuff loaded with ads. They assume people are going to look at the ads. They only have themselves to blame if their assumptions don't hold.
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nyolfen 3y ago
youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.openPopupConfig.supportedPopups.adBlockMessageViewModel, false) youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.adBlocksFound, 0) youtube.com##+js(set, ytplayer.config.args.raw_player_response.adPlacements, []) youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.hasAllowedInstreamAd, true)
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cbozeman 3y ago
You're doing the Lord's work. Thank you.
- nirui 3y ago
  Now with this bit of free free-time, the Lord might finally be able to convince YouTube to make their ads more bearable, so people don't have to install ad blockers to begin with. I installed mine after YouTube starts to show 45 minute (yes, indeed) long ads to me, the entire pod cast session of it, AFTER I've watched the first ad but decided not to tap "Skip Ad". If YouTube don't want to control the quality of what they are showing, then guess I'll just help them not showing it. And if doing so is a cause for a ban, then I guess just ban me :)
bobby0 3y ago
[dead]
pm2222 3y ago
Just a matter of time before g embeds ads in videos. What’s next, ai again?
- K0balt 3y ago
  Inference at scale is expensive- so you pay a subscription to the ai service that watches the video for you at 10x and cleans up the output into a new video stream without ads or sponsor segments. Summary in text form is also provided.
  - ben0x539 3y ago
    Maybe the AI service could be ad-powered.
    - K0balt 3y ago
      Nature abhors a vacuum…
- arnaudsm 3y ago
  SponsorBlock already does something similar in a crowdsourced way
_lvbh 3y ago
I’ve been trying to use Invidious but they seem to have a lot of memory leaks.
begueradj 3y ago
Good idea
wolfendin 3y ago
If YouTube (and google) forces me to look at ads, I will simply start clicking on all of them, and they can deal with the lower conversion rate
- gigglesupstairs 3y ago
  It might be fun in short term but not sustainable long term lol
- sapphyrus 3y ago
  You might want to check out https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/ then.
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
Different approach: Only use youtube.com as a source for JSON. (There is no worthwhile video at youtube.com anyway, all worthwhile video is at googlevideo.com.) As such, never see any ads. The JSON contains all the information needed, including the goooglevideo.com URLs. No adblocker or "Javascript player" are necessary.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
jshier 3y ago
StopTheMadness implemented something similar but YouTube eventually got wise and I had to stop using that one too.
- lapcat 3y ago
  I'm not aware of any issues with StopTheMadness skip video ads. Please email support.
TriNetra 3y ago
I also have an extension [0] in which I have couple of shortcuts to skip ads: - alt+2 to click on Skip Ads button - ctrl + shift + end to set video's 'seek position' at 100% (useful to skip ads when 'Skip Ads' button isn't available. This makes Youtube believe that the ad is finished playing) 0: https://github.com/varunkho/ramaplayer https://github.com/varunkho/ramaplayer
epigramx 3y ago
and then you use chrome: google's browser. why? https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-best-on-Firefox https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
timenova 3y ago
For those who are on Safari (macOS and iOS), I highly recommend using Vinegar [0]. But that being said, recently even Vinegar is struggling a lot when I open a YouTube video (although the developer is promptly fixing issues). The video starts playing in the background, but I can't see it, then it pauses for a few seconds and restarts. It's crazy how terrible YouTube is making the experience on their site! [0] https://apps.apple.com/in/app/vinegar-tube-cleaner/id1591303229 https://apps.apple.com/in/app/vinegar-tube-cleaner/id1591303...
- wrboyce 3y ago
  +1 for Vinegar, I much prefer the native video player. I originally installed it to allow PIP but the ad removal is a welcome bonus. There is also Baking Soda, from the same author, which does the same thing but for every website except YouTube. https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/baking-soda-tube-cleaner/id1601151613 https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/baking-soda-tube-cleaner/id160...
  - timenova 3y ago
    I started using Baking Soda too recently. Much better experience browsing the web. Using both of these (and yt-dlp) actually shows how hostile the video web is becoming!
jensneuse 3y ago
Not a lot of people will like to hear this, but you can pay YouTube a few dollars per month to remove ads and allow the player to run in the background. A lot of tech people will probably earn that money in a few minutes. Is it really worth investing your own time to remove ads?
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  >Is it really worth investing your own time to remove ads? Exactly what time are you referring to? It took me precisely zero time to remove ads on YouTube: I already have uBlock Origin installed, because ads on all the other websites are so unbearable, so I don't have to do anything at all to block ads on YouTube: it's already done for me. By contrast, subscribing to YouTube Premium would require a fair bit of my time, in going to the website, figuring out where to click, going through the payment process page, digging out a credit card, etc. etc. Then I have to worry about managing yet another subscription, which will take time every month. Is it really worth investing your time to subscribe to YTP when you can just block the ads by default by having a proper ad-blocker installed on your browser in the first place, which is a prerequisite for safe browsing in the modern age?
- slyn 3y ago
  Yes
- globular-toast 3y ago
  And if all the "tech people" pay a fixed charge for YouTube regardless of how much they actually use it, they'll remove ads entirely, right? Get real. Fuck ads. Nobody should ever have to deal with them.
  - bwb 3y ago
    Ads pay for everything online? How else do you pay for everything unless you pay them directly??
    - Retr0id 3y ago
RadixDLT 3y ago
you can skip this extension and just install brave browser
- lexapro 3y ago
  But then I'd have to install an entire browser compared to just installing an extension. And I'd have to use Brave...
kim0 3y ago
Been enjoying https://grayjay.app/ https://grayjay.app/
InCityDreams 3y ago
As I walk down the road I don't hvae to give money to the many adverts that are shown in the streets.
alg0rith 3y ago
Both uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock still works no problem on Youtube on the Firefox browser
- dark-star 3y ago
  Yeah, that's what I have been wondering all the time, people claiming that Adblockers stopped working, now people are developing new extensions/blockers, but here I am, playing YouTube without ads like before, with nothing more than uBlock Origin.... It feels like I am missing something...
  - Ciantic 3y ago
    It gave me the warning with uBlock origin a few weeks ago. I think the ad-detection is not turned on for all, that's why it may seem it still works. It also could be that some of the filters in uBlock trigger the detection more than others.
  - c-fe 3y ago
    Same situation for me with adguard on safari both on iphone and mac, no ads so far. update: i do see ads on safari mobile now
  - benhurmarcel 3y ago
    It’s just deployed to some users and not yet all.
- Jowsey 3y ago
  And in case anyone thinks this is a Chrome vs Firefox thing, I've also been using SB + uBlock on Edge and still haven't run into any problems
- MikusR 3y ago
  Also in Chrome.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
DueDilligence 3y ago
[dead]
NarcisMirandes 3y ago
You can also use Brave browser. Is it a fair option for everybody?
- InCityDreams 3y ago
  I use brave. Ads are present. Uborigin used, too.
  - cactusplant7374 3y ago
    Latest version? I don't see any ads.
    - spurgu 3y ago
      Presumably the different experience is due to their A/B testing.
hermannj314 3y ago
This is a really dumb question. If YouTube is hosting a video, and then decides to have you watch two 30 seconds ads, and you immediately start watching the original hosted video before 60 seconds has elapsed, why wouldn't a server-side timer work to detect ad blocking? Are we forced to solve this problem client-side with Tom and Jerry Javascript battles? I don't really understand how video streaming scales, so this is probably a very naive question.
- btown 3y ago
  For quality-of-experience, YouTube would likely start buffering the original video before those 60 seconds have elapsed, so you can't look at just data loading times. And if there's a separate AJAX call, say, to tell the server that you've started watching the video, a sophisticated client-side script could try to delay or modify that ping - which brings us back into the cat-and-mouse territory.
- rickreynoldssf 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure its because the servers that host the video are just dumb servers that will serve whatever is asked. The logic is in the player. The servers don't know when you started the video watch session. If the servers had the logic and access to your state they wouldn't be able to handle as many concurrent requests.
  - agilob 3y ago
    but it sounds like something like istio and redis should be able to solve
    - lazide 3y ago
      Those are 100x (or more) more expensive than what YouTube’s backend is doing. To do what they do affordably, there are tons of caching layers and videos are chunked into smaller opaque chunks of write-once/read-many data which get so widely distributed your head would spin. The client code is what stitches those blocks together (and figures out what blocks are part of what), figures out what ads should be where, etc. Any sort of consistent backend state gets very expensive fast, is often a huge bottleneck, and is avoided whenever possible. Everything from view stats to metadata is usually even done via CRDT type eventually consistent replicated data to avoid all the bottlenecks other approaches would cause.
Boogie_Man 3y ago
I have and will never ever pay one red cent to any company to watch videos for the purpose of entertainment outside of specific creators making high quality content that I personally enjoy. You can not make me. I have zero (0) moral compunction on the subject. I will explore every legal avenue from adblockers to television antennas to checking out DVDs from a local library. Entertainment is a cesspool of propagandizing morrally corrupt profiteers (independent of any race or identity, it is a conspiracy of greed). Weep and gnash your teeth. If every other legal avenue is exhausted I will imagine new Top Cat episodes in my head. You cannot stop me.
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  You think it is "a cesspool of propagandizing morrally corrupt profiteers" yet you still watch it?
  - Boogie_Man 3y ago
    There are murderers in prison who make excellent pasta.
    - qup 3y ago
      do they murder people with their pasta? that would make it equivalent
    - madeofpalk 3y ago
      And so you go to these prisons to get this 'murder pasta'?
- dahart 3y ago
  Too late, you already did pay, because we’re all funding the library. ;) I’m wildly in favor of funding the library, BTW, and it’s a great place to find entertainment! Most libraries are lending e-books these days. They should start lending streaming movies too… I personally consider myself to have lots of moral compunction on this subject, and I do not buy any rhetoric that adblockers are immoral in any way. My morals include not breaking copyright and also being fine with adblockers, and I think these things co-exist. I like ads approximately the same amount as almost everyone, which is to say not much. I want content creators to get paid, especially the good ones. I’m fine with paying for great content. I’m fine with advertisers advertising, within reasonable bounds. I’m not okay with the idea that turning my head away from an ad I didn’t ask for implies I’m doing something bad.
lemper 3y ago
good work, bud. just pray that it will keep working after those asshole at google make the god awful web attestation on by default. you don't forget about it do you?
rickreynoldssf 3y ago
This is a cat and mouse game. YouTube changes small things all the time breaking code like this. I used to manage an in-house YouTube video editor that needed to do similar things to what you're doing. At least once a month I needed to dive into a debugger and reverse engineer whatever change YouTube made that month. Sometimes it's something as silly as a parameter name or ordering.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
tomashubelbauer 3y ago
FWIW as long as you manually update the Quick Fixes uBlock Origin filter list every day or so, you'll probably never see a YouTube ad. Every new Google measure gets cracked very fast IME.
gentleman11 3y ago
This is cool, but it would be even better as a Firefox extension
attilaberczik 3y ago
Cool solution, but I just use Freetube and Newpipe
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Forgeties79 3y ago
  God I love freetube.
crvdgc 3y ago
I have been using an extension [1] to remove YouTube suggestions (a la Unhook, but open source). It has this feature as well, but sometimes I get startled from the sudden appearance of mid-video ads. [1]: https://github.com/lawrencehook/remove-youtube-suggestions https://github.com/lawrencehook/remove-youtube-suggestions
shrimp_emoji 3y ago
Shout out to yt-dlp, which allows you to download videos and watch them on your own terms. :D Also, if anyone knows, if you open a YouTube URL with something like mpv, I assume it starts playing as an "embedded video" in your video player. Does YouTube serve adds in that case?
- kzrdude 3y ago
  I think mpv specifically just uses youtube-dl or simliar (yt-dlp), so it should be very simliar to whatever you download.
ergonaught 3y ago
I watched YouTube from a browser with an ad blocker and a browser without an ad blocker and had entirely identical experiences. Google is screaming down a “never use them for any purpose” path for me. Bummer.
Pooge 3y ago
I'm on Firefox and I see absolutely no ads. In fact, I'm so shocked to see how ad-ridden the web is that I might just stop browsing altogether if blockers somehow stop working. Sometimes I watch YouTube videos with friends on Discord and I just LOVE getting fed those 30-second ads..
- exemplify 3y ago
  I completely agree. I won't sacrifice my mental health to acquiesce to the toxic, manipulative tactics of modern ad exposure. Ads are not good for you. If I can't find a way to continue avoiding the ads, I'll stop using YouTube. This is not an ethical conundrum for me. This is self-defense.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
thomasdd 3y ago
Ehhhm , for 5-6 €/$ You[tube] without Ads :) no reason to hack or abuse the system.
- chaostheory 3y ago
  It’s triple that price in dollars.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
blacklight 3y ago
Just stop using the YouTube frontend. I've been running my Piped instance for a while, and there are many public Piped instances available on the Web as well. And, if you don't want the headache of running your own proxied instance or hopping between public instances, use Platypush - it wires together Piped as a backend, with yt-dlp as a local proxy/scaper, and a multitude of media plugins to allow you streaming directly the YouTube media files to any media device. Plus, thanks to yt-dlp, it doesn't only work only with YouTube, but with hundreds of other websites with closed media URLs (Facebook, TikTok, Twitter...). And then just use LibRedirect/UntrackMe to convert all of the YouTube URLs to Piped URLs - you won't send a single packet to that digital sewage, and you won't even notice any difference. Just...stopping relying on YouTube's frontend. I've been chasing their API and FE changes for a while. I even set up a small Selenium suite to scrape video results directly from their UI. It's quite clear that they've decided to invest enough resources to embrace full war against anybody who's sick of their ads. They are in a terminal phase of enshittification - the one where they look so much after they bottom line that they don't care if they to turn their whole platform into a big billboard or shut down all of their APIs. Either I consume videos from anywhere else, or, when I have no alternatives, I use Piped. But avoid youtube.com at all costs: it's a walking digital cancer in its terminal phase. Even paying a subscription to them to get rid of the ads wouldn't help. I'd rather direct my donations to open or non-enshittified services than supporting a dying business model.
archon810 3y ago
How delayed are the Chrome web store stats? This was posted 16 hours ago, there are still no reviews and "5 users."
- rKarpinski 3y ago
  As the creator, I'm also curious - It still shows me 0 page views for the 18th
endorphine 3y ago
I still don't get ads, using uBlock Origin on Firefox. What am I missing?
- depereo 3y ago
  It has been selectively enabled on some accounts. Others do not experience it. Some have experienced it briefly and had it go away. My wife's account had this several times, she stopped visiting YouTube for a couple weeks, and when she tried again it never blocked any videos. I got stung on my account and YouTube has never let up - I'm having to refresh the ublock fixes list etc and sometimes that doesn't even work. I've nearly completely stopped watching YouTube now.
  - slim 3y ago
    same here. it tried to threaten me into disabling adblock, restricted the number of videos I could access, it did not work (I just go elsewhere for entertainment), so it restored full access.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 3y ago
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rafale 3y ago
Why not just let the ads play per the social contract we have. Ask yourself, if everyone did what I do, would it ruin the service I enjoy for everyone? If the answer is yes, then stop doing it. It's better to just stop using YouTube than install these hacks.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
basseed 3y ago
just pay for premium, it's like $10 a month
- njarboe 3y ago
  Agreed. If you hate ads and are given a reasonably priced option of not seeing them, you should choose that option. To support that option and signal that people want that option.
- jmugan 3y ago
  until they raise it.
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    Or add ads to it (most likely a mix of both: raise price and offer a version with ads that's at the former price, which is what Netflix did if you factor in their policy change on account sharing)
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  “Why dont you just pay the ransom, it's not even that expensive”.
- spurgu 3y ago
  Personally, if I had to pay, I'd so much rather pay per view. Subscriptions just tend to pile up and many of them sitting idle for long periods of time. I would love pay-per-view for streaming services as well, instead of having Netflix/Hulu/Disney+/Prime/etc subscriptions (as opposed to juggling between them, or choosing just one to stick with). Same with VPN that I use very sporadically, it feels stupid to pay a monthly fee for something I use maybe an hour per month on average.
bilater 3y ago
Nice - The mute alone is worth it
sertbdfgbnfgsd 3y ago
I feel kind of out of the loop. Does uBlock origin not work for anyone else? It hasn't failed me yet...
- cloudking 3y ago
  It wasn't working until I went to settings and cleared/updated the filter cache, now seems to work again
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- QVVRP4nYz 3y ago
  YT is recently tightening the screw - both increasing ad count, Premium prices and trying to counter adblocking. Also removal of Manifest V2 is coming to Chrome in 2024. In general there always were 2 aspects affecting adblocking efficiency: 1) the ad networks want to serve the files from own servers to prevent fraud 2) the sites try to mix content and ads as much as legally possible Google and Facebook are big enough players to break first point - that kills dns/domain based solutions like pihole. And at least Facebook works hard on second - someone once linked how "Promoted" in HTML is actually "abcdPROMrandomlettersTEDxyz", with different CSS styles for each letter - just to prevent simple CSS selector based rules for adblockers.

713 points by rKarpinski 3y ago

indianmouse 3y ago

Looks like YouTube is already detecting this or has some logic to detect that the ads were played at a different speed. Try moving through a video when this extension is active and you can see that the advertisement is getting active for almost every possible forward / reverse time selection on the video timeline. It is just too many blank screens and though it saves a couple of seconds in the actual advertisement watching space, it does provide an unpleasant experience of watching the black screen for a few seconds. I can live with that (and most should be!), but wanted to record this observation so that it get's to the developer's attention for improvements (if possible!) Hope it helps.

rKarpinski 3y ago
Thanks for trying it out! For longer videos Youtube will insert multiple ads during the content which you might be hitting if you search through. The extension should still trigger for those ads, but it's not as seamless an experience as the ad blockers. Is that what you're describing? Open to feedback! Have my email in profile & listed with the extension

trumbitta2 3y ago

I just skip and I'm thankful for the FREE content. I wouldn't pay for YouTube, so I'm fine with 5 seconds of something I ignore while waiting for the skip button to activate.

trumbitta2 3y ago
Downvoting honest people in a thread full of people discussing how to avoid paying for something. What did I expect?
Rehanzo 3y ago
[flagged]

triplemmm 3y ago

ublocker on chrome is working fine! just update de filter

mattkenefick 3y ago

I also made one a week or two ago. This one will swap out the video with an embedded player which generally skips ads. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/nhjphlheoepniijfpaoabmkbkhihbecm/preview?hl=en https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/nhjphlheoepniijfpao...

devilsAdv0cate 3y ago

[dead]

throwing_away 3y ago

What'd google do now? I've been watching youtube all day on firefox with ubo. No ads, no issues.

Kamq 3y ago
They really only did it on chrome, I think? At least at work, I kept getting modals saying adblockers weren't allowed, but I never got those on firefox. It seems to have gone away though (probably an update from ublock) even on chrome
- slotrans 3y ago
  No, their adblocker detection definitely detects UO in Firefox. I've had to disable it (UO) the last couple months otherwise YT becomes unusable.
  - Kamq 3y ago
    Huh, fair enough. Guess it just missed me
- moogly 3y ago
  I've seen those on Firefox. Disappeared after a week-and-a-half though.
Groxx 3y ago
They've been rolling out rapidly varying and inconsistently-behaving (between users/refreshes) changes in a pretty explicit attempt to break adblockers and complicate developing new ones. You're probably either just not in that cohort yet for some reason, or have already received the improvements that keep ubo working - people's experience varies widely with this wave, probably by design (difficult for blockers to study) and to try to judge impact.
deleted 3y ago
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SeanAnderson 3y ago

I don't have any issues with my AdBlocker on YouTube? Also, not to be a downer, but CWS and YouTube are both Google property. If your extension does well then they can coordinate to make your life hard. I experienced this personally (https://thenextweb.com/news/how-youtube-killed-an-extension-with-300000-users https://thenextweb.com/news/how-youtube-killed-an-extension-...) where there was an implication my developer key would be revoked if I didn't delist.

brucethemoose2 3y ago
> CWS and YouTube are both Google property So is Chrome! I have to wonder when Google will will start using the browser itself as leverage (beyond the upcoming Manifest V3 changes).
ravenstine 3y ago
I still have not encountered any issues with uBlock Origin on YouTube. There's 3 hypotheses I have for why this is. 1. YouTube has been gradually rolling out the counter-blocking to an expanding number of randomly selected users. 2. YouTube doesn't bother blocking me because I've purchased a substantial amount of content from them. There's little benefit in discouraging me from buying more content in the future. 3. YouTube has done some analytics to figure out that I'm the kind of person who will never return if no ad blocking is allowed and doesn't trust them to keep ads out of Premium. I don't suppose you've purchased shows or movies through YouTube?
- SeanAnderson 3y ago
  I think I purchased one movie through YouTube a few years ago, but it's been a while. I received a YouTube notification a few weeks ago letting me know that AdBlock was not allowed, but there was no follow-up. I feel that YouTube is very deeply entrenched in a streaming architecture which makes it challenging to serve ads that are indistinguishable from primary content. All of the pushback against adblocking extensions feels like an unwinnable arms race until Manifest v3 becomes mandatory. Contrast this with Twitch - where uBlock doesn't impact ads at all. I feel Twitch engineered their service to defeat adblock from day 1. YouTube wants to be in the same position, but doesn't seem willing or able to mirror Twitch's architecture.

nubela 3y ago

Extension takedown in 3.. 2.. Honestly though, it will come and it will be in a form of copyright infringement, or something vague like that. Good luck. Don't build your castle on top of another castle.

deleted 3y ago
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pvg 3y ago
Omit internet tropes. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
stuckkeys 3y ago
This is skipping their adds, why would that implicate him?
Andrews54757 3y ago
The Chrome Web Store already blocks any extension with the ability to download videos from Youtube with the excuse of it "enabling piracy." Ironic considering that they allow downloaders for any other site. Only Youtube.com is banned. It smells like anti-competitive behavior to me.

_dark_matter_ 3y ago

Add this to addons.mozilla.org, so we can use it on Firefox & Firefox for Android!

rKarpinski 3y ago
Will do!
kspacewalk2 3y ago
Been watching YouTube on Firefox (Android and MacOS) with uBlock Origin with zero ads ever. What am I missing?
- jjeaff 3y ago
  it's a tiered rollout. I also had no issues until a few weeks ago. but I usually just need to update the unlock lists and do a hard refresh and I will be back in business for a few days.
- throw101010 3y ago
  Nothing, it works just fine for now for me too. I'd still recommand an open source app called NewPipe over YouTube on FireFox, it seems way less hungry battery-wise... and there is likely also less data collection happening.
  - Modified3019 3y ago
    Unfortunately newpipe is bizarrely hostile to sponsorblock, which to me has become as important as Adblock itself: https://newpipe.net/blog/pinned/newpipe-and-online-advertising/ https://newpipe.net/blog/pinned/newpipe-and-online-advertisi... But I definitely also recommend trying out frontends that support it. I cannot imagine trying to use video while having to run a gauntlet of both YouTube ads and video sponsor segments.
    - viewtransform 3y ago
      What does sponsorblock provide that hitting the 'L' key a few times to skip ahead doesn't ?

Zak 3y ago

That's definitely a technique to keep in reserve if they get better at detection, but uBlock Origin currently works very well on Youtube as long as its filters are up to date.

deleted 3y ago
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ajsnigrutin 3y ago
If i'm logged in it fails constantly when i'm logged in (a few videos daily seem to work ok, after that it refuses to load a video, even though a "anti adblock" popup is still blocked) ...but it seems to work ok in incognito tabs, so youtube gets even less data on me now.
- sa1 3y ago
  ublock origin folks have asked people to not run any other blocker extension alongside, those seem to trigger the anti-adblock scripts. It might be the same case for you.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- themoonisachees 3y ago
  Personally anytime I get a pop up I clear the filter cache and update it again and it's worked the 3 times it happened.

hawkilt 3y ago

They didn’t block the brave yet

omginternets 3y ago
I regularly get nag screens though.
- RadixDLT 3y ago
  no you don't
  - omginternets 3y ago
    As a subject matter expert in things that appear on my screen, I assure you that I do.

orliesaurus 3y ago

Haha, good luck I'm behind 7 proxies

chatmasta 3y ago
I know you're being ironic, but routing through a proxy in a country that doesn't receive advertisements is a real technique [0] for ad-blocking on Twitch, where the ads are embedded as part of the m3u8 playlist. [0] https://github.com/pixeltris/TwitchAdSolutions/blob/master/full-list.md https://github.com/pixeltris/TwitchAdSolutions/blob/master/f...
- orliesaurus 3y ago
  The irony/sarcasm refers to an old spider man meme. But yeah I am with you!
  - chatmasta 3y ago
    The spider-man meme was a derivative of a 4chan meme ;) https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/good-luck-im-behind-7-proxies https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/good-luck-im-behind-7-proxies
    - orliesaurus 3y ago
      Ah yes, I didn't know that one was the OG, but I did see it alot around 4chan
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krpovmu 3y ago

apparently it only happens with google chrome browser (what a surprise!), another reason not to use that spyware that only consumes RAM.

zamadatix 3y ago
What makes this apparent? I've not observed or heard this to be true yet, e.g. the same problem has occured to me in Firefox. I've found making sure the adblocker rulesets are updated faster than the normal update schedule was planning tends to fix it.
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snow_mac 3y ago

I use the Hosts file to block a ton of ads and that works really well. https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts Something worth considering if your ad blocker isn't working well.

nullindividual 3y ago
hosts file won't work for the in-line ads present in YouTube. The ads are served from the same domain as the video you're watching.
- Gualdrapo 3y ago
  I think it's worth noting that it wasn't always the case - there was a hosts file repo used by pihole users that effectively blocked YouTube ads.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    You keep doing things based on historic knowledge and suffer those ads, while the rest of us will move along with the times and not suffer those ads. Lest we forget? sure, but it's not like they'll be going back to that technique as it's ineffective for them.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - kazinator 3y ago
    I think it's even more worth noting that it wasn't always the case that Youtube started warning ad-blocking users and stopping playback! Even if we suppose that a simple hosts file could somehow block YouTube ads today, YouTube would detect that. It would not fare any better than any other ad blocker.
    - KTibow 3y ago
      [dead]

titaniumtown 3y ago

ublock origin works fine on YouTube, if not, couldnt this just be a filter rule?

chii 3y ago
It does. But i think youtube attempts to detect the adblock (which ublock origin continues to evade with new updates?). This extension does not block, but instead just fast forward the ad (playback speed at 10x - tbh, it could'be been at 100x probably!) and mutes it. So from the youtube js perspective, the ad has played and wasn't blocked.
- deanc 3y ago
  uBlock Origin as far as I can tell has been winning the race. As long as you stay up to date and clear the cache now and then. I've had one occasion (recently) where I got some ads which was fixed by updating uBlock origin, but maybe I'm not in Youtube's anti-adblock cohort.
- bc_programming 3y ago
  When they first started this, a month ago (or so?) I just right-clicked and used block element with uBlock Origin to block the popup and the div element that covered the page to dim it. I've not seen it since. Only side effect is videos sometimes pause right as they start. I assume because it stops the video and shows the pop up. I can just resume immediately though.

extheat 3y ago

Cool! I recently wrote my own user script to do the same thing. It's going to be very hard to patch or detect this, as updating video element props don't trigger DOM updates. They would have to either do lots of JS prototype trickery or check for playback rate when doing adblock detection. One thing to keep in mind here though since you're doing DOM lookups every time anything on the page changes, is that there could be some small overhead in page render time, and also that using fixed CSS classes means any small change to page code could break the checks. In case it's a problem in the future, checking .innerText is a hacky way to workaround it.

rjh29 3y ago
They could refuse to deliver the main video content until the minimum ad time has passed?
- fennecfoxy 3y ago
  Well really they could include a hash with each frame of video data, timestamp when clients have started watching and only allow sending the next x frames once y time has passed. Really, they should just get rid of all ads and force everyone to pay a subscription, because apparently that's what everyone wants. Oh no, wait, they want neither; people want Youtube for free without ads. Sure, YT could make less profit and therefore serve fewer ads/lower premium price, but in order to convince them to do that, humans would actually have to work together and boycott it to send a message, and as we all know that ain't ever gonna happen.
- brucethemoose2 3y ago
  This has already happend to me, probably unintentionally. Something in Cromite "broke" the ads and just showed a black screen before the video started. It was fine. I had no problem with it.
  - kurthr 3y ago
    I had something similar happen. I'm fine with a blank screen and waiting 5-30sec. I don't want intrusive ads before during and after a 5 min video on water heater maintenance.

throwaway5959 3y ago

Just buy Premium, no ads and creators actually get paid unlike when you block ads.

omginternets 3y ago
lol yeah, that’s what they said about cable tv. Fool me once, …
- drekipus 3y ago
  "fool me once" only applies when it's the same entity doing the fooling
  - omginternets 3y ago
    Or the same process...
- Vvector 3y ago
  cable TV had ads from day 1.
  - omginternets 3y ago
    It certainly did not.
    - Vvector 3y ago
      Cable TV started as a way to expand the reach of broadcast TV. Broadcast TV has commercials. Hence cable TV always had commercials.
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      It depends on how you slice the question. The first cable-only station to do ads was USA in 1977. But since cable always carried local stations, cable always had channels where ads were run.
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axelfreeman 3y ago

If you have Problems in the chrome webstore than you could Build This for Firefox.

arsome 3y ago

uBO works for me, just requires a manual filter update once in a while. Though I like this approach in it's own way as it still costs advertisers but delivers no value to them, maybe something more like Ad Nauseum which would click the ads too.

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moonshinefe 3y ago

For the people saying it's fine for them, YouTube was blocking access but only doing it for certain accounts and only after you watched more than a few videos. My personal account was affected but not my work one. I was using Firefox + uBlock Origin and the site would periodically stop working. Clearing cache and updating the uBO lists would fix it, but only temporarily. No idea if the situation has changed. One alternative is pay for YT premium, but they still might target you with ads[1] which is risable. I've heard FreeTube is a thing as well. 1. https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/11/google-kills-web-integrity-drm-for-the-web-still-wants-an-android-version/?comments=1&post=42331265 https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/11/google-kills-web-inte...

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famahar 3y ago

I remember there was a point where ads on YouTube were tolerable. It's wild how aggressive they are now. I don't even bother watching so many videos now that I have to sit through 2 mins of unskippable ads what feels like every minute. My partner recently subbed to Hulu and it's worse. You still pay monthly and they shove 2 - 3 minute ads every 5 minutes.

kristopolous 3y ago
On mobile, they don't play videos unless the screen is on except if it's an ad, then they have all of these favorable bugs where your phone unexpectedly starts playing a whistling song with a twanging ukulele talking about mattresses. There's that other bug where they disable the navigation during the ads and you have to turn the screen off and back on to the lock screen to get rid of it. Such fortuitous defects. Brendan Eichs Brave browser bypasses the YouTube bullshit if you want a workaround on android.
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lxgr 3y ago
Hulu is not nearly that bad for me. I definitely couldn’t do ad interruptions every five minutes. I get about 1-2 minutes of ads, maybe 2-3 times per 40 minutes of content. Maybe it depends on the content? There’s also an ad-free plan.

lawrencehook 3y ago

lawrencehook.com/rys does this too

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nickphx 3y ago

I just refresh page when an ad pops. It may take a few before the ads go away but it's worked so far.

totallywrong 3y ago

I only really watch YT on my phone, and Youtube ReVanced has been amazing for an ad-free experience.

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Andrews54757 3y ago

There is a javascript library for interfacing with Youtube's API directly. It can also run on browsers. Using this, it's pretty easy to create a simple extension that replaces the default video player with your own. You can do a lot to improve your experience this way. I've made one which allows for higher quality streaming, pre-buffering video in the background, more subtitling options, etc... [2] [3]. [1] https://github.com/LuanRT/YouTube.js https://github.com/LuanRT/YouTube.js [2] https://github.com/Andrews54757/FastStream https://github.com/Andrews54757/FastStream [3] Chrome (also available for Firefox): https://chromewebstore.google.com/u/1/detail/faststream-video-player/kkeakohpadmbldjaiggikmnldlfkdfog https://chromewebstore.google.com/u/1/detail/faststream-vide...

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corn-dog 3y ago
Hey you should post about this on our extension devs server , people would be super interested https://discord.gg/mHPkCCBx https://discord.gg/mHPkCCBx
- Andrews54757 3y ago
  I'll check out the Discord server because I want to see cool stuff other people are making, but I have no intention of seriously marketing my extension. I don't really want it to "take off" and become popular. To me, FastStream is just a fun hobby project, not a product. I intend to always keep it free without unnecessary bloat or spyware of any kind. So, I don't really have a desire for it to be "successful" beyond it being immediately useful to me and a couple of my friends.
  - corn-dog 3y ago
    That’s totally cool I appreciate your intentions with the extension :) people have built some really cool things with extensions
eyegor 3y ago

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago

> Since Youtube no longer allows AdBlockers You mean "since YouTube attempted to bar adblockers, but instead entered into a war with them that it cannot win, most users of adblockers continue to watch YouTube without issues".

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zeroonetwothree 3y ago
Why do you think it cannot win? I would bet on the opposite.
- heinrich5991 3y ago
  Without hardware attestation/DRM, all detection methods served by the server can be rendered futile. It's an inherently lost game for YouTube.
  - lxgr 3y ago
    Why couldn’t they just introduce DRM? They already use it for paid “commercial” content on their site (like TV shows and movies, whether pay per view or in a subscription).
    - pvg 3y ago
      There are zillions of youtube client devices out there that rarely get updated or no longer get updated at all. It's tricky to 'introduce' a lot of things, never mind DRM.
  - nvm0n2 3y ago
    YouTube has infinite time and energy for this. Adblock developers do not. Some are already burning out. The biggest risk to YouTube's strategy isn't that they can't win technically, it's that the bitching from their employees internally grinds them down.
- 3y ago

j45 3y ago

It seems a lot of work to do this and worth it. As a surprised customer of YouTube premium having all ads gone across videos and music across all devices really might not be a bad deal for anyone on the fence for a family plan and all your devices. In terms of working around ads.. There are some neat solutions that seem to work ok for YouTube on tv.. but so far the family plan seems ok. Was anyone able tog eat off the premium plan and have no ads on their phones, computers, tvs and smart speakers?

giobox 3y ago
YouTube premium has no ads on the AppleTV app, which solves the TV side for my home. I have to imagine Android TV and other solutions are the same for the most part - is your TV using some kind of odd built in YouTube app that doesn't support the Premium subscription?
- j45 3y ago
  The tech in my home also practices diversity and there's Android TV as well as Apple TV - my experience has been the same as yours that Youtube Premium is ad free on all of them. I have heard some folks using tools like invidious but I'm not sure how well they map to multiple screens. Being able to put the same account onto the built in youtube apps on TV's and mobile devices has been useful. No need to buy a white noise machine for kids, we just use a google mini in speaker mode only. Sure, I'd like it to be something else but premium has me on board for now.

Joel_Mckay 3y ago

Ultimately the conversion rate of spam continuously proves one of the worst advertising methods. They are ripping off companies they lie to about the conflated stats, and irritating the 80% of users that will never buy anything for various reasons. It is going to be an interesting waste of resources. =)

Obscurity4340 3y ago
Did you mean conflated or inflated, I feel vaguely like it could go either way here
- Joel_Mckay 3y ago
  Tricky question, but yes... The fact is the CTR for brand aware consumers will be negatively affected by burning goodwill with peripheral viewers. Thus, while increased paid impressions will be good for Google/Alphabet short term revenue, the actual consumer sales for advertisers will show a degraded campaign performance. It was called a contaminated lead pool if I recall. If 80% of traffic now associates a brand as a nuisance, than it will cost >12 times whatever people spent on the bad Marketing plan to attempt to "fix". Spectacularly bad business decision, as someone is letting the dog drive =)
  - Obscurity4340 3y ago
    Thanks for clarifying, I didn't want to nitpick but my curiosity always gets the best of me. Sometimes it works out :)

dangus 3y ago

I just pay for the product rather than jumping through stupid hoops to avoid paying $3/month/user. Paying to remove ads is how you get no ads. Refusing to pay for ad-free services just tells companies that there’s no point in attempting to make a good user experience with no ads.

totallywrong 3y ago
It's $14 a month for Premium. Most casual users can't justify that.
- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  The average user watches 20 hours of content a month. So that’s not bad I think. Somehow I suspect the ones obsessively managing ad blockers to make sure they don’t see a single ad aren’t the ones that watch 2 videos a month or less
  - heinrich5991 3y ago
    I think that would be me. I don't think I watch more than 2 videos a month on YouTube.
  - dangus 3y ago
    Right, it confuses me that people think $14/month for YouTube is a bad deal and then turn around and pay $10/month for Spotify or buy three Starbucks coffees a month. Like, is it that hard to imagine someone using YouTube a lot and finding the premium service worth the cost?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
timbit42 3y ago
It's only a matter of time until you get ads even if you pay.
- 3y ago

Obscurity4340 3y ago

G needs to Google the Streisand Effect. The ideal amount of fraud or non-compliance is never 0 and they have enough dumb suckers to feast upon. Leave the clever-enough alone or perish reverse-insects-as-future-food in reverse style. This is live-action Silicon Valley and the truth can be stranger than fiction

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recursive 3y ago
What do you imagine is the down-side for google here? Non-compliance is getting lower, but maybe not to 0. Maybe you're just no longer clever enough. Personally, I pay for a YT premium subscription.
- Obscurity4340 3y ago
  Don't you think Babs' lawyers told her the same thing till she was the poster girl for Google Maps? Oy vey, peopl3 (corporations) never learn Edit: in the spirit of dialogue, can you describe exactly how paying a company to spy and manipulate you more with zero gurantees they won't ban you for nothing ever is smart? I just don't get the rationale here, how are you in any way better off paying (to say nothing of the relying aspect which is not discussed nearly enough) Google anything for anything? You're already literally the product in more ways than anyone could ever fathom at the baseline and then you hand them more money to be even more—product(ive)? I just don't get but I also maybe was a but invective and i apologize for that
  - recursive 3y ago
    It's a subscription. If they ban me, I'd stop paying. The rationale is that it suppresses ads. And is bundled with YT Music, which I actually like and use. I've heard the arguments about ad blockers, but none of those seem to work across all the devices and networks I use.
    - 3y ago

matt3210 3y ago

Ublock origin still works

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tansan 3y ago

Youtube premium has no ads btw. It's really great for podcasts or music so you can just listen in the background without the app open.

illumi2001 3y ago
except that's a paid solution for something that you can easily achieve for free
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  all you have to do is violate the content creators consent and you too can distribute information freely
- tansan 3y ago
  I have no issues paying for it given how much value I get out of it especially having no ads on their iOS app.
bdw5204 3y ago
You can do the same thing with a device called a computer. You can also do that on Android with Newpipe and could do that with Vanced before Google used (likely specious) legal threats to destroy it. There's no good reason whatsoever to pay the Danegeld[0] to Google for their "premium" subscription that sells you the right to use basic functionality that Google arbitrarily and maliciously attempts to block. [0]: https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_danegeld.htm https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_danegeld.htm
- tansan 3y ago
  Are you okay?
deleted 3y ago
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corn-dog 3y ago

Don’t know if you’re already a member of the largest server for extension developers at https://discord.gg/mHPkCCBx https://discord.gg/mHPkCCBx Awesome extension we need more like this to fight ads

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throwawaaarrgh 3y ago

More and more sites don't work with ad blockers. I like this. It means I will visit fewer sites that advertise. Over time the number of sites will dwindle. Eventually there will be a few community funded open sites, and a few paid sites that focus on providing valuable content for their subscribers. The result is better quality and less noise. And far less incentive to advertise on the web. Let the death of ads begin!

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zeroonetwothree 3y ago
This seems unrealistic.
matheusmoreira 3y ago
Completely agree. I'd really enjoy it if the web went back to its roots. Driving their advertising ROI to zero will fix the web.

megablast 3y ago

Weird you use chrome, and not firefox.

_aqmj 3y ago

This is great, my annoyance with ads is their time-wasting nature. Skipping ads entirely isn't purely ethical, but this seems like a better compromise for both parties. We want to use YouTube free of charge and will see the ads in a short manner that satisfies YouTube (I hope).

travoc 3y ago
Skipping ads is perfectly ethical. Who didn't hit fast-forward on their VCR or go get a sandwich during half-time?
- zamadatix 3y ago
  Something can be both unethical and commonly done. In fact, some quite seriously unethical things were commonplace for centuries and others are commonplace now even though most consider them unethical at heart. Skipping ads needs to be ethical or unethical because it is, that it is done is irrelevant.
- amelius 3y ago
  The Bible definitely needs an update for these kinds of questions.
matheusmoreira 3y ago
> Skipping ads entirely isn't purely ethical It absolutely is. Nobody is obligated to look at this crap. Their entire business model is based on sending people free stuff loaded with ads. They assume people are going to look at the ads. They only have themselves to blame if their assumptions don't hold.
- deleted 3y ago
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nyolfen 3y ago

youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.openPopupConfig.supportedPopups.adBlockMessageViewModel, false) youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.adBlocksFound, 0) youtube.com##+js(set, ytplayer.config.args.raw_player_response.adPlacements, []) youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.hasAllowedInstreamAd, true)

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cbozeman 3y ago

You're doing the Lord's work. Thank you.

nirui 3y ago
Now with this bit of free free-time, the Lord might finally be able to convince YouTube to make their ads more bearable, so people don't have to install ad blockers to begin with. I installed mine after YouTube starts to show 45 minute (yes, indeed) long ads to me, the entire pod cast session of it, AFTER I've watched the first ad but decided not to tap "Skip Ad". If YouTube don't want to control the quality of what they are showing, then guess I'll just help them not showing it. And if doing so is a cause for a ban, then I guess just ban me :)

bobby0 3y ago

[dead]

pm2222 3y ago

Just a matter of time before g embeds ads in videos. What’s next, ai again?

K0balt 3y ago
Inference at scale is expensive- so you pay a subscription to the ai service that watches the video for you at 10x and cleans up the output into a new video stream without ads or sponsor segments. Summary in text form is also provided.
- ben0x539 3y ago
  Maybe the AI service could be ad-powered.
  - K0balt 3y ago
    Nature abhors a vacuum…
arnaudsm 3y ago
SponsorBlock already does something similar in a crowdsourced way

_lvbh 3y ago

I’ve been trying to use Invidious but they seem to have a lot of memory leaks.

begueradj 3y ago

Good idea

wolfendin 3y ago

If YouTube (and google) forces me to look at ads, I will simply start clicking on all of them, and they can deal with the lower conversion rate

gigglesupstairs 3y ago
It might be fun in short term but not sustainable long term lol
sapphyrus 3y ago
You might want to check out https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/ then.

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago

Different approach: Only use youtube.com as a source for JSON. (There is no worthwhile video at youtube.com anyway, all worthwhile video is at googlevideo.com.) As such, never see any ads. The JSON contains all the information needed, including the goooglevideo.com URLs. No adblocker or "Javascript player" are necessary.

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jshier 3y ago

StopTheMadness implemented something similar but YouTube eventually got wise and I had to stop using that one too.

lapcat 3y ago
I'm not aware of any issues with StopTheMadness skip video ads. Please email support.

TriNetra 3y ago

I also have an extension [0] in which I have couple of shortcuts to skip ads: - alt+2 to click on Skip Ads button - ctrl + shift + end to set video's 'seek position' at 100% (useful to skip ads when 'Skip Ads' button isn't available. This makes Youtube believe that the ad is finished playing) 0: https://github.com/varunkho/ramaplayer https://github.com/varunkho/ramaplayer

epigramx 3y ago

and then you use chrome: google's browser. why? https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-best-on-Firefox https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...

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timenova 3y ago

For those who are on Safari (macOS and iOS), I highly recommend using Vinegar [0]. But that being said, recently even Vinegar is struggling a lot when I open a YouTube video (although the developer is promptly fixing issues). The video starts playing in the background, but I can't see it, then it pauses for a few seconds and restarts. It's crazy how terrible YouTube is making the experience on their site! [0] https://apps.apple.com/in/app/vinegar-tube-cleaner/id1591303229 https://apps.apple.com/in/app/vinegar-tube-cleaner/id1591303...

wrboyce 3y ago
+1 for Vinegar, I much prefer the native video player. I originally installed it to allow PIP but the ad removal is a welcome bonus. There is also Baking Soda, from the same author, which does the same thing but for every website except YouTube. https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/baking-soda-tube-cleaner/id1601151613 https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/baking-soda-tube-cleaner/id160...
- timenova 3y ago
  I started using Baking Soda too recently. Much better experience browsing the web. Using both of these (and yt-dlp) actually shows how hostile the video web is becoming!

jensneuse 3y ago

Not a lot of people will like to hear this, but you can pay YouTube a few dollars per month to remove ads and allow the player to run in the background. A lot of tech people will probably earn that money in a few minutes. Is it really worth investing your own time to remove ads?

shiroiuma 3y ago
>Is it really worth investing your own time to remove ads? Exactly what time are you referring to? It took me precisely zero time to remove ads on YouTube: I already have uBlock Origin installed, because ads on all the other websites are so unbearable, so I don't have to do anything at all to block ads on YouTube: it's already done for me. By contrast, subscribing to YouTube Premium would require a fair bit of my time, in going to the website, figuring out where to click, going through the payment process page, digging out a credit card, etc. etc. Then I have to worry about managing yet another subscription, which will take time every month. Is it really worth investing your time to subscribe to YTP when you can just block the ads by default by having a proper ad-blocker installed on your browser in the first place, which is a prerequisite for safe browsing in the modern age?
slyn 3y ago
Yes
globular-toast 3y ago
And if all the "tech people" pay a fixed charge for YouTube regardless of how much they actually use it, they'll remove ads entirely, right? Get real. Fuck ads. Nobody should ever have to deal with them.
- bwb 3y ago
  Ads pay for everything online? How else do you pay for everything unless you pay them directly??
  - Retr0id 3y ago

RadixDLT 3y ago

you can skip this extension and just install brave browser

lexapro 3y ago
But then I'd have to install an entire browser compared to just installing an extension. And I'd have to use Brave...

kim0 3y ago

Been enjoying https://grayjay.app/ https://grayjay.app/

InCityDreams 3y ago

As I walk down the road I don't hvae to give money to the many adverts that are shown in the streets.

alg0rith 3y ago

Both uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock still works no problem on Youtube on the Firefox browser

dark-star 3y ago
Yeah, that's what I have been wondering all the time, people claiming that Adblockers stopped working, now people are developing new extensions/blockers, but here I am, playing YouTube without ads like before, with nothing more than uBlock Origin.... It feels like I am missing something...
- Ciantic 3y ago
  It gave me the warning with uBlock origin a few weeks ago. I think the ad-detection is not turned on for all, that's why it may seem it still works. It also could be that some of the filters in uBlock trigger the detection more than others.
- c-fe 3y ago
  Same situation for me with adguard on safari both on iphone and mac, no ads so far. update: i do see ads on safari mobile now
- benhurmarcel 3y ago
  It’s just deployed to some users and not yet all.
Jowsey 3y ago
And in case anyone thinks this is a Chrome vs Firefox thing, I've also been using SB + uBlock on Edge and still haven't run into any problems
MikusR 3y ago
Also in Chrome.
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DueDilligence 3y ago

[dead]

NarcisMirandes 3y ago

You can also use Brave browser. Is it a fair option for everybody?

InCityDreams 3y ago
I use brave. Ads are present. Uborigin used, too.
- cactusplant7374 3y ago
  Latest version? I don't see any ads.
  - spurgu 3y ago
    Presumably the different experience is due to their A/B testing.

hermannj314 3y ago

This is a really dumb question. If YouTube is hosting a video, and then decides to have you watch two 30 seconds ads, and you immediately start watching the original hosted video before 60 seconds has elapsed, why wouldn't a server-side timer work to detect ad blocking? Are we forced to solve this problem client-side with Tom and Jerry Javascript battles? I don't really understand how video streaming scales, so this is probably a very naive question.

btown 3y ago
For quality-of-experience, YouTube would likely start buffering the original video before those 60 seconds have elapsed, so you can't look at just data loading times. And if there's a separate AJAX call, say, to tell the server that you've started watching the video, a sophisticated client-side script could try to delay or modify that ping - which brings us back into the cat-and-mouse territory.
rickreynoldssf 3y ago
I'm pretty sure its because the servers that host the video are just dumb servers that will serve whatever is asked. The logic is in the player. The servers don't know when you started the video watch session. If the servers had the logic and access to your state they wouldn't be able to handle as many concurrent requests.
- agilob 3y ago
  but it sounds like something like istio and redis should be able to solve
  - lazide 3y ago
    Those are 100x (or more) more expensive than what YouTube’s backend is doing. To do what they do affordably, there are tons of caching layers and videos are chunked into smaller opaque chunks of write-once/read-many data which get so widely distributed your head would spin. The client code is what stitches those blocks together (and figures out what blocks are part of what), figures out what ads should be where, etc. Any sort of consistent backend state gets very expensive fast, is often a huge bottleneck, and is avoided whenever possible. Everything from view stats to metadata is usually even done via CRDT type eventually consistent replicated data to avoid all the bottlenecks other approaches would cause.

Boogie_Man 3y ago

I have and will never ever pay one red cent to any company to watch videos for the purpose of entertainment outside of specific creators making high quality content that I personally enjoy. You can not make me. I have zero (0) moral compunction on the subject. I will explore every legal avenue from adblockers to television antennas to checking out DVDs from a local library. Entertainment is a cesspool of propagandizing morrally corrupt profiteers (independent of any race or identity, it is a conspiracy of greed). Weep and gnash your teeth. If every other legal avenue is exhausted I will imagine new Top Cat episodes in my head. You cannot stop me.

madeofpalk 3y ago
You think it is "a cesspool of propagandizing morrally corrupt profiteers" yet you still watch it?
- Boogie_Man 3y ago
  There are murderers in prison who make excellent pasta.
  - qup 3y ago
    do they murder people with their pasta? that would make it equivalent
  - madeofpalk 3y ago
    And so you go to these prisons to get this 'murder pasta'?
dahart 3y ago
Too late, you already did pay, because we’re all funding the library. ;) I’m wildly in favor of funding the library, BTW, and it’s a great place to find entertainment! Most libraries are lending e-books these days. They should start lending streaming movies too… I personally consider myself to have lots of moral compunction on this subject, and I do not buy any rhetoric that adblockers are immoral in any way. My morals include not breaking copyright and also being fine with adblockers, and I think these things co-exist. I like ads approximately the same amount as almost everyone, which is to say not much. I want content creators to get paid, especially the good ones. I’m fine with paying for great content. I’m fine with advertisers advertising, within reasonable bounds. I’m not okay with the idea that turning my head away from an ad I didn’t ask for implies I’m doing something bad.

lemper 3y ago

good work, bud. just pray that it will keep working after those asshole at google make the god awful web attestation on by default. you don't forget about it do you?

rickreynoldssf 3y ago

This is a cat and mouse game. YouTube changes small things all the time breaking code like this. I used to manage an in-house YouTube video editor that needed to do similar things to what you're doing. At least once a month I needed to dive into a debugger and reverse engineer whatever change YouTube made that month. Sometimes it's something as silly as a parameter name or ordering.

deleted 3y ago
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tomashubelbauer 3y ago

FWIW as long as you manually update the Quick Fixes uBlock Origin filter list every day or so, you'll probably never see a YouTube ad. Every new Google measure gets cracked very fast IME.

gentleman11 3y ago

This is cool, but it would be even better as a Firefox extension

attilaberczik 3y ago

Cool solution, but I just use Freetube and Newpipe

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Forgeties79 3y ago
God I love freetube.

crvdgc 3y ago

I have been using an extension [1] to remove YouTube suggestions (a la Unhook, but open source). It has this feature as well, but sometimes I get startled from the sudden appearance of mid-video ads. [1]: https://github.com/lawrencehook/remove-youtube-suggestions https://github.com/lawrencehook/remove-youtube-suggestions

shrimp_emoji 3y ago

Shout out to yt-dlp, which allows you to download videos and watch them on your own terms. :D Also, if anyone knows, if you open a YouTube URL with something like mpv, I assume it starts playing as an "embedded video" in your video player. Does YouTube serve adds in that case?

kzrdude 3y ago
I think mpv specifically just uses youtube-dl or simliar (yt-dlp), so it should be very simliar to whatever you download.

ergonaught 3y ago

I watched YouTube from a browser with an ad blocker and a browser without an ad blocker and had entirely identical experiences. Google is screaming down a “never use them for any purpose” path for me. Bummer.

Pooge 3y ago

I'm on Firefox and I see absolutely no ads. In fact, I'm so shocked to see how ad-ridden the web is that I might just stop browsing altogether if blockers somehow stop working. Sometimes I watch YouTube videos with friends on Discord and I just LOVE getting fed those 30-second ads..

exemplify 3y ago
I completely agree. I won't sacrifice my mental health to acquiesce to the toxic, manipulative tactics of modern ad exposure. Ads are not good for you. If I can't find a way to continue avoiding the ads, I'll stop using YouTube. This is not an ethical conundrum for me. This is self-defense.
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thomasdd 3y ago

Ehhhm , for 5-6 €/$ You[tube] without Ads :) no reason to hack or abuse the system.

chaostheory 3y ago
It’s triple that price in dollars.
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blacklight 3y ago

Just stop using the YouTube frontend. I've been running my Piped instance for a while, and there are many public Piped instances available on the Web as well. And, if you don't want the headache of running your own proxied instance or hopping between public instances, use Platypush - it wires together Piped as a backend, with yt-dlp as a local proxy/scaper, and a multitude of media plugins to allow you streaming directly the YouTube media files to any media device. Plus, thanks to yt-dlp, it doesn't only work only with YouTube, but with hundreds of other websites with closed media URLs (Facebook, TikTok, Twitter...). And then just use LibRedirect/UntrackMe to convert all of the YouTube URLs to Piped URLs - you won't send a single packet to that digital sewage, and you won't even notice any difference. Just...stopping relying on YouTube's frontend. I've been chasing their API and FE changes for a while. I even set up a small Selenium suite to scrape video results directly from their UI. It's quite clear that they've decided to invest enough resources to embrace full war against anybody who's sick of their ads. They are in a terminal phase of enshittification - the one where they look so much after they bottom line that they don't care if they to turn their whole platform into a big billboard or shut down all of their APIs. Either I consume videos from anywhere else, or, when I have no alternatives, I use Piped. But avoid youtube.com at all costs: it's a walking digital cancer in its terminal phase. Even paying a subscription to them to get rid of the ads wouldn't help. I'd rather direct my donations to open or non-enshittified services than supporting a dying business model.

archon810 3y ago

How delayed are the Chrome web store stats? This was posted 16 hours ago, there are still no reviews and "5 users."

rKarpinski 3y ago
As the creator, I'm also curious - It still shows me 0 page views for the 18th

endorphine 3y ago

I still don't get ads, using uBlock Origin on Firefox. What am I missing?

depereo 3y ago
It has been selectively enabled on some accounts. Others do not experience it. Some have experienced it briefly and had it go away. My wife's account had this several times, she stopped visiting YouTube for a couple weeks, and when she tried again it never blocked any videos. I got stung on my account and YouTube has never let up - I'm having to refresh the ublock fixes list etc and sometimes that doesn't even work. I've nearly completely stopped watching YouTube now.
- slim 3y ago
  same here. it tried to threaten me into disabling adblock, restricted the number of videos I could access, it did not work (I just go elsewhere for entertainment), so it restored full access.
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rafale 3y ago

Why not just let the ads play per the social contract we have. Ask yourself, if everyone did what I do, would it ruin the service I enjoy for everyone? If the answer is yes, then stop doing it. It's better to just stop using YouTube than install these hacks.

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basseed 3y ago

just pay for premium, it's like $10 a month

njarboe 3y ago
Agreed. If you hate ads and are given a reasonably priced option of not seeing them, you should choose that option. To support that option and signal that people want that option.
jmugan 3y ago
until they raise it.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  Or add ads to it (most likely a mix of both: raise price and offer a version with ads that's at the former price, which is what Netflix did if you factor in their policy change on account sharing)
littlestymaar 3y ago
“Why dont you just pay the ransom, it's not even that expensive”.
spurgu 3y ago
Personally, if I had to pay, I'd so much rather pay per view. Subscriptions just tend to pile up and many of them sitting idle for long periods of time. I would love pay-per-view for streaming services as well, instead of having Netflix/Hulu/Disney+/Prime/etc subscriptions (as opposed to juggling between them, or choosing just one to stick with). Same with VPN that I use very sporadically, it feels stupid to pay a monthly fee for something I use maybe an hour per month on average.

bilater 3y ago

Nice - The mute alone is worth it

sertbdfgbnfgsd 3y ago

I feel kind of out of the loop. Does uBlock origin not work for anyone else? It hasn't failed me yet...

cloudking 3y ago
It wasn't working until I went to settings and cleared/updated the filter cache, now seems to work again
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QVVRP4nYz 3y ago
YT is recently tightening the screw - both increasing ad count, Premium prices and trying to counter adblocking. Also removal of Manifest V2 is coming to Chrome in 2024. In general there always were 2 aspects affecting adblocking efficiency: 1) the ad networks want to serve the files from own servers to prevent fraud 2) the sites try to mix content and ads as much as legally possible Google and Facebook are big enough players to break first point - that kills dns/domain based solutions like pihole. And at least Facebook works hard on second - someone once linked how "Promoted" in HTML is actually "abcdPROMrandomlettersTEDxyz", with different CSS styles for each letter - just to prevent simple CSS selector based rules for adblockers.