4 ms·

Firefox and UBlock Origin has never broken for me and works effectively.

chithanh 1y ago
You were just lucky, because YouTube uses A/B testing and does not roll out anti-adblock-measures to everyone simultaneously. This gives UBO some time to react.
- selcuka 1y ago
  I haven't seen any ads for years either. I use uBlock Origin, plus I've configured my Firefox to open YouTube always in a dedicated container, that logs me out of any Google-related stuff as I never upvote or comment anyway. Browsing YouTube anonymously might have helped.
nananana9 1y ago
I use the same setup, on Windows Linux and Android. It will break when they decide to roll out their aggressive anti-adblock measures more widely, currently they seem to be A/B testing and turning it on and off at random. I'm surprised they haven't gone for the "refuse to serve the video stream for 20 seconds or however long the ad would take" card yet, although it's probably a matter of time.
dns_snek 1y ago
Consider yourself lucky. Some of their A/B tests seem to be designed to psychologically torment you with videos "buffering" for 10-60 seconds before they start playing, navigation taking 15+ seconds. If that happens to you, this thread [1] is sometimes updated with manual workarounds that sometimes work: www.youtube.com##+js(nano-stb, resolve(1), *, 0.001) www.youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.EXPERIMENT_FLAGS.web_enable_ab_rsp_cl, false) www.youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.EXPERIMENT_FLAGS.ab_pl_man, false) ||googlevideo.com/videoplayback$xhr,3p,method=get,domain=www.youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch##+js(set, ytInitialData, undefined) [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1jbv1xn/youtube_ads_detection_breakages_2025_megathread/ https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1jbv1xn/youtu...
- kelvinjps10 1y ago
  Although what you describe seems annoying, still no ads
  - dns_snek 1y ago
    No ads but it's far worse than just annoying — for me. I get annoyed when a video buffers for 10 seconds due to a technical hiccup. Being made to wait for up to a minute with pretend-technical issues and mocking messages like "Why am I seeing this?" that try to convince me that they're not doing this on purpose is insulting and enraging. I would gladly pay for an independent alternative but I will never pay for Youtube Premium on principle [1]. If these workarounds stop working I'll just use third party clients all the time, I already use SmartTube on TV. [1] If I give you my money, I want you to respect me as a customer. Google will continue tracking me, abuse my personal information, and almost certainly re-introduce ads at some point in the future in pursuit of infinite growth. It's never going to be enough, the only winning move (with them) is not to play.
    - kelnos 1y ago
      On the other hand, I'd rather sit for 10-60 seconds waiting for (fake) buffering, than sit through a 10-60 second ad.
      - dotancohen 1y ago
        With ads, at least you know that they will end. And when.
      - dns_snek 1y ago
        It doesn't stop there, it would also fake-buffer when you jumped to a different point in the video, it would be stuck in a broken transitional UI state for 10-30 seconds any time you navigated to a different page. Clearly they want people to get pissed off enough that they turn off the ad blocker, it's been getting worse over time.
- mrheosuper 1y ago

You were just lucky, because YouTube uses A/B testing and does not roll out anti-adblock-measures to everyone simultaneously. This gives UBO some time to react.

selcuka 1y ago
I haven't seen any ads for years either. I use uBlock Origin, plus I've configured my Firefox to open YouTube always in a dedicated container, that logs me out of any Google-related stuff as I never upvote or comment anyway. Browsing YouTube anonymously might have helped.

nananana9 1y ago

I use the same setup, on Windows Linux and Android. It will break when they decide to roll out their aggressive anti-adblock measures more widely, currently they seem to be A/B testing and turning it on and off at random. I'm surprised they haven't gone for the "refuse to serve the video stream for 20 seconds or however long the ad would take" card yet, although it's probably a matter of time.

dns_snek 1y ago

Consider yourself lucky. Some of their A/B tests seem to be designed to psychologically torment you with videos "buffering" for 10-60 seconds before they start playing, navigation taking 15+ seconds. If that happens to you, this thread [1] is sometimes updated with manual workarounds that sometimes work: www.youtube.com##+js(nano-stb, resolve(1), *, 0.001) www.youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.EXPERIMENT_FLAGS.web_enable_ab_rsp_cl, false) www.youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.EXPERIMENT_FLAGS.ab_pl_man, false) ||googlevideo.com/videoplayback$xhr,3p,method=get,domain=www.youtube.com www.youtube.com/watch##+js(set, ytInitialData, undefined) [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1jbv1xn/youtube_ads_detection_breakages_2025_megathread/ https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1jbv1xn/youtu...

kelvinjps10 1y ago
Although what you describe seems annoying, still no ads
- dns_snek 1y ago
  No ads but it's far worse than just annoying — for me. I get annoyed when a video buffers for 10 seconds due to a technical hiccup. Being made to wait for up to a minute with pretend-technical issues and mocking messages like "Why am I seeing this?" that try to convince me that they're not doing this on purpose is insulting and enraging. I would gladly pay for an independent alternative but I will never pay for Youtube Premium on principle [1]. If these workarounds stop working I'll just use third party clients all the time, I already use SmartTube on TV. [1] If I give you my money, I want you to respect me as a customer. Google will continue tracking me, abuse my personal information, and almost certainly re-introduce ads at some point in the future in pursuit of infinite growth. It's never going to be enough, the only winning move (with them) is not to play.
  - kelnos 1y ago
    On the other hand, I'd rather sit for 10-60 seconds waiting for (fake) buffering, than sit through a 10-60 second ad.
    - dotancohen 1y ago
      With ads, at least you know that they will end. And when.
    - dns_snek 1y ago
      It doesn't stop there, it would also fake-buffer when you jumped to a different point in the video, it would be stuck in a broken transitional UI state for 10-30 seconds any time you navigated to a different page. Clearly they want people to get pissed off enough that they turn off the ad blocker, it's been getting worse over time.
mrheosuper 1y ago