I love Youtube's war on ad-blockers

[Dark Pulse]

1 hour ago, act said:

Now, with near-free investments to technology corporations like YouTube being rapidly shut down, the unprofitability of the still half-human service that is YouTube is coming to a front. Push is coming to shove, and YouTube has now gone senile and mad. From the Ad Situation, to YouTube (potentially) literally breaking the law, YouTube is showing its teeth in a desperate attempt to preserve itself, struggling against its inevitable death. That's merely just how things are.

I hate to say it, but as long as YouTube is owned by Google, it's going absolutely nowhere. Google makes money hand-over-fist.

[Midway64]

I just don't care anymore dude.

This thing happens, then that thing happens, thus another thing happens.

Fuck this shit, I already spend enough time on YouTube to take over a big fraction of my life, and now we get more bullshit about adblockers being blocked, then Firefox, my browser of choice, is getting beef from Google, and now way more crap is happening.

At this point I could delete my Google account, as I use Proton as an email provider, and Invidious has popped up on my radar, with the only setback being the fact that everyone expects you to use a Gmail or Outlook account for everything, reducing compatibility on platforms.

 

I'm done with Google.

[Biodegradable]

2 hours ago, act said:

the unprofitability of the still half-human service that is YouTube is coming to a front. YouTube is showing its teeth in a desperate attempt to preserve itself, struggling against its inevitable death. That's merely just how things are.

 

This all sounds like wishful thinking on your part, mate. I don't know how you can remain convinced that YouTube makes no money and is dying despite all evidence to the contrary. Google's MO of killing off any project it creates or acquires the millisecond it stops making them a dime has been very consistent for the last two decades. The fact that their parent company, Alphabet, made quarterly earnings public back in 2020, demonstrated that YouTube alone made them $15 billion back in 2019. Incidentally, that $15 billion went up to $28 billion last year.

 

YouTube isn't dying, fam. They're just following the idiotic idea of infinite profit margins thanks to an economic system that encourages and empowers you to be a greedy cunt. Will this shit backfire on them? It already has been. Will it kill the website? lmao very unlikely.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Biodegradable

[Chow Yun Thin]

I use Freetube which also uses the Invidious thing. The only time I use Youtube proper is for longplays of old games where the video is stretched; "Enhancer for Youtube" running a script for aspect ratio changer serves to unfuck it. Unfortunately, a recent bit of Google fuckery has forced the "Enhancer for Youtube" dev to pull the plugin for the foreseeable future. Shit, now I understand why invidious was chosen for its name.

 

I used the Alternate Player for Twitch to block their ads, but it seems to have stopped working as of a week ago.

[LoatharMDPhD]

never piss off the tech support,,,

[LuzRoja29]

opera adblocker isnt being noted by youtube

[pcorf]

On 11/27/2023 at 6:27 AM, Sonikkumania said:

Yes but looks like that wasn't enough for them.

 

I still remember when they removed the yellow markers so we are now forced to watch these crappy ads especially in videos 8:00 or longer. It really should be one ad at the start of the video. If you watch a long video of a popular band's concert or some crazy science experiment the ads can be insane.

 

Bit of a rant here I'll delete this if inappropriate: Runaway inflation, stupid advertising, some for meaningless products and general paranoia. We try out best to be happy during our lives in a world that is not very happy trust me. And then the pandemic drove this nonsense up to an all new level.

 

As Ali G would say in an interview 20 years ago: Techmology, what is that all about? .... Is it good?, or is it whack?

 

Take me back to the 1980's and 1990's.

 

 

 

Edited November 28, 2023 by pcorf

[Chezza]

6 hours ago, act said:

Incorrect rant.

 

Your subjective opinion is objectively wrong.

[P_A_Z]

3 hours ago, LuzRoja29 said:

opera adblocker isnt being noted by youtube

 

uBlock Origin seems to work fine on firefox to block all unbearable commercial spots, and not detected by YT yet. I'm watching a documentary of the band YOB, uBlock Origin lock 130 ads.

[Kristian Nebula]

I've used Brave browser for years and it blocks virtually all ads. Watched youtube without ads with it too. On some very, very rare occasions an ad in the beginning of video pushed through it. Maybe a handful of times in all my history of using Brave but pressing F5 to refresh the page if the ad shoots up usually helped. I noticed a couple of times that it got me around some paywalled articles, too.

[Sonikkumania]

36 minutes ago, Kristian Nebula said:

I've used Brave browser for years and it blocks virtually all ads. Watched youtube without ads with it too. On some very, very rare occasions an ad in the beginning of video pushed through it. Maybe a handful of times in all my history of using Brave but pressing F5 to refresh the page if the ad shoots up usually helped. I noticed a couple of times that it got me around some paywalled articles, too.

Yes Brave is bery nice.

[SpaceCat_2001]

7 hours ago, act said:

I guess we're coming back to this old topic that earned my a warning point a year ago.

I still hold the same beliefs, but let me state them more mildly:

The internet, although not something that is traditionally alive, is effectively a living thing. And what inevitably happens to all living things? They die. We are witnessing that exact thing; the death of the internet

Many people here report them cutting down on YouTube consumption. And for them, I am quite happy. They serve to us a good lession - that in response to all of this tomfoolery from Google, we simply should just stop using their service. That's what I've done, with Invidious, and it's helped considerably. I recommend you all follow in their footsteps, for your well-being at the very least.

Video killed the radio star

Internet killed the video star

And then Internet killed itself

Finally now we can free ourself

Edited November 28, 2023 by SpaceCat_2001

[Devalaous]

Its amazing just how MANY companies are going all in on the 'Destroy own reputation' train this year.

[Somniac]

I assume their idea is basically "make it annoying enough that people buy premium to escape the nightmare", and its probably working. 

[Biodegradable]

2 minutes ago, Somniac said:

I assume their idea is basically "make it annoying enough that people buy premium to escape the nightmare", and its probably working. 

 

It's had quite the opposite effect, actually. Not only are adblocker devs making said adblock browser extensions stronger, YouTube's move has made people who never used an ad blocking extension before more aware of how annoying ads have become on the website, and being introduced to the very concept of using an adblocker. :^P

[banjiepixel]

2 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

 

It's had quite the opposite effect, actually. Not only are adblocker devs making said adblock browser extensions stronger, YouTube's move has made people who never used an ad blocking extension before more aware of how annoying ads have become on the website, and being introduced to the very concept of using an adblocker. :^P

 

True, but alot of people also just don't want deal with all that and rather just pay to remove the ads, especially since alot of YouTube use these days does happen also on devices without an option to install adblocker. And it is pretty much inevitable that amount of people accessing YouTube with web browser is going to shrink as time goes on.

 

There is nothing wrong with YouTube taking the direction of becoming subscription service first and free service to be a secondary priority, especially since no one else has the infrastructure to do what YouTube does at the same scale. And more focus on being a paid subscription service means that advertisers will have less power to decide what is allowed on YouTube.

[prfunky]

https://librewolf.net/

uBlockOrigin built-in... nuff said.

 

[P_A_Z]

10 minutes ago, prfunky said:

https://librewolf.net/

uBlockOrigin built-in... nuff said.

 

Thanks for the link ,)

[Rudolph]

Damn. My AdBlock+Adblocker for YouTube combo on Firefox does not appear to be working anymore. It is weird, because recently, I was at a relative's place and they were able to use AdBlock on Google Chrome without any issue. Any suggestions?

[Gez]

You can always use something like piped.video to watch youtube without watching youtube.

[Rudolph]

47 minutes ago, Gez said:

You can always use something like piped.video to watch youtube without watching youtube.

Oooh! That looks good.

 

Does it require me to create a whole new account, however? If so, how do I export my subscriptions and playlists from Firefox?

Edited December 6, 2023 by Rudolph

[Grazza]

Recently I have been finding Brave pretty good in terms of letting me use my existing Youtube account while blocking ads and sidestepping the anti-adblock measures. Makes it very easy to import settings, links and logins too. Blocks invasive ads on Twitter.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Grazza

[Rudolph]

Recreating my subscriptions and playlists in piped unfortunately turned out to be too much of an hassle, so instead I moved to uBlock Origin; after following instructions that involve purging some cache, I am now able to watch YouTube videos without any ads. At least, for the time being.

 

I will keep Brave mind should the situation change, though. Thanks!

[P_A_Z]

uBlock Origin is now detected by Youtube on Firefox. I will looking for a solution and try Brave cause i hate ads.

[Rudolph]

It is still working on my end, but only on a single tab and I suspect it is because I have yet to close Firefox. As I said, I had to purge some cache in the addon's settings in order to get it to circumvent YouTube's anti-adblocker measures.

[Lofwyr]

Too lazy to check for other browsers, but I use firefox, and I shall now list some good addons I use to not even fall into "scrolling" traps.

 

Youtube: Unhook. Allows the selective hiding of all things youtube, no more recommendations, other videos, merchandise tickers, or even comments, and more.

Block Site: A configurable addon that does what the name suggests, includes a 'pause unblocking' option for a few minutes which can sometimes be useful if you blanket block social networks like I do, but some actually relevant thing crops up as a search result. And speaking of search results:

uBlacklist: Removes sites from internet search results, I have reddit and facebook blocked, for example, because I got sick of Google being a de facto reddit search engine front end.

 

That said, the war against adblockers is a futile one, as is the war against enshittification, you cannot have "modern sensibilities" satisfied without it, long time growth for big mainstream companies that do any type of communication/media is now impossible because the weight of the sum of things one has to care about is just too crushing.

 

Which some call evolution (like language) or progress, but it really is just death.

That's fine tho, renaissances have happened throughout history in response to such stiflings, and if history repeats itself as it is often used for scaremongering, then the good will repeat too.

 

Edit:
Oh yeah, for some reason, for the time being, YT still supports RSS.

Thus: You can use that instead of waiting for subscription notifications.

With the new ID system, I think you can just paste the channel address into any (modern?) reader.

(I personally use quiterss)

Edited December 8, 2023 by Lofwyr

[Daytime Waitress]

20 hours ago, Lofwyr said:

Youtube: Unhook. Allows the selective hiding of all things youtube, no more recommendations, other videos, merchandise tickers, or even comments, and more.

 

Like a god damn pressure washer.

[Dark Pulse]

For those using uBlock Origin, just keep an eye on this.

 

https://drhyperion451.github.io/does-uBO-bypass-yt/

 

If they match, uBO has been updated, and adblock should work. If it doesn't, try refreshing the lists - or wait awhile for it to be updated.

[Rudolph]

I was not aware of this page before, but I can confirm that uBlock Origin is still successfully blocking ads on YouTube on my end - even with multiple tabs open now. Adblockers Strike Back!

Edited December 9, 2023 by Rudolph

[Biodegradable]

I've been running double-strength Adblock and Adblock Plus on Firefox for the longest time and have also now added uBlock Origin to the mix just for the hell of it, even though I haven't really been experiencing any ads or issues watching YouTube yet. I've only experienced that annoying pop-up where YouTube threatens to block me from using it with adblock extensions when I've used Chrome.