YouTube viewers will soon have to sit through even longer ads, with Google rolling out new 30-second unskippable spots on a popular app.
Oh no, the ads I block are getting even longer!?
I just purchased a new travel router that will have options for ad blocking built in. Would that block ads on any device sharing that connexion? TV, phone, PC, smart fridge,…?
Those will not block YT ads.
They’ll block ads at a DNS level, but YouTube ads are delivered directly into the video stream.
Those will not block YT ads.
This is correct
but YouTube ads are delivered directly into the video stream.
This is false
this is false
So far
Sure, but that can be said about almost anything.
Still, I’d be surprised if they went the route of embedding ads into the stream, in part because of measurability/skipability/etc. It’s definitely not out of the question, but I think we’re still ways to go before we get there.
And even then, tools like yt-dlp would probably be able to apply some heuristics to figure out which segments are foreign to the stream and slice them out that way. Blocking yt-dlp would require DRM, which in turn requires changing the transcoding pipeline in a pretty non-trivial way. I also doubt they would willingly go this route.
And the reason is that those ad-blockers are based on DNS block lists, and YouTube ads are served by the same servers that also serve videos.
This is my understanding as well, yeah.
Youtubes ads are not delivered into the videostream. That would mean reencodingevery video for every user and would need an insane amount of computing power.
Why would you need to re encode when you can literally pause one stream swap in the ad and then swap back in the paused one in the same response
Exactly. Instead of editing within the video stream you just switch to a second stream.
However from youtubes perspective that has the downside that the switching logic is where adblockers can hook in to block the ads.
That would mean reencodingevery video for every user and would need an insane amount of computing power.
You actually don’t have to, on account of how adaptive video streaming works. It’s fully possible to serve a few segments of ad content mid-stream.
Not youtube ads, sadly, if they are blocking based on domain names. For YouTube, you can use pipepipe, which do block ads as far as I have seen.
Depends on how they’re served but mostly, yes
But, topically, will not block YouTube ads
not unless you figured out how to adblock on youtube tv. this isn’t for desktop clients.
Firefox with ublock origin for desktop and mobile. Grayjay for mobile (integrates Nebula too so you can get both your feeds at once). Android TV with FCast and Smart Tube Next for your TV. Never see ads again.
A/B testing is showing they are going after people with ad blockers: https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/youtube-is-apparently-punishing-ad-blockers-by-hiding-comment-section-3320581/ But your specific combo seems good.
They keep trying. The adblockers keep winning. I’ve had my fair share of videos sometimes not loading, or regularly needing to update apps to keep up with Google’s latest bullshit, but the minor glitches and headaches are worth it for all the time I don’t spend staring at a greyed out skip button.
Pretty sure several engineers from google itself might be contributors to some of them, fortunately.
That genuinely would not surprise me in the slightest.
All you have to do is close the window every time they try that bullshit and that shows up in stats. Get enough people doing it and they’ll back off
Why would I ever want to see youtube comments? Literally zero impact for me.
The one thing I like them for is nostalgic songs. Almost always a great vibe in the comments
Are they really threatening us with a good time? No YouTube comments is a benefit, not a punishment
Oh, no! Not the comments, those are always so smart and insightful.
If I want to see the comment section I use official app, and just pause the ad.
I know they are trying but so far it seems the ad-blockers are winning because I’ve not noticed any interruptions or problems with comments so far.
by hiding comments
So using adblockers is even better than I realized?
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Yes, just connect a small computer and then install Firefox with unlock origin on there.
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Someone else in this thread mentioned TizenTube, that sounds like what you’re looking for.
But personally I just grabbed an Nvidia Shield. It works great and if you swap out the default launcher you’ll never see a single ad on it (with the right apps). Plus the pro is beefy enough to run some decent emulators too.
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I run both those and I see ads every time google breaks ublock which is monthly now. Grayjay is broken more than its not at this point and requires like 10+ tries with various ciphers.
I think the day of these ads becoming unblockable is coming soon.
Are you running Ublock on Chrome or Firefox? It works significantly better on Firefox. I’ve never seen an ad get through it.
or more accurately: google has made it impossible to make a useful tracker and ad blocker for chrome
Also Brave just straight up blocks ads by default across the browser. And it’s a damn good one too
Firefox. Google does AB testing so they roll out the anti adblocking changes ot some users. Its usually effective at blocking adblocker for a day or two. Sometimes i have to watch the Ad sometimes i have to sit and stare at a black screen for 15seconds.
Grayjay only supports Android, so let me mention Tube PiP for iOS
Oh, excellent, I’ll be checking that out right away. I have an iPad that I’m stuck with from work and it’d be great to get ad free YouTube there.
Smart Tube is useless for me. Takes forever to load the video and usually craps in the process. Pass.
Do you have a weird network/Google TV setup? I run it on a stock nvidia shield with no pihole or anything and I’ve never had any issues with smart tube, it’s great.
I tried it on my Sony TV, which runs Google TV.
YouTube has ads?
I demonetized YouTube on my android platform long time ago
I often entirely forget that youtube and most of the internet is plagued with ads. It’s a shock to use a family member’s phone or laptop that does not have adblock
The Internet is practically unusable without adblock. Rawdogging the web you get a postage stamp sized amount of content bordered by flashing ads and video ads. No fuckin thanks homie
As a good friend and son, I of course installed unlock origin for them. Even the light version in Chrome if I have to. Their phones I did not touch though.
My computer is covered, but which app is safe to block ads on my phone?
On my phone it’s not just the ads that aggravate but also the autoplay videos–the ones that follow you as you scroll down. I can’t prevent them from autoplaying.
Mobile firefox is compatible with desktop addons, so you can still use ublock origin on your phone. I also use pihole to cover my whole local network and wireshark to VPN my phone to my local network when out of the house. If you’re on iPhone you’re probably just out of luck.
I generally do everything in-browser and do not use any other mobile apps, so no youtube app, etc.
This is the first I’ve ever heard of following autoplay videos lol
What’s your opinion on duckduckgo on a phone?
I used to use https://html.duckduckgo.com/ as my search engine before I started self-hosting SearXNG. The duckduckgo website works fine on a phone, the same as desktop
It’s so fucking funny though. I would love to pay YouTube. But I will never pay a company that abuses my data the way they do.
There’s that, but I’d also like to point out, that as a paying customer, you’re still force fed that bottom tier slop with no way to filter it other than hoping some combination of reporting/not interested/don’t show me this channel again works.
But even if you say, not to recommend a channel, it can still show up. So you get to pay for low grade AI slop videos. Or “content farms” that take 2 videos and just splice them together for some reason (both horizontal and vertical). Or the “I’m just going to stare at the camera and do nothing while I play a video that’s from another platform”. Like it’s endless.
The “shorts” platform is pure garbage. Can I turn shorts off? No I can “show fewer shorts”.
So you pay, to not get ads. They sell ALL your data to double dip (since they selling your data anywho) and there’s no benefit for the content. They have all this data, all this tech, and the platform is rot with shit.
That’s true. I guess I would only pay for a YouTube that is actually useful. “People want to block channels. Best we can do is ‘I am not interested’ and still show them.”
The “shorts” platform is pure garbage. Can I turn shorts off? No I can “show fewer shorts”.
Once again the pirate version (revanced) of youtube is better than the actual paid version. Revanced and ublock filter take care of shorts for me. Haven’t seen them in months
I’d be willing to get YouTube Premium just to get rid of ads, but they’re bundling it with YouTube Music and I’m not trusting Google with my music purchases any more, thank you.
They discontinued Google Play Music (fortunately only after a long long period of time allowing you to download MP3s with their bloody terrible client app, so no loss there) and told me that you can just import the purchases to YouTube Music. Which I couldn’t actually access.
Also I don’t want a music streaming service, I just want to buy the albums. It’s pretty sad that it seems the only remaining feasible local option for electronic music purchases is iTunes! Bloody iTunes!
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you gladly feed them your viewing habits to increase their value to their shareholders though 🤷
you aren’t hurting their bottom line by not watching ads. You’re just making a tiny dent into a single line of thousands on some slides on the evp of youtube’s quarterly presentation. No one else notices.
Your data and viewing habits and patterns and all of the device info you leak and broadcast? The wifi signals your phone is always seeing? Oh that bluetooth device that just rode past your apartment while your blocking ads on youtube? Definitely not being seen by them. Apps are spyware these days, and they are spying on everything
My main point is that if it wasn’t a privacy destroying capitalist evil company and website, that it would provide enough possible value for me to want to pay. My data is one of the reasons it isn’t, I was merely answering to the article and context here.
I recommend Peertube. There’s not much there yet, but myself and others are trying.
Also, did you know you can upload your video to Peertube and have YouTube pull it via RSS? That’s what I’m doing!
All of my stuff you’ll find on Peertube and I don’t have to do anything else to get it up on YouTube.
No one will create content without ad revenue. Peertube is doomed to fail.
This is a terrible take, as most content creators I watch already cannot survive off of Youtube ad revenue and rely on third-party monetization, like Patreon subscriptions.
Besides the fact that plenty of people make content for free, from the simple love of creating something.
Didn’t YouTube start without ads? Was doing fine back then, right?
I don’t think it had prerolls during the flash days but it had banner ads as far back as I can remember
Well, no. It’s been losing money for years. But I doubt this will make it profitable.
I don’t think people were doing it professionally as much back then.
People started doing it professionally when the ad money came in. Before that people did it for the love of the content, and it was lower production quality, but better content.
NoBOdY wIlL dO AnYThiNg wItHOuT PrOfiT mOtIvE
This book, YouTube’s history, and the span of human history say otherwise. You’re spouting capitalist rhetoric which is ultimately a lie told to us on repeat to encourage greed, selfishness, and individualism.
The platform you’re using right now was built without profit motive, there’s plenty of content. PeerTube can achieve the same.
People will create plenty of content for free. Basically every blog, early YT video and all of Wikipedia was made by people who just like creating stuff for free
You obviously didn’t experience the early internet
Lots of people did it on YouTube for years. Even more on other platforms.
I’m creating content and YouTube pulls from my Peertube. So I’ll never lose it. All of these content creators are leaning on Patreon as none of them can count on ad revenue anymore. So people are already doing it.
And Peer tube will never fully replace YouTube, but also, it doesn’t have to. Your local library, school, church, community space, doesn’t need ad revenue.
There are already some youtubers linking to their patreon because their content gets demonetized frequently (shiey, gifgas).
I think this could be the way to go. Instead of patreon, liberapay could also be used.
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Who still watches YT without adblocker? It must be horrible.
Someone who don’t want to lose their emails… In https://lemmy.cafe/comment/15974964 it was mentioned that their entire google account got banned for 10 years over adblocking youtube. I stopped watching youtube immediately… I’m not about to watch ads, but I don’t want to lose access to my 22 year old personal account… So many accounts are tied to that address, that I can’t manage to move to a different service.
FML what happened to “do no evil”? Now it’s “make money with the baby grinding machine for all costs”
Me on (android) TV. On PC I have ad blocker. On TV ads time is between 6 seconds and 1 minute. Sometimes ads contain AI slop. 💀
SmartTube for Android TV gives you adblock and sponsorblock
People with android phones who use YouTube app.
reVanced is alive, well, good, and at this point necessary
Tubular is free and available on F-Droid.
what YouTube ads
I think it might be something that happens during that short pause before a video starts?
The article about crappy ads wants me to turn off my ad blocker, lol
It’s the year 2026. Irony is dead.
YouTube has ads?
I set my VPN to Albania. Ads on YouTube are banned in Albania.
On the web, I be Albanian.
I wonder what the breaking point is for those who don’t use adblockers.
Remember that some people voluntarily pay for TV and streaming with ads.
I had been paying for it a while ago since, to be fair, the service is free otherwise and often times it pays the creator more. Then Youtube decided to give about $45mil or so worth of energy toward making pro-Israel content and suddenly I didn’t mind the ads so much anymore. Now they’re making it a lot worse and my solution is going to need to be an adblocker.
Youtube: “People are blocking are ads and costing us money, what should we do?!”
The People: “Police your platform and stop advertising scams, hate speech, pornography, and all the other shit.”
Youtube: “I just have no idea what to do, so I guess I’ll just invest millions/billions into making ads harder to block, and make the ads longer and unskippable. You know, Just make the platform almost completely unusable without adblocking”
The People: “YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO, JUST POLICE YOUR FUCKING PLATFORM ALREADY. IF YOU DID YOU WOULDNT NEED TO DO ALL THIS SHIT”
Youtube: “Oh, btw, heres another PragerU video thats 3 hours long and talks about how the black man should be grateful for the white man uplifting them via slavery, followed by a ad thats basically a woman fingering herself to advertise chinese AI girlfriends”
The People: adblocking intensifies
That’s the craziest part isn’t it? All of this data collection so they can build profiles of us, and then they just don’t apply any of it to ads.
I don’t like watching ads, but it would at least be slightly more tolerable if I got ads for things I actually wanted. On my TV I watch YT unfortunately not adblocked, and never once have I seen an ad for anything that appeal to me.
YouTube does police their platform, they curate it for babies and remove anything critical of the government
I love when two conflicting conspiracy theories meet online.
Nah it doesn’t matter what ads they’d have or how well they police their site. I’d block them regardless.
Nebula is pretty good these days, I can’t remember the last time I deliberately watched something on YouTube.
Yeah, Nebula is awesome.
Nebula doesn’t have the random crap I watch.
Might just be my account but YouTube algorithms got so sensitive I’m afraid to watch random crap, I watch like 1 video about a topic then for a week that’s all I get.
But yeah it’s more for intentional viewing than watching random crap, but I saw that as a bonus feature as it led to me procrastinating less.
lol I have no idea if it works, but if I watch a random video, I delete it from the watch history because I fear that if I don’t, the algo will go bonkers. So far it seems to work though lol
This is what I found.
With Nebula and CuriosityStream, most of the things I follow are still on YouTube.
Speedrunners unfortunately use YouTube and twitch only. So it’s pick your cancer on that front.
At least twitch is a bit different than YouTube in that the culture there it’s normal for people to pay and donate to streamers. Even though the owners still suck massively, of course
What’s nebula? Where can I find it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula_(streaming_service)
It has a bunch of popular YouTube channels.
It doesn’t really have a recommendation engine but if you already have a bunch of creators on there it’s a cheap way to go as free.
They also have a bunch of Nebula exclusive series, like the guy who makes Not Just Bikes going to cities and trying all their transit in one day.
Alright thanks, will check it out
Make sure to sign up via a creator’s link! (the ones they’ll put in the sponsored section of a video where they are “sponsored” by Nebula as one of Nebula’s creators)
Gets you a pretty good discount and drops it to about 30 bucks a year.
Businesses pay youtube to show ads and viewers pay youtube to not show ads.
I want to be the tube
We should rather start paying the content creators on some other ad free platform.
Isnt that what Floatplane is? I’m broke so I can’t find out lol
The funny part is that the people who can afford to buy the products in the ads are the ones paying to not have ads.
I don’t pay not to watch ads. Especially as “paying for no ads” has long turned into “watch less but precisely selected ads”.
