Really interesting read about the history of YouTube adblocking, how the new detection works, how uBO is responding, and how not to block the new popups.
EDIT: as I wrote here, I am quite confident that my YT account has already been “rolled out” because of the many ads in the last 5–7 days. Before, I had 1 or 2 before some videos; now there are also pop-ups. I have made some experiments with VPNs (Mullvad) and browsers in several fresh VMs. uBOL works differently than the standard uBO and, from what I’ve seen, it seems to work fine. I’ll just stop repeating that.
Comments like these is literally the first thing the article warns against.
YouTube is doing this in a staggered and flaky rollout. Seeing the videos fine as an anecdote is no indication of anything. The only people who can claim a method works are those who have gained access to affected accounts, know how they’re affected, and have issued a fix.
I didn’t pay much attention about the warning in the article, you’re right. 😅 I’ll edit the post since I’ve been too concise, and I have a lot of negative downvotes. I am quite confident that my YT account has already been “rolled out” because of the many ads in the last 5–7 days. Before, I had 1 or 2 before some videos; now there are also pop-ups. I have made some experiments with VPNs (Mullvad) and browsers in several fresh VMs. uBOL works differently than the standard uBO and, from what I’ve seen, it seems to work fine. I’ll just stop repeating that.
This is wrong. If it’s working, it may be just because YT hasn’t rolled their adblock defeating code to you just yet. And other extensions may interfere with uBOL and cause it to stop working. Even there aren’t other extensions running, the built-in tracking protection in the browser can sometimes trip YT’s code. The uBO reddit post (written by the author of uBOL) points out that YT changes the relevant scripts twice a day, so even if you have a perfect setup, there are going to be windows of time where it doesn’t work.
IOW, you can’t just install another extension and make the problem go away. Your whole setup matters.
uBO team (2 people) should not be responding to questions on reddit or elsewhere. They should just update the filters and post a "extension updated, should work again now".
In the end, Youtube will win if they want to win. Google can throw unconscionable amounts of money at their techs to fight the adblockers while the volunteers spend their attention and patience.
Pretty sure there are still Methods to get free access to satellite TV channels (the paid encrypted ones, I’m aware that there are Free channels) the methods just changed from how it was done in the old days, nowadays you need internet to download the keys, which kind of defeats the purpose since you could just use a Free IPTV service on that same connection.
Also Satellite has fallen out of favor these days.
Realistically there is an equation money lost by ad blockers vs money gained by making ad blocking harder (money in - dev cost) unless its about sending a message.
Yeah. I don’t see the moderator leaving as a huge loss or anything because the fight against misinformation and noise in inglorious and full of people who refuse to help themselves. They have a life demanding their concern, and as far as I care, if they finally ripped the bandaid and went and focused on that life of theirs, then the world has become a better place.
That is our win condition. To make it so costly for them that they bail on the idea. Because if we don’t, then it’s one step closer to their internet: locked down, hidden charges everywhere and content under their terms.
This isn’t just about ads, it’s about keeping information free.
Well there’s a very realistic 3rd option where people get tired of the cat and mouse game and either suck it up and watch the ads or pony up for YouTube premium…?
The point is to make adblocking so tedious that only fairly tech literate people would do it. That cousin whose pc you set up and installed uBO on? They won’t figure out how to update the filters, they will just whitelist (or realistically just turn off uBO) or premium.
Basically nobody will actually abandon YT over this and those who do will be so low in numbers it is ~0 to YT.
I don’t think we should underestimate the savvy programmers out there, who are just as fed up with ads as the rest of us.
And at this point, most of the cousins who don’t know how to update their adblocker are already there. It’s a matter of time. YT won’t keep pouring money into this. Just long enough to the “balance the books.” When the ‘number of viewed ads’ start slowing down again and they’ve hit their max viewership, they’ll call off the hounds.
The other options (especially LibreTube) are much better for Privacy as they don’t include any Google trackers and LibreTube doesn’t even connect to Google servers. It proxies everything through a Piped server, meaning Google never sees your IP address or any other connection details. It’s basically anonymized YouTube.
Sure, but you don’t really lose anything by using privacy-oriented solutions like LibreTube. It’s just a really nice YouTube client for Android, it also has SponsorBlock and DeArrow integration, a nice and convenient download feature and many other things
I’m losing my tailored recommendations. And yes, I’m compromising my privacy for them, but I find value in that trade. I suppose I could open the official app, scroll my feed, and still open the videos in another front end, but as long as ReVanced exists I’ll take the easier route. And it has sponsorblock and newpipe integration for downloads.
You can create an account on a Piped instance and use it to sync your subscriptions and playlists. You can also log into your account when using LibreTube on Android. Invidious also allows for account creation, but I’m not aware of any mobile apps allowing to connect to it.
Could be luck, but of those I only found Viewtube and Freetube to be responsive at this time of day to a live stream (the others either loaded endlessly or said they couldn't load the page)
That was only of the web/desktop ones.
Freetube seems to support youtube chat as well, which the others don't.
Smart tube next has always worked on TV with live and live chat. Usually newpipe works with live just hard to find the videos, usually end up pasting YT links.
There used to be one, but it was shut down. IMO there shouldn’t be an ‘official’ instance, users should be evenly distributed across instances and everything should be decentralized. The same goes for Mastodon or Lemmy, having most users concentrated on mastodon.social or lemmy.ml is not good. Centralization is pretty much always bad, but it’s the only model of how services on the internet work that new users coming from centralized platforms understand. It’s sad and unfortunate, but we might be able to change that. The more terrible decisions are made by corporations, the more successful will free and open source, decentralized software be. We saw it with Mastodon when Musk bought Twitter, we saw it again with Lemmy when Reddit was fucked by spez.
This is the answer. I use Newpipe on mobile and Invidious on desktop. I dont even know what youtube ads look like. I run it all behind a pihole just to be sure. Works like a dream.
I use newpipe x sponsorblock, invidious, and pinhole as well, but it’s worth pointing out to those unfamiliar- pihole does nothing for YouTube ads. Pihole is great for sites that add google ads or random junk to their pages, it has no ability to block ads that come from the same domain as a sites content because it is DNS based.
Personally, I prefer LibreTube on my phone and Piped on desktop. I also use NextDNS when I’m on the go and Pi-Hole when I’m at home. I haven’t used an official YouTube app or website for the last 2 years.
LibreTube isn’t broken, it’s the Piped instances that have issues. You just need to switch to another Piped instance in the settings. Click on the three dots, then select settings, go to ‘Instance’ and at the top you can hit ‘Choose…’ to change the Piped instance. I haven’t experienced any issues with adminforge.de. kavin.rocks also seems to work well.
I want to avoid solutions that involve using the YouTube app/website (including modded YouTube apps like Revanced or browser addons to use on the website)
Youtube Premium? The creators do get more than the standard ad-supported viewer and you don’t get any ads.
I get that we’re all trying to not see ads without paying money but I do acknowledge their infrasturucture and the feats they have accomplished trying to turn a profit. When youtube vanced was pulled, I did try reVanced for a while but eventually went with Premium.
I’m not saying you should get Premium and give up the fight, I’m aaying consider your usage of Youtube and whether if you can drop it or not. In my case I don’t watch TV or movie streaming platforms (not even on demand) and so Youtube is my primary video consumption platform and it made sense for me to pay.
Whether if I’ll switch to another country’s pricing by using a VPN or not, that’s for me to consider.
I absolutely hate Google and won’t ever give them even a single penny. If there’s a creator I like, I support them through Patreon, Ko-fi, Liberapay or preferably anonymous crypto currency like Monero.
Okay, good on ya. Hate Google on as much as you want.
I don’t have an infinite supply of income to be able to support their lowest monthpy subscription tiers of all my favourite creators, which ends up being the same financial issue with paying for multiple exclusive platforms, but for creators instead.
Even if I do support my most favourite of the most deserving creators, I don’t have the time to reap their benefits (eg. WIPs, streams, etc) as I already am consuming and enjoying their works that they publicly release. The only exception to this is exclusive content that isn’t posted on Youtube - which even then some creators do release them eventually.
You could probably take whatever premium costs each month and spread it around different creators you like each month. That may be more effort than is worth it to you but I’d bet they’d get more money from you still.
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