YouTube’s Ad Blocker Crackdown Is Getting Harder to Dodge::The video platform now requires users to disable their ad blockers with an immovable pop-up.

  • BombOmOm@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Currently without issue using Firefox and uBlock Origin. No complaints from YouTube nor ads.

      • Sludgehammer@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I’ve been having intermittent problems while using Firefox. Of course, all I need to do is clear the Ublock’s filters and re-load them.

        Oddly, my brother who uses the same ad-blocker as me and Chrome hasn’t gotten a anti-AdBlock nag screen for months. No idea why.

      • QueriesQueried@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        Honestly the process to get ublock origin working is identical between the two of them, so being a chrome user doesn’t really make it any harder. Obviously still a better idea to switch, but for that specific problem, its the same.

    • uwe@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      It’s being rolled out in waves. Seems like you haven’t been hit yet.

      • Grenfur@lemmy.one
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        11 months ago

        I had been using Ghostery Dawn for ages. Got the pop-ups. Couldn’t get around them. Switched to just firefox with ublock, no more ads. Can confirm it does work.

    • RojoSanIchiban@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I was having issues requiring cache dump/updates daily both on a Windows 10 machine with FF/UO and on an ipad with Brave and Orion (which can use UO) including total cookie wipes. Win 11 machines never blinked.

      The last couple days or so, I’ve not seen the block message anywhere. Fun stuff.

    • JackFrostNCola@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I had to use element picker mode to select the popup to make it go away, but now i have two issues:

      1. I cant scroll down after a second of the page loading.
      2. Autoplay does not work on playlists
    • jsdz@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      Unless you’re doing something unusual, it’s probably because you’re browsing youtube without being logged in.

      • thatsthespirit@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Can’t say that’s it’s been working perfectly both on my iPhone and on my iPad, but it’s certainly helped a lot.

      • RojoSanIchiban@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Nice, this is one of the primary reasons I haven’t used Safari in my Apple noobness, relying on Brave and another browser for YT ad blocking. Going to give this a try too.

        • wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I switched to it from NewPipe w SponsorBlock (fork) when it went public for testing. For a prerelease it does everything I need, except SB functionality. Hoping that is in the pipeline.

          • Chris@lemmy.ml
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            11 months ago

            Subscription feed works for you? When I imported my subs it said the subscription feed is disabled to due to issues with YouTube API limits. Getting nebula in my home feed is nice though. Mostly still on NP+SB in the meantime.

            • wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              It does, yep - I just opened it and it already had a video posted just 11 minutes ago. There have been a couple bugs I’ve found and reported but it’s all small, out-of-the-way stuff. I have around 65 yt channels I follow.

    • noodlejetski@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      when following the guide for Yattee, does it serve as a drop-in replacement for the Youtube app, i.e. does it open Youtube links from other apps and everything? I don’t use iOS, but I’d like to know how viable it would be as a recommendations for my friend who do.

      • Free Palestine 🇵🇸@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        I don’t use iOS anymore and I don’t exactly remember how Yattee behaves. Just recommend them to try it out, they can always look for another solution if this doesn’t work.

  • Kedly@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    It really isnt getting harder to dodge past the initial recent push. “Go to settings, purge cache, refresh list, refresh youtube” is just as many steps today as it was when this recent push started

    • Knightfox@lemmy.one
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      11 months ago

      Big thing that helps is switching off of Chrome. I’ve been seeing a lot of people say that we should stop using Chrome and I just hadn’t gotten around to it. Once the YouTube adblocker started picking up Ublock Origin even after clearing the cache I hard switched to Fire Fox and installed Ublock Origin.

      I have not cleared my cache once and I haven’t seen a single ad.

      • Bulletdust@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Firefox + uBlock Origin + PiHole = I’m wondering what all the fuss is about. I haven’t seen a single adblocker warning on YouTube yet.

        Stop using browsers based on Chromium people, it’s not that hard.

    • AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 months ago

      This. I’ve gotten this popup about four times since this happened, telling me the video player was blocked because I had an adblocker still. Each time, I purged cache and updated and it went away.

    • barbecue_sprinkler@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      YouTube had a good humble beginning before monetization fucked everything up. It was a bad idea to begin with. For now, best stick with piped and all the apps that use piped as backend. NewPipe and LibreTube. Want to support a creator? Go buy merch or something. Dont give Google a second of your time.

        • CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml
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          11 months ago

          I read this as monetization being the bad idea, and that is basically the same thing as being capitalismed to death.

          • TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            So the amount of up front investment required for something on an infrastructure level is massive. It’s the type of thing that really needs to be centralized, because it isn’t just storage. It’s massive amounts of bandwidth, a distributed content distribution network close to your end users(which is even harder on a global scale).

            Don’t get me wrong I don’t think the purely profit driven nature of YouTube is healthy at all. It’s an active detriment. But it’s hard to think of another practical way that isn’t hellaciously expensive.

            • Shard@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              I totally get that they had to find some way to financially support the massive infrastructure that was necessary to do what YouTube does.

              I was fine with an ad every now and then.

              I was fine with an ad at the start and end of a long video.

              Ads on a 30s video? Ads on an Ad? Multiple ads at the start, multiple ads in-between and at the end? Jesus h. Christ. Removing the dislike button?

              That was when I switched to ReVanced.

      • jackalope@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        I switched back to ff in 2018 but then switched back to chrome after it deleted my bookmarks sporadically for the 5th time. I’ve logged bugs about it too.

      • V0lD@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I will when they finally fix dragging tabs between windows

        Edit: I’m not saying the operation isn’t functional, I’m saying it lacks certain small visual feedback aspects like popping a tab out into a new window while dragging. This in and of itself isn’t breaking, but Firefox had a lot of rough edges like that every time I used it, and I’m using this specific one as a benchmark to judge if I should give the browser a shot again

          • V0lD@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            To some extend, yes. But convenience and workflow trumps both.for example, I moved to DuckDuckGo a while back. Not because of privacy, but because Google kept removing customisation options, and it’s search results where getting worse and worse.

            • Kedly@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              I mean, no ads on youtube is HELLA more convenient than ads on youtube

              • V0lD@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                I agree

                I’m using chrome, sponsorblock and adblock+. Google hasn’t told me to turn it off yet.

                Maybe it’s because I’m in the EU?

                If it starts becoming a problem, I intend to look into writing a pull request to fix the firefox UX issues

                • Kedly@lemm.ee
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                  11 months ago

                  Fair enough! In that case I also wouldn’t be pressured to jump ship, in fact the only reason I jumped back to firefox in the first place was because chrome couldnt handle the amount of tabs I had and they started crashing

          • V0lD@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Popping out a tab doesn’t turn it into a draggable window, but just into cursor basic cursor held object. This gives no visual feedback on what is actually happening and makes the whole operation much less visually clear

            It’s a small thing, but in the times I tried Firefox, I noticed a lot of these rough edges to the point that it became frustrating to use. I’m using this specific one as a benchmark for when I’m willing to give it a shot again

              • V0lD@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                You’re all getting quite hung up about someone voicing that they’re not ready to switch to your preferred browser tbh

                Like, it’s not that you are negatively affected by me having UX preferences

                • TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee
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                  11 months ago

                  It’s a small potatoes means that’s it’s extremely inexpensive and misses the big bag of perfectly good, if not above average potatoes

        • systemglitch@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Strangely nit-picky. The reason this matters to you is because you are used to it. It’s so small an aspect of the browser though that you would forget about it quickly. Imo of course. I never even noticed this when I changed and I use the function many times a day.

          • V0lD@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Correct, it matters to me

            So, as long as Firefox doesn’t really offer something that in my opinion outways all it’s UX issues, I am not inclined to switch

            Looking at my score, appearantly that is offensive though

    • Bongles@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      But that’s the only benefit of premium (on YouTube itself). I guess there are still YouTube originals but that kind of died as far as I can tell.

      • Strayce@lemmy.sdf.org
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        11 months ago

        Yes. And? You think they care? Premium isn’t there to benefit you, it’s there to benefit Google. As soon as the money stops coming in, they’ll look for other ways to squeeze it. We’re already seeing it with streaming providers shoehorning ads into their paid services. It’s not that much of a stretch.

      • hypertown@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        The only benefit now, but what if they start to serve 30 non-skippable ads without premium and ONLY 5 with premium, what a deal! Right? If you hate ads you can just buy higher tier for ONLY $5 more.

        Let’s just keep fingers crossed for ublock…

  • Somecall_metim@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    11 months ago

    Switched to Freetube and convinced my dad too as well. No ads, no algorithms, no shit yt search that never works. We’re chilling.

  • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    Probably jinxing myself here, but I have yet to have a single problem. Linux, Firefox, ublock origin.

  • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    11 months ago

    Stop using butt adblockers. There’s a reason why UBO has the highest amount of downloads, is a recommended extension, and is the highest rated extension on both chromium and firefox.

  • Gekoloniseerd@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I’ve just installed Yattee for IOS. It works great. There was a post for this a day ago? Also for other platforms. Fuck YouTube.

  • zkfcfbzr@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    μBlock Origin works for me still (Firefox), but I had to remove my custom filter to remove Shorts from the Subscription page - seems like they can detect it if I have any YT-specific rules.

    I’ve got FreeTube set up as a backup in case μBlock does ever fail - but its lack of tabs really make me not want to use it as my primary access yet. I think they could benefit a lot from creating a browser-based UI, kind of like what Plex has.

  • BeautifulMind ♾️@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Weird. I’ve been running AdBlock and AdGuard for years and nary an issue with youtube. I just never see ads there.

    FWIW it was only when I added a vpn to my mix that I started being made to submit to captchas whenever I do anything like search

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    11 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    After beginning to roll out a healthy nudge to turn off ad blockers or subscribe to the platform’s ad-free Premium offering, YouTube is now forcing users’ hands.

    As users continue to trawl the depths of YouTube, they will now be greeted with a pop-up warning them to disable their ad blocker saying “video playback is blocked unless YouTube is allowlisted or the ad blocker is disabled.” This notification began popping up for users across the platform earlier this month, but it was as simple as shrugging it off by closing out the message.

    Shortly thereafter, YouTube forced users to acknowledge the message but still allowed them to exit out of it after a brief timer elapsed.

    YouTube communications manager Christopher Lawton told The Verge Tuesday that using an ad blocker is actually against the platform’s terms of service.

    He also told the outlet that “ads support a diverse ecosystem of creators globally and allow billions to access their favorite content on YouTube.”

    Around the same time, the company reported its third straight quarterly decline in ad revenue, according to The Wall Street Journal.


    The original article contains 320 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 43%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!