I keep noticing people in this thread recommending UBlock Origin, with others replying that they eventually got a popup to turn off their adblocker.
This is usually followed by replies mentioning they just click X (or add a UBlock filter on the popup), and go on with watching Youtube. No problem, right?
According to Ublock Origin’s Redd*t Post, that is just the first warning stage; eventually the presentation of their anti-adblock message becomes more intrusive until you receive the “The in-player message. Playback is stopped.”
I should know. I get that message on any Youtube video (while logged in), and it doesn’t go away for several hours.
That said, my workaround (extremely hacky) was to find the RSS feeds for all of my channel subscriptions, and then add them to FreshRSS. That section of my RSS feed essentially acts like a Youtube subscription page, but not tied to an actual account.
On my computer: I watch them in a private browser Firefox profile I’ve dedicated solely to Youtube (and has all of the extensions already installed, of course).
On Android: I watch them using NewPipe.
Ublock orgins on Firefox has worked for me so far on both pc and mobile. No warnings.
I do also have umatrix on pc, but I can’t really recommend it for everyone since it requires some setup on every web page which most people would find too annoying.
Previously I had the warnings until uBlock killed them. Only one has made it through in recent times, we’ll see how things keep going.
I’m never going to pay to see ads in my life. Nope.
Sadly I do so every week when going to the cinema
Go 20 minutes late my dude
Yeah, horrible innit? When I used to go to the cinema as a kid in the 70s and 80s, you’d get maybe ten minutes of trailers before your film. And I never minded that, I don’t dislike watching trailers. These days, totally different. Last time I went to the cinema there was maybe half an hour of ads. Some trailers, but mostly just advertisements for crap.
It is so fuckin disrespectful to their customers. If I wanted to see all that bullshit, I could have stayed home and watched it on TV. Except I don’t watch TV because the experience is so poor - largely because of ads.
I understand that cinemas have been struggling ever since covid, even before, and I understand that advertising revenue pays the bills. But cinema isn’t cheap, for me it’s an occasional treat when there’s something I really wanna see on the big screen. I do not want to spend that much money and get treated like a fuckin farm animal being fed crap. Wankers.
I can’t be alone in feeling this way, who wants to pay to see ads? Who thinks that sounds like a great evening out? It ruins the experience, and it’s insulting, by the time the movie starts I’m angry. I’d rather pay a bit more and just have a couple of trailers.
I recently went to a small autonomous cinema with a mate and saw Mulholland Drive. Great experience, comfy seats, could bring in drinks from the bar, no fuckin ads. But for new films there aren’t many options. So I don’t often go to the cinema.
Sorry for this long and bitter diatribe! You just hit on something that really pisses me off too.
I haven’t gone to a movie in like… 10 years probably. Ha…
I’m self-hosting Invidious… I get a nice, free YouTube experience without ever visiting YouTube.
Wasn’t aware of this, that’s awesome. Unfortunately it would need to be able to cast to various HTPCs and be easy enough for my family to use to fully replace YouTube in my house.
get ublock or revanced
Wait, so I was right?
I will pay only when Google ensure that my data will not be used for any type of advertising or AI training (this obviously includes selling to third parties). Months ago I read around, I don’t know if it’s true, that even those with a premium account will see ads. If that proves true, it means I will never make the subscription. It’s pretty simple.
To remove ads subscribe to Youtube Premium Platinum Plutonium and select the Ad-Free! add-on (for only an additional $2.95/mo)*.
*promotional first-month price only; increases after 30 days to regular rate of $5.95/mo **
**with annual subscription only; per-month rate $7.95/mo ***
*** with VIP subscription only; regular rate $11.95/mo.
Oh good, we’re not up to having to provide bone marrow (yet).
Or use stube on android tv and recanced on phones. One of the reasons I can’t go to iOS.
I had to go iOS because of… reasons,but you can sideload modded youtube app, with sponsorblock. exactly as on android,but with many headaches like token expiry every week and other bullshit issues like google not allowing IPAs directly in github repos.
Lame, but it can be done.
####These terms of service can only be updated by GOOGLE at anytime with or without notice. You hearby agree to this term of service and, any and all updates, without review, made by GOOGLE to the terms of service.####
*By enabling the VIP package in addition, we guarantee to not update the TOS more than once every second.
I would actually pay for YT premium if it was reasonably priced and I think there are many like me. Why are they shooting themselves in the foot?
Because of the desire for infinite growth. The line must go up 💹
I’ll never pay for until until 1. It’s reasonably priced, 2. Downvotes are returned and 3 sponsor block is integrated into the app.
Can I add 4. the integrated video downloader actually downloads videos, in whatever format you would want, and with no internet connection required to watch them. This to me is still the biggest scam ‘feature’ of Youtube Premium. You can ‘’‘download’‘’ videos, but not as eg. an mp4, but as an encrypted file only playable inside the Youtube app, and only if you connected to the internet in the last couple of days can you play it.
That’s not downloading, that’s just jacking my disk space to avoid buffering the video from Youtube’s servers. That’s not a feature, that’s me paying for Youtube’s benefit.
I cancelled and haven’t paid for Premium in years because of it. When someone scams me out of features I paid for, I don’t reward that shit until they either stop lying in their feature list, or actually start delivering.
Sponsor block is not going to be included as those are not controlled by YouTube. They are the Chanel’s sponsorship.
Well they need to do something because those sponsor segments are fucking ads.
They do have chapters which could allow creators to separate sponsor ads into a skippable segments. Some of them even actually do it.
I actually paid for it for a bit after I got a few months free with a Pixel a while ago. And it was pretty good and reasonably priced.
Then they started removing features (no dislike bar for you lol) and raising the price and I’m never giving them a single goddamn cent or not using a block on their shit.
I’ve since cancelled and transitioned from workspace or whatever they call it now and use Revanced, ublock origin, etc. They actually had my money and they fucked it. Never again. Get fucked, Google and the shit huffing execs in charge of it.
It’s never enough for these people. They want all of your money and they won’t stop until they have it. Fucking blood suckers.
If you use yt music and watch YouTube as your main entertainment, it’s well worth it imo.
With that said, I’ve been degoogling and this is probably the one I won’t be able to break.
Same here. YT is the only Google owned service I still use. I personally don’t mind the cost, since I watch a lot and wish to support the people that make the content. I would love a proper alternative but I don’t see that happen any time soon.
Yeah, rumble seems like the only viable alternative and they got lambasted for hosting so much right wing conspiracy nuts when it first launched lol
Edit: Guys. I think a lot of you missed where I said EASIEST METHODS.
Easiest methods to ditch Youtube ads:
- PC: Firefox + uBlock Origin
- Mac, option 1: Safari + AdGuard
- Mac, option 2: Firefox + uBlock Origin
- Android, option 1: Youtube ReVanced (FYI: ALL Play Store listings for this are fake; the official site is revanced.app and is the only place to get it)
- Android, option 2: Firefox Mobile + uBlock Origin
- iPhone/iPad: Safari + AdGuard
For those who may have heard about Pi-hole and are wondering why it’s not on this list: PI-HOLE DOES NOT BLOCK YOUTUBE ADS. IT NEVER HAS AND NEVER WILL.
I use IgeBlock on Android. It has the banner ads, but not the video ads, so it’s pretty good if you don’t wanna deal with Revanced
uBlock on mobile Firefox gets rid of all the ads though.
That, and Revanced isn’t difficult to set up:
- Disable stock youtube app
- Grab the recommended .apk version from APKMirror
- Patch it with Revanced manager
- Install it
Done.
Android, option 3 (Better): newpipe from fdroid. 0% algorithmic feed, exclusively show who you’re following, in chronological order
How does Newpipe work? It feels too good to be free.
How does Newpipe work?
Yeah, this will work for a while but I think the days have gotta be numbered.
Best long term solution? Leave YouTube.
I guess in the meantime: if on PC grab the freetube flatpak. Really decent client, anonymous and create subscriptions without actually subscribing.
Youtube ReVanced
Revanced still Relies on G services
Also, Theres this very unknown app Called Freetube for all plattforms or newpipe for Android
I tried Freetube for a while, but it just never works. An actual coin flip each day whether or not anything would load at all. I got so tired of it I just went back to Youtube, as I’ve only ever seen one single ad in my entire time using uBlock Origin on Librewolf.
Google is constantly making changes that break it, the developers fix them quickly… but if your distro doesn’t keep the newest version in their repo then you’d have to install it from their git repo.
Generally they have a patch for any breaking changes within the day.
I use it consistently with few issues. Once in a while, usually on Thursdays (when it seems YT rolls out changes), something breaks, but the devs are quick to fix it. The last issue I experienced was when YT transitioned to SABR, and it was out for a day or two before they had things working again. I am at least perfectly capable of going without for a day once every two months.
It’s also one of the projects I’ve used to learn more about how fixes are worked on in FOSS. I will typically run nightly builds also - I find it pretty cool to follow an issue and once they push a fix I can instantly grab that fresh build without waiting for it to be packaged.
If you want to give it a try again, get mpv and yt-dlp installed in your system then activate from Freetube settings the external player button, which you’ll be able to click from search or from a vid page
Revanced uses microG, which is optional. I also mentioned that these were the easiest methods. But, you’re absolutely right in that there are plenty of other methods to choose from.
Mac also has the excellent Orion Browser where you can install uBlock origin
You can also use the Orion browser with Ublock Origin on iPhone.
Can I block youtube ads with a transparent proxy like squid ? What about a self-hosted youtube auto-downloading queue list ? I’m fine with .mp4 files !
deleted by creator
I think it is extremely hard because they are served from the same servers (technically, ads are YouTube videos)
And if the logic on the client isn’t removed, it will hang waiting for the ad
Can I block youtube ads with a transparent proxy like squid ?
I haven’t tried that, so I’m not entirely sure. I just focused on the easy methods that most people will gravitate towards.
Try it and let us know what you find!
What about a self-hosted youtube auto-downloading queue list ? I’m fine with .mp4 files !
Sounds like
yt-dlp. Lots of people use that to get around ads, and also for data hoarding.
Ironic that just yesterday I was getting blocked on youtube telling me that adblocking was illegal/against tos/whatever and that if i didnt want Ads I could subscribe to Youtube Premium… only now to announce ads on premium.
What a fucking shithole company.
edit
and they continue to take no accountability for failing to police their own ads, thus creating the essential need for adblocking services in the first place.
WE WOULDNT BE BLOCKING ADS IF YOU REGULATED ADVERTISERS LIKE YOU ARE TRYING TO REGULATE VIEWERS.
WE WOULDNT BE BLOCKING ADS IF YOU REGULATED ADVERTISERS LIKE YOU ARE TRYING TO REGULATE VIEWERS.
I still would.
Damn, you pay and still get ads? Does that count as findom? Like it feels very cucky, doesn’t it?
It’s like cable TV, pay $100+/mo just to watch ads
Also starting to spread on the cheapest plans of streaming services like Prime and Netflix.
When options like uBlock and FreeTube no longer block ads, I’ll stop watching YouTube. They’ll never get a cent out of me.
If it weren’t Google, I wouldn’t be against paying. Fuck Google.
if ublock origin stops working, you can erase your youtube cookies or wait a few hours for a ublock origin update to work around it.
YouTube already had too many ads, and I stopped using as a result. That was several months ago. I guess I’ll just have to stop using it even harder.
Adblock/revanced are working. Google’s ad revenue is getting squeezed and so they need to shoehorn more ads everywhere to get the same revenue levels, since so many people never see the ads.
Keep using them. You’re making business really difficult for scummy Google.
Adblock, maybe a noticeable fraction on desktop, but Revanced users are within a rounding error of the total users, surely?
I feel like both populations are now dwarfed by the numbers watching YT on their TV’s built-in apps, which throw demented amounts of ads at you.
The $ revenue share to creators per video view has dropped, even though the percentage of Google’s ad revenue shared with the creator has remained the same. So to me this means Google is earning less per video view. (That could also be just a result of the ad market in general collapsing, eg advertisers just pay less)
Also, Google has added new requirements to get the video share. You need to post new videos at a regular cadence, or they kick you out–even if your old videos are still getting views. (began being enforced in 2023, I think). Its another way they can keep their revenue numbers looking OK by cutting a cost associated with older videos.
Google has also escalated their efforts to make it more difficult to view content without also viewing the ads.
So maybe its wishful thinking, but I think they are feeling the squeeze.
Unfortunately unlike the reddit or twitter situations its significantly harder to accumulate enough fresh video content to attract the views necessary to get the ball rolling and make a shift away from YouTube.
I’m dating this person and we were watching YT and she didn’t have any ad blocker up and I was fucking blown away
freetube still works great! no ads, and an easy to use interface.
And it has an Android fork (FreeTube Android), and can have playlists, subscriptions etc. synced across devices with Syncthing. It does sometimes result in sync conflicts though, but if you reload it before using it on a device, you will be fine. Most sync conflicts I get are for history, and that’s fine by me to lose some history.
wtf is premium lite?!!? Lmao
it’s the opposite of Economy Plus
Oh so you pay to be abused, gotcha.
