Comment on Inside the 'arms race' between YouTube and ad blockers / Against all odds, open source hackers keep outfoxing one of the wealthiest companies.

• clara@feddit.uk ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  the current solution for that would be similar to the current “sponsor block” plugins, here’s an example

  crowdsourced start and endpoints for embedded sponsorships

  something like this tool, but for future embedded google adverts

  source

  • tiller@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Without talking about the resources it would require, youtube could totally only serve the ad until it has been “watched”. And no amount of sponsor block or similar software would help. These software only work because they allow you to navigate the video. If they decide that you have to fully download a 30s ad video, and that you can’t ask for the video for the first 30s, then you wouldn’t be able to do anything (or at the very max, just hide the ad and wait 30s on a blank screen).

    source

    • affiliate@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      then you wouldn’t be able to do anything (or at the very max, just hide the ad and wait 30s on a blank screen

      i would choose the blank screen over watching an ad, every single time

      source

      • oatscoop@midwest.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Or the adblock could buffer the video and play it on a delay ad free. People will be fine with doing something else for a minute.

        Better yet, have it done in the background – particularly for new videos on channels you’re subscribed to.

        source
      • r3df0x@7.62x54r.ru ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        People could do that out of protest, and upload videos as proof of them doing it. Advertisers would start pulling out if they think they’re being ripped off like that.

        Eventually at some point, the nuclear option would be if the government decided that sending back false information saying an ad had been viewed is computer fraud.

        source

        • -> View More Comments
    • AceSLS@ani.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Even if they did that it’s not impossible to find some exploits. No software is free of bugs which can be exploited, especially networked ones which are often finicky because they have many systems in place to pretend flawless execution. Just look at the TCP protocol, it’s dropping packets left and right but users usually don’t notice because they get spammed till one gets through

      source
    • Corgana@startrek.website ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      How do those extensions that skip download countdown timers work then?

      source

      • laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Those are usually handled by JavaScript being run on the client side, I think, so it just speeds that up

        source

        • -> View More Comments
• rottingleaf@lemmy.zip ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  All other hope forlorn, there’s still ML to recognize and cut out ads.

  Or one can download the same video with as many as possible metrics different, so that ads would be different, and then compare the two videos. Ugh.

  source