I’ve started bulk downloading videos with yt-dlp and watching them locally. No ads or throttling to deal with.
Google is intentionally throttling YouTube videos, slowing down users with ad blockers
Submitted 3 weeks ago by mesamunefire@piefed.social to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/streaming-video/google-throttling-youtube-adblock-users
Comments
SpicyTaint@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
This is the way.
When YouTube wanted to throw me some entertainment and a couple ads, very conveniently, I was down for that.
Now that it’s an all out technology knowledge battle - well, I’m quite good at that.
So I spend the time I would have laughed at their ad instead working around their bullshit.
I haven’t seen an ad in years, but I still enjoy the same content. 🤷♀️
To me, it seems like they’re working really hard, just to fail to serve me ads.
Psythik@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I would but my issue with that is that SponsorBlock doesn’t work on downloaded videos.
B_DL@lemmynsfw.com 3 weeks ago
I’m new to yt-dlp. Care to share your flags? I’m a little confused on which ones I actually need.
SpicyTaint@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m a filthy Windows user that’s too lazy to migrate my main PC to Fedora.
> Path\to\yt-dlp.exe -P <target directory> <URL>Multiple URLs can be separated by spaces. Put any URLs with ampersands in quotes or remove the ampersand and following arguments.
OwlPaste@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I like github.com/ArabCoders/ytptube gui. Only started using it yesterday, so far for indovidual videos. However it looks like it can also watch new videos being uploaded, thought not tried it myself.
Use docker compose for quick deployment
Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
DVRs are back in 2025. Who would have thought?
gruhuken@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
I’ve been doing this with band love videos and storing them on a hard drive. One I love for taken down and almost lost a whole back and it’s made me paranoid ha
SinkingLotus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’d sooner spend five minutes waiting for the video to buffer than five seconds watching an ad
desertdruid@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Welcome back to 2007
Fizz@lemmy.nz 3 weeks ago
Make me wait 5 mins on a black screen and I’ll do that before watching an ad.
frenchfryenjoyer@lemmings.world 3 weeks ago
A wild YouTube appeared!
Go, uBlock Origin!
Wild YouTube used Throttle!
It’s not very effective…
uBlock Origin used Evolve!
It’s super effective!
YouTube fainted!
JohneryCreatives@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This made me laugh. I wonder which one will prevail in the end
Banana@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Piracy always prevails
AlreadyDefederated@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
mesamunefire@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Very good news!!
Shaper@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Is it possible to post the same video both to youtube and peertube without trouble? I wonder if this is prohibited cause I think many creators would mirror their content to peertube if they could.
Phegan@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Ive been commenting on creators videos asking them to upload elsewhere as well. I doubt it will work, but we could try
MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
A lot of my favorites are already on Nebula. I’d ask the rest to follow but that would require a google account.
LeTak@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
I also asked some creators, but they can’t because of the Google partnership Programm, it prohibits reupload on other platforms
cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Great idea. Eventually, and if enough ask, it could be a thing.
atlien51@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I love how you’re just doing your bit lol
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I watched videos on Newgrounds using dial-up
They are going to have to slow ad blockers by a lot for me to consider it slow
mesamunefire@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
My wife and I were discussing this. This isnt "slow" to us, its just a tiny bit inconvenient. We were used to the old AOL pictures taking a good minute or two to load.
We would get rid of Youtube before we get ads.
catty@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Ahh seeing images load line-by-line and you get excited as you can actually start to tell what the image is!
whome@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
So it’s wait a few seconds and watch a black screen or watch a minute of ads? What a choice…
lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I’ve been seeing this for a couple weeks now along with a popup telling me “ad blockers aren’t allowed” at work where I’m forced to use Chrome. I have UBlock Lite installed. Typically a refresh takes care of the popup and a 10 second delay later, the video loads.
OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
uBlock Lite is simply not as potent, so it’s understandable it can be beaten. Almost like Google is abusing their monopoly
lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I run portable Firefox on my work PC. I refuse to use chrome. some of our apps require Edge, but outside of that, I don’t touch chrome.
myreel@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I switched to Firefox basically as soon as ublock origin didn’t work on chrome. It was easier than I thought it would be.
Grizzlyboy@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
God damn American companies love fucking up everything for money!
elucubra@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Just Americans?
VoteNixon2016@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Nestlé: I have done nothing wrong, ever, in my life.
KyuubiNoKitsune@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
American flavoured capitalism has poisoned the well.
Lazer365@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
We can live without YouTube, they can’t live without us.
cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
They can’t cause they already don’t have us 😂. This is their way to try and get you into their money making fold.
oh_@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
“Do evil.” Google’s official new slogan.
lud@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
That’s true but I wouldn’t really classify this as evil.
Serving videos isn’t easy or cheap. It’s hard and expensive.
I obviously use an adblocker everywhere and so should you.
But saying that Google or anyone else is doing anything wrong by blocking adblockers is ridiculous. When they finally succeed, I will just accept that I finally lost after many many years. My usage of YouTube will likely go down substantially as well. Crying about it after you have used their service for free for YEARS, really makes no sense.
stellargmite@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You’re right, but also They get alot more from the deal than you acknowledge. The service has never been free. They already had a profitable model, and now they want even more. I call it evil, but in a sense it’s standard corporate behaviour.
amju_wolf@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
They can get fucked. A while ago O was like you know what let’s give them money, seems only fair. So I finally subscribed, and then like a month later they sent me an email they’re raising the prices effective immediately - basically changing the deal on me without any delay.
So I unsubscribed, because fuck that.
More recently I looked into sharing the family plan with …my family, but it turna out they consider family only in a single household, and I’m not gonna try to give them money while also potentially having to prove how much of a family we are, so yeah…
Fuck them, either take my money when I’m actually trying, or I guess they didn’t need it that bad. I’m over YouTube, and would probably ditch it earlier than ever watching an ad there.
xzot746@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Or “Might as well do EVIL”, what is anybody going to do about it, maybe make some noise but we just pay off TACO and we good.
Baguette@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Oh hey I ran into that issue, fixed it by blocking the element on ublock and spoofing my user agent
nameisnotimportant@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
the element
Which one? That’d certainly help to know how to do that
Baguette@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
www.youtube.com/##.paper-toast-open.yt-notification-action-renderer.style-scope.toast-button
I believe it was this one, just add it as part of the filter list in ublock
The extension I used for user agent was this one. I don’t think it matters what you spoof as, but I chose to spoof as chrome. addons.mozilla.org/…/user-agent-string-switcher/
So far it worked and I’m back to no ads and no interruptions
D_C@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I have ublock, with sponsor block and some others, and don’t have any issues on yt as of yet. Just in case though, how do I block an element and spoof a user agent?
Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
YouTube does a shit ton of A/B testing so they probably didn’t roll that change out to everyone yet. I currently don’t have any issues either but they will eventually hit us with that shit.
Pofski@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Also interested in how you can do this.
resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Oh no, where will I get my AI slop?
Agent641@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Like it or not, YouTube still has a fuckton of good, informative tutorials and advice on how to fix things or make things made by individuals with a phone camera and no script, who make them not for money but for the pride in sharing their knowledge. I shared some fix it videos for my van and a very obscure phone, and consumed a lot of fix it videos for washing machines, motorbikes and furniture.
bassomitron@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This. YouTube is extremely helpful for anyone who can’t afford to take their stuff to a repair service or hire someone to fix something at their home. Just a few months ago, I thought my washer was done for, but it turned out to be a super simple fix that no website mentioned except for a super obscure YouTube video with only a couple hundred views. Saved me hundreds of dollars. There’s countless other anecdotes like that over the years.
This is what sucks so much about Google’s monopoly. I truly wish a cooperative of governments of academia created a publicly funded alternative as well as hosting an archive of YouTube on it.
mesamunefire@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Give it a couple of years. AI is just getting started.
happydoors@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yo I pay for premium and it’s been fucking slow. Cancel my subscription? Guess I might need to.
scintilla@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
I had to turn off privacy badger and ublock for it to not be slow. It’s stupid I’m paying for the service to be ad free it should be ad free without complaints.
Lemminary@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Your premium tier has been upgraded to the basic plan with ads at no extra charge for you yet, Dear Customer! Aren’t you happy?
Xanthrax@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I also think they slowed it down for firefox users.
teft@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If you get a user agent switcher and change your user agent for youtube to chrome then that slowing down goes away.
JayGray91@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Wait I can do it just for YouTube? Never occurred to me. I'll have to look into this
theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’ll wait.
apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Good, kill your product
Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I use adblockers, but I’m confused how this would hurt google if people using adblockers stopped using youtube.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Less views = less relevancy of the platform. For live streams they have always played second fiddle. For short videos there is even more competition. Just wait for China to open up Billie Billie or instead make a separate version for the west.
Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Aha I’m not crazy! There was about a week where YouTube videos were so slow and we mainly use SmartTube on the shield TV, the fucked up part is I pay for YouTube premium, I just like the UI and options available on SmartTube better then the default app.
It did seem to get better, so maybe they realized I fucking pay for this service.
Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Why do i feel like this happened a while ago? Like, isn’t this old news? Or “olds” as it were?
catty@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m finding I’m using youtube less and less that I can’t actually remember the last time I used it for anything informative. Youtube has so much crap now.
Because of their monetisation scheme for content creators, it was profitable for creators to drag 15 mins of information out to one hour, and then to include shock faces as thumbs to get more clicks, and then to get more viewers just to watch a bit of the video as viewership dwindles into just mindlessly watching suggestions.
I feel sorry for those creators who have gone balls deep with youtube content and who have no “plan b”.
UltraBlack@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Remember when videos would buffer all the time on non-chrome browsers lol
Coolkat@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
“Is your video not loading ? Check out why, you fucking ad dodging commie” is the feeling i got from youtube’s newest message while my video was unexpectedly taking 10s to load
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
Been using revanced for months and haven’t noticed a difference other than no ads or sponsors on bigger channels.
ulterno@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
So here’s what happened recently:
- I opened the Google News widget on my Android phone, saw a Sponsored link, and found it interesting
- Clicked on it, the link opened in Chrome, opening the googleadservices redirection thingummy
- Took over 5 seconds to process the redirect
- I exited the browser
Guess who missed ad money?
Aetherion@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
They cannot kill Adblocks, because if they would — a lot of html5 embedded YouTube videos would be coming worthless and so would youtube (discord for example)
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
HA! Jokes on them! I’m running a budget dell PC from 10 years ago! The PC itself is slower than any delays they cause! I’m talkin’ 3-5 minutes to load each video. Sometimes the whole PC freezes, and you need to unplug it. Sometimes the browser crashes right at the end, so you gotta relaunch the browser, and then wait 20 minutes for all the tabs to populate. Then you gotta end task on all the individual windows. Then you gotta reload just the tab you’re looking at, and THEN you can wait 5 minutes again.
You think I’m even going to notice your 10 second delay?
Kolanaki@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
I saw something that might be this happening last week, but this week the videos are perfect and load normally; but the rest of the page is absolutely fucked. Like the “playables” section last night was tripping balls and looked like a slot machine as the entries randomly changed around at light speeds.
RedEyeFlightControl@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah they are, I noticed it get really, really bad this week. It’s an awful experience. But they’ll leave my browser before my adblocker does.
WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
100%. Half the time I get blocked due to VPN or whatever I just close the tab and go with my life. The rest of the time I try all known workarounds. If those fail, I just go with my life.
My hatred for monopolisation and enshittification is stronger than my desire to watch content on any platform.
generallynonsensical@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
So say we all.
Trihilis@ani.social 3 weeks ago
Lol, this is exactly why I use Lemmy. Sure there might be less engagement than reddit. But I’d rather gargle a bucket of diarrhea than go back to that shitty place.
LucidNightmare@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Amen.
zurohki@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
The thing is, their anti-adblocking measures are still less unpleasant than actually watching ads.
stebo02@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
just use invidious instead
webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
This is also a good beginner way to learn about self hosting in docker.
Freetube can make a great backup for when google inevitably breaks something.
And for thise videos you really cant miss there is always yt-dlp scripted to download a channels latests video on a schedule straight to jellyfin of course.
I have not visited the youtube website in more then a year.
Carrot@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
It’s not perfect, but I use grayjay. They have an android app and a desktop client, and are usually pretty quick to make updates that will sidestep Google’s anti-adblocking measures (within 1-2 days.) Again, not perfect, but I don’t mind a slightly worse experience to avoid having to see an ad. Plus it has sponsor block support built right in
RedEyeFlightControl@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This doesn’t seem very straightforward…
Psythik@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Same. When I opened the Stats for Nerds pop-up, I noticed that I was being throttled to 1500kbps. Anything above 720p was unplayable this week.
But apparently the Ublock Origin devs yet again figured out another workaround, because streaming speeds are back to normal for me as of yesterday.