The workaround: Switch from Adblock Plus to uBlock Origin.
YouTube just quietly blocked Adblock Plus — the internet hasn't noticed yet, but I've found a workaround
Submitted 22 hours ago by moe90@feddit.nl to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
Kolanaki@pawb.social 11 hours ago
zqps@sh.itjust.works 17 minutes ago
ABP has also been owned and run by a shady investment firm for the past decade.
madcaesar@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Wasn’t adblock plus bought by some ad agency? I thought they were long gone…
FauxLiving@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
I don’t know about that but they do have a program where advertisers can pay them in exchange for their ads being allowed past the block.
ohshit604@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
The workaround
Quit using YouTube directly and proxy your request through an Invidious instance.
Your requests are mixed in with everyone else’s, only 1 machine touches YouTube directly and that’s the server hosting Invidious.
nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip 5 hours ago
Not a solution for most people, unfortunately…
TORFdot0@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
Tom’s Hardware, Ad Block Plus, paying for YouTube Premium as a “work around”?
Guys this content was by boomers for boomers
hietsu@sopuli.xyz 15 hours ago
Indeed. Tom’s Hardware for me has for long been one of the most useless tech news sites, mostly just dumb clickbaity ad articles in disguise.
If they would know anything about anything or done some actual research they would point to Firefox with a few relevant extensions that keep YouTube’s fuckery in check. Or the alternative mobile apps. Or stuff like Invidious. But guess they are too mainstream and thus afraid to upset Google in any way.
SpaceCadet@feddit.nl 11 hours ago
Guys this content was by boomers for boomers
Tom’s Hardware sold out looong ago, sold in 2007 to some faceless consortium. The original “Tom”, Thomas Pabst, who is GenX and not a boomer btw, has had nothing to do with the site since.
The editor of this article looks to be a millennial btw.
FauxLiving@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
To gen z, a boomer is anybody older than them
Wappen@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Is this a sponsored article? Bc buying yt premium doesn’t seem like a workaround to me.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
I think you stopped scrolling too early
That said though, there is one ad blocker that still works. Two words: uBlock Origin. Yes, I know that Google has blocked it from its Chrome Extension store, but there is still a way to get uBlock Origin on Chrome that our how-to extraordinaire Kaycee has detailed.
They even link to what I assume is that process.
But…
It costs the same as Spotify
I used Google Play music and it was awesome, when it shuttered I tried Spotify and didn’t like it.
YouTube premium is worth it just for music on your phone/car, getting YouTube ad free is kind of just a bonus. But there’s a couple podcasts I watch on there, and I’ve found a couple really good channels for all the crazy science stuff that’s been happening. Not to mention a lot of UK shows upload full episodes, and there’s more than one account that somehow uploads full runs of shows after being upscaled to 4k.
I really don’t understand why so many people are against YouTube premium. It makes sense if someone just pirates all their other media. But people pay for a music streamer and a couple TV streamers… It seems like an arbitrary line
Nelots@piefed.zip 20 hours ago
Three out of four of the paragraphs in the article's solution were spent convincing people of the benefits to buying premium. Still feels like an ad despite the tiny mention of uBlock Origin at the very bottom.
I do agree that Youtube, premium isn't bad value. But I refuse to support google or youtube directly with my money. If I ever want to support a creator, I can throw them a couple dollars on patreon and help them far more than buying premium ever would have.
Lfrith@lemmy.ca 20 hours ago
People on Lemmy might be more likely to be trying to do things like de-google in general, or try to cutdown on account based usage for big corporations.
So not really want to give Google their payment information for YouTube and sign in to use YouTube.
umbrella@lemmy.ml 16 hours ago
firefox!! why would people rather fuck with chrome to allow ublock to be installed when firefox exists is way beyond me.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
My reasons:
- I don’t want a YouTube account, that just makes it easier for Google to track me
- premium costs too much relative to how much I use it (Nebula is more reasonable, which I do pay for)
- I can support my favorite creators in other ways (merch, patreon, etc)
I don’t pirate my other media. I buy movies and TV shows and rip them to my media server, I buy lots of video games both physical and digital, and I buy books if my library doesnt have it or I want to keep it on my shelf. I’m not against paying for things, I’m against my privacy being violated.
I watch a few hours of content a week, and I’d be happy cutting down a bit. I don’t follow any of the big names, rarely listen to music, and really only watch videos from a handful of channels, most of which are a waste of time anyway. If Google blocked my ad blocker, I’d be fine just not watching YouTube anymore.
$14 is too much, I think $5 is about as much as I’d be willing to pay, or $1/channel. Give me that and I’ll consider signing up, despite my misgivings about Google.
Bogasse@lemmy.ml 16 hours ago
About YouTube premium :
- I don’t like the idea of spending money for Google. I don’t find it very ethic to use their services in the way I do but no replacement has come up for years. I try to mitigate by donating to some content creators and I would love to pay a subscription to something like Nebula if there were at least 3 people I follow in there.
- I would use an adblocker even if I paid. On my phone Tubular is just a much better experience : multi platforms, aggregates my subscription, no addictive low quality suggestions and lightweight while still featurefull (and it integrates sponsorblock 🤫)
Also on my previous phone the YouTube app was super slow and would regularly crash because of RAM shortages. This was 6 years ago though.
Wappen@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
I read that. But the way the article is written suggests that the workaround they’re implying is to buy YouTube premium. I am not per se against YT premium, after all its normal business to take money and serve a product, but what my biggest cons are
- The price
- I already use all of the mentioned premium features and more but for free
For example: YT music -> ReVanced (background play, no ads) YT App -> ReVanced (no ads, Sponsorblock, no shorts) YT on browser -> Extensions (uBlock, Sponsorblock, block yt shorts)
If I were to pay for premium and use the regular app, I would lose that functionality and 130€ per year. This money would support a company whose business model involves extensive collection of personal data, which is then sold to third parties, effectively contributing to the global surveillance infrastructure.
I would rather not use YouTube than pay for it.
camelbeard@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
The thing about it costs about the same as Spotify is not really true. I have been using Spotify family for a long long time (maybe 10 years). I use it with 5 other “family” members and we split the costs.
clot27@lemmy.zip 14 hours ago
This may not get well recieved but yt premium is worth the money imho, but again I dont wanna pay those evil corpos.
tinned_tomatoes@feddit.uk 11 hours ago
I think it’s decent value but I’m already running extensions or mods to skip the in-video ads, so I may as well just block ads for free too.
If YouTube Premium ever got an official sponsorblock, it’d become a good deal.
LettyWhiterock@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
No, author of this article, paying for premium is not a workaround.
fin@sh.itjust.works 15 hours ago
more like walking in
misteloct@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 hours ago
It has some real “Ukraine should just stop fighting a losing war” vibes.
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
Bah, This is just an add for a YouTube premium subscription
pHr34kY@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
I hate when they say paying the premium is a “solution”. It’s worse. That’s why nobody is doing it.
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 22 hours ago
I actually have a Premium subscription, but it’s kinda half assed journalism to suggest that as a solution.
NoodlePoint@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Damn sure was clickbaity.
I stopped using ABP years ago and switched to uBlock Origin. That and some *Monkey scripts.
ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
That said though, there is one ad blocker that still works. Two words: uBlock Origin. Yes, I know that Google has blocked it from its Chrome Extension store, but there is still a way to get uBlock Origin on Chrome that our how-to extraordinaire Kaycee has detailed.
Or… You could just ditch Chrome altogether!
I don’t know why people are so fixated on using Chrome. It’s a crippled browser made by an evil company that is actively looking to screw the user at every turn.
I switched to Firefox when Google essentially killed uBlock Origin on their browser. At first I ran into some problems with some sites not rendering correctly. But it seems like that’s become much less of an issue with later updates. And the best thing is that there are some phenomenal extensions for blocking ads - like a fully-fledged uBlock Origin to name just one. I don’t even see sponsor promotions in YT videos now.
And if you don’t want to deal with Mozilla directly you can use Waterfox instead.
All this dancing around and jumping through hoops to get uBlock Origin working on Chrome is kind of absurd. Just ditch Chrome (and all Blink-based browsers) altogether where you can (I get that corporate environments are often off the table for this).
Collectively we should be sending a message to Google whenever we can that we are done with their browser bullshit.
RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 16 hours ago
(I get that corporate environments are often off the table for this).
FYI in case anyone needs to hear this, but Firefox can be installed as a user in windows if you just decline the admin prompt when installing.
lepinkainen@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
People keep forgetting that Google is quite literally the largest ad company in the world. That’s the vast majority of their revenue.
They’re never going to do something that fucks with ad income.
3dcadmin@lemmy.relayeasy.com 16 hours ago
except adding AI stuff everywhere and actually starting to see ad revenue drop?
beejjorgensen@lemmy.sdf.org 18 hours ago
Additionally, I’m not paying that evil company a dime. All the people I follow on YT get way more money from me on Patreon.
person420@lemmynsfw.com 17 hours ago
To be fair all the “dancing around and jumping through hoops” is enabling developer mode (which is just a switch in the extension settings) and turning back on manifest 2 in chrome://flags then just reloading the extension.
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
given that you know about them. they will also get removed soon according to their description.
lots of users won’t get to know all this, or if they do, they won’t go messing around there because “its complicated”
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Or at least use a Chrome fork, if you must use it for compatibility or something.
TBH I think it’s just an accessibility issue. It’s easier to install an extension than switch browsers for most people.
callouscomic@lemmy.zip 16 hours ago
The internet hasn’t noticed yet
Says article on the internet shared with others on the internet and linked to from many internet places.
Article titles are fucking garbage. At least it didn’t pul the “Here’s why” bullshit.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Based on the other comments, the article itself is as garbage as the title.
asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev 20 hours ago
The workaround is using uBO
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 15 hours ago
And Firefox.
ordnance_qf_17_pounder@reddthat.com 21 hours ago
“If your adblock doesn’t work, a workaround is to pay for YouTube Premium”
AW NO I HADN’T FUCKING THOUGHT OF THAT
Soup@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Honestly, I just did that. YouTube has costs, storing and sharing all that data at high resolution and speed, so expecting that service for absolutely nothing is a little weird. We can find reasons that they’re bad, that’s fine, but good or bad they do have to pay for things.
I also pay for the Patreon of one of my favourite mandolin players because I want him to keep making content and I wanted access to backing tracks and the Discord server. He can’t do it at that level for free, and that’s ok.
FauxLiving@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
I understand your reasoning, and you’re not wrong.
However, the amount that they charge you FAR outweighs the cost of compute, bandwidth and storage. The few tens of GB of bandwidth that you use and the storage costs of the video may cost them $1/user/month or less.
Their costs have been easily covered by ad revenue for decades. This subscription service is only because they’ve purchased all meaningful competitors and can now turn the screws and juice their customers for more money because they have no other options.
ordnance_qf_17_pounder@reddthat.com 19 hours ago
I don’t care what YouTube’s costs are, I don’t want to pay. I’ll leave that to people like you.
ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 hours ago
Sure, if paying them ment that they also didn’t data mine the shit out of you and sold it to 3rd parties…but no they insist on double-dipping so they can get fucked.
Arghblarg@lemmy.ca 19 hours ago
We already pay with all of the personal data they steal from us (adblocks or no), and all the lifetimes wasted watching ads for those who don’t or can’t block them (and the ad revenue paid to them by corps who buy those ads) so no, Google doesn’t deserve our money for Premium.
Same thing as when cable TV was new, they said paying for it was to require fewer ads… how long did that last?
MrQuallzin@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
For my wife and I, whose main background noise/entertainment is Let’s Play style videos on YouTube (Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, RTGame and such), paying for premium just makes sense. Like you said, we can and should criticize them for how they handle things, but everyone making a fuss about premium existing just makes no sense.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 19 hours ago
I don’t watch enough YouTube to make premium worth it. If they had a lower tier with a cap on ad-free watch time, I probably would pay.
ArsonButCute@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 hours ago
FreeTube with an ipv6 rotator and Invidious will make sure you never have to deal with this.
ArcticPrincess@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Please elaborate…
ArsonButCute@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 hours ago
FreeTube is a FOSS youtube frontend.
FreeTube occasionally has issues on videos with preroll ads where the video fails to play because the ad won’t be fetched. This can sometimes be mitigated by running an ipv6 rotator script and blocking freetubes access to ipv4. The one I run reassigns my ipv6 address once every 5 peels to a new randomly generated valid address.
Sometimes even this doesn’t block the ads (again causing the video to fail to play) in which case selecting the share icon from the freetube interface and clicking “open invidious link” will open a web browser pointed to whichever invidious instance is set to your default.
The freetube folks are working on implementing DASH, which should eliminate the need for these workarounds once successful.
swelter_spark@reddthat.com 11 hours ago
You can also use Freetube with tor/socks5 proxy, and every time you open it, you automatically get a new IP.
harsh3466@lemmy.ml 22 hours ago
The workaround is pay for YouTube premium.
ieatpwns@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
With all due respect, no the fuck it ain’t
Keegen@lemmy.zip 21 hours ago
Don’t shoot the messenger, they’re just citing the “workaround” from the article. The article also mentions using uBlock but only after writing two paragraphs convincing you that Premium is totally the solution to go with.
Squizzy@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Fuck youtube and their shit premium pricing
taaz@biglemmowski.win 22 hours ago
are you paraphrasing what the article said or saying it yourself?
projektilski@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 hours ago
Who uses Adblock Plus? Isn’t uBlock Origin (Lite) the shit to go to?
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
ublock origin non-lite is the shit to go to
Kissaki@feddit.org 14 hours ago
Yes, and it has been for many many years. In 2011 Adblock Plus deemed some ads acceptable, no longer blocking them categorically. Following that controversity, uBlock Origin became the popular standard.
Honestly, given that Adblock Plus has always had an “acceptable ads” system - I guess they simply decided now YouTube ads are acceptable. Not really surprising then.
Psythik@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Ublock Origin and NextDNS FTW.
FuyuhikoDate@feddit.org 21 hours ago
“Adblock Plus” Me: WHAT YEAR IS THIS?
Oberyn@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Is the fact it’s impossible for me to play any thing in (PipePipe|Outertune) these past few days connected to this ?
swizzlestick@lemmy.zip 21 hours ago
ABP hasn’t been relevant for years, because they started on “acceptable ads” back in 2011.
Anyone with sense has long since moved on.
84615_on_resu@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
If someone is fixated on using chrome, so far there is still a workaround:
neowin.net/…/you-can-still-enable-ublock-origin-i…
Other than that, just switch to Firefox.
basiclemmon98@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 hours ago
What if people just learned to use Firefox or NewPipe?
Pamasich@kbin.earth 14 hours ago
YouTube just quietly blocked Adblock Plus
They've been A/B testing anti-adblock attempts for months or even years now, idk exactly with my sense of time. Sometimes adblocker A doesn't work, sometimes adblocker B doesn't work. Sometimes switching browser makes the same adblocker work, sometimes clearing cookies helps, sometimes its dependent on your account. Different users at the same time report different experiences with different adblockers. Sometimes watching a single non-blocked ad restores adblocker functionality magically for a few days.
What I'm trying to say is, this didn't "just" happen, and it's specifically the author's current experience. I myself use Adblock Plus on Edge and Youtube works perfectly fine currently. This has been happening for a long time, and I'm sure there's uBlock Origin users currently who have the same experience while Adblock Plus works for them. Since that's how it's been the last times I've seen people talk about this, everyone talking about different experiences.
zerofk@lemmy.zip 15 hours ago
there is one ad blocker that still works. Two words: uBlock Origin.
Vivaldi without any plugins also works. No ads. And I’m sure there are many more possible configurations. This article reads like the author thinks there’s only two browsers and two ad blockers.
whaleross@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
The YouTube app on my old tablet has been breaking on ads recently. First it stopped playing and then it wouldn’t even resume. Their own app. On playing ads. No ad blockers. Fuck you I’m not paying premium.
thesohoriots@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
iOS and Mac users have Vinegar, if you want to spend like $2 and support an indie developer.
artyom@piefed.social 18 hours ago
Oh yeah, well ublock blocks the blocking of their blocks!
EvilEdgelord@sh.itjust.works 21 hours ago
There’s a name I haven’t heard in years 😂
reddig33@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
It’s strange that they go to this much effort to ban ad blockers. What’s the percentage of their user base watching on devices with ad blockers? I bet it’s low — especially when including smart tv viewers in those numbers.
3dcadmin@lemmy.relayeasy.com 16 hours ago
I’m gonna get a load of grief for this but Brave works fine…
n3cr0@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Just stick with Firefox and uBlock Origin.
fartsparkles@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Especially since Adblock Plus take payment to whitelist adverts.
CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
Or even better, Librewolf.
RageAgainstTheRich@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Honest question, but what makes librewolf BETTER? In firefox you can easily toggle off the studies telemetry bullshit in the settings. Librewolf is just firefox with those things ripped out right?
ekZepp@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Sadly i have to stop using it. Librewolf has start getting some graphic bug, i also can’t upload pictures to some website (it show just lines). Now i’m trying Floorp.
sefra1@lemmy.zip 17 hours ago
As much as I like Librewolf as concept and ideology, I can’t keep thinking that if there’s a Firefox 0day, Firefox gets patched first, Librewolf later, and I’m potentially exposed for longer. That’s why I prefer to stick with upstream.
tarknassus@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
Have you noticed uBlock Origin being a bit hit and miss on YouTube lately? I’ve had it happen a few times lately where the video won’t play, or an ad comes up but doesn’t play. I’ve had to keep refreshing until it gets to normal where it just plays the damn video.
n3cr0@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
No. It works across all my systems. I never see ads on YT. However…
Videos not loading or playing delayed: That’s a YT feature which they implemented for Firefox users, to annoy them. And to promote Chrome as “the fastest” webbrowser.
I also have dns issues at home… I should fix them already. Sometimes, a page doesn’t load on the first try.
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 21 hours ago
I think youtube might have implemented something that prevents the server from delivering the video files until the expected duration of the ad has passed. This idea is completely unfounded, but this is what it feels like to me.
floofloof@lemmy.ca 20 hours ago
I sometimes get a popup warning from YouTube that my account will be blocked from viewing videos if I keep running an ad blocker. But the warning goes away after a while and YouTube still works. I don’t see ads except on mobile.
Grimy@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
If on mobile, try setting it to desktop mode. Also, getting the chameleon extension and pretending you are using chrome can also help.
protist@mander.xyz 21 hours ago
I haven’t had any issues like that, it’s been working fine for me
CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 21 hours ago
I use different shared PCs at work and this happens every time on the Windows 11 machines. Some ad plays before the video, but disappears when I refresh the page. This doesn’t happen on the Win 10 machines we still have left. In forced to use Chrome there but everything has UBlock Lite enabled.
Gnugit@aussie.zone 21 hours ago
Yes
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
The article even links to a guide to get it on chrome