Submitted 19 hours ago by ardi60@reddthat.com to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.androidauthority.com/youtube-ad-blocker-comments-turned-off-3641167/
They did successfully disable uBlock Origin for me on chrome but I found a workaround that so far seems to be sticking fine despite further updates. Still see comments and descriptions fine on youtube. Occasionally things take a little longer to load than I would expect but I’ll take a longer load time on a black screen over being stuck watching dogshit ads relentlessly.
uBlock also seems to just continue to work on FireFox which also plays youtube fine.
Ublock Lite works on Chrome. There are no custom filters and it doesn’t block a lot of annoyances, but it gets the job done for most people.
But honestly if you want have the most reliable adblocking experience, then Firefox w/Ublock Origin is still your best bet (also YouTube ReVanced for mobile and SmartTube/SmartTubeNext for TVs).
I’ve stopped using YouTube for the most part. Cut down a lot once they broke the search function and I could no longer find what I was looking for because every result would be flooded with random shorts and other irrelevant content.
Then, my account, which was made in either 05 or 06, got flagged as belonging to a minor and they asked me to verify my age with an ID. Why this even happened when the account itself is over 18 now, and I’m not in the US (which I thought was the only place their age verification BS was being implemented) is beyond me.
I wish there were more options for long form video sharing, since YouTube seems to be the only viable platform for it at the moment.
I got flagged as a minor, despite an old account. They would not accept my card that I pay for premium with as a valid card. It’s valid enough to pay them the stupid fucks.
You can do the selfie thing, except use a 4k video of someone talking to the screen and it’ll probably work. I used an Evan Edinger video, scanned that and passed fairly easily. AI probably works if you can get a high fidelity image but all the free ones are well under 1080p and just don’t really register.
I cant imagine flagging a whole account over 18 years old as attached to a minor.
AdBlocker for YouTube works.
Couple days ago I had to install it on top of uBlock on friend’s pc, since the latter stopped working on YouTube. Be sure to disable uBlock on YouTube.
No issues ublock and FF.
Yeah uBlock Origin has worked fine through every single one of these “adblockers are broken!” articles I’ve seen
I don’t mind, it’s still good to raise awareness about Youtube’s bullshit - especially since I’m getting ads for Border Patrol, OpenAI, and the fucking Melania movie now when I do see them (when I am lazy and using my Roku TV instead of HDMI). But it hasn’t been a problem for me yet.
Could just be because they address it rather fast.
It could also be due to chrome limiting what uBlock can do.
UBlock + Firefox seems like the ideal combo.
Dont let them know… They probably never even tested on Firefox. :)
You ever get the “You are disconnected from the internet” screen? It goes away with a refresh so it’s not a big deal, but it would be even cooler if it didn’t happen.
Same here
A new issue for me is the video sometimes skips/very slow while the audio is fine. Restarting the browser and pc doesn’t change anything.
I find getting rid of YouTube to be incredibly difficult. I use both peer-tube and odysee as much as possible, but still find myself on YouTube more than I’d like. Of course, I’m only doing YouTube through a newpipe, but it’s still accessing YouTube.
odysee as much as possible
Just a heads up, Odysee became bankrupt after its parent company LBRY (hyper ancap owners) did some illegal securities sale. It was then bought out by Arweave, which is a blockchain crypto scam company created and owned by Forward Research, which is owned by Sam Williams, who is another venture capital crypto techbro libertarian/ancap who at the same time bought a big NFT company, so unfortunately Odysee is no better than Google.
Peertube is great though.
It surely doesn’t help that YouTube has replaced broadcast TV for most people. You can’t even go back if you wanted to because TV is all but dead these days. Not unless you don’t mind 24-7/365 marathons of Ridiculousness on MTV, and nothing but reality TV and old shows catered to 80-year-olds on the remaining channels.
PBS passport and pirating everything else. I do watch some YouTube of people I subbed years ago though
There’s nothing to see in Peer tube
same for odysee
Hey, I recognize your PFP and username from Nostr… Hello.
I don’t really get the sentiment here - what’s happening is the standard development if a public good (that youtube kind of was before google purchased them) gets privatized. It’s the same with communications (isn’t AT&T great?), water, electricity, rail infrastructure and trains, roads - investors are never good for the public good. They’re only good at lining their pockets.
Somebody, please, think of the shareholders /s_
So my adblocker now also removes comments? That’s more of a feature than a hurdle!
When adblox inevitably fixes this, you block comments, and a bunch of other crap, on purpose with Unhooked
I love unhook so much. Using Youtube without recommended videos is a blessing. I only see what I wanna see, not a single thing the algorithm wants me to watch.
I usually find the comments more useful than the video, sometimes more entertaining too.
Then you really should watch better videos.
What ad blocker are you using?
uBlock Origin (I’m still seeing the comments, though).
YouTube is coming up with another infuriating way to force users to pay for Premium subscription or watch ads.
Or to let us know its time to quit. I have narrowed down my youtube use a lot. If it is ad only I won’t bother at all.
Won’t miss much frankly.
Yes, but you are the minority.
I dated a girl over the summer, and we were watching youtube videos in bed.
My phone has revanced, and it kills all the ads.
Then she shows me one of her videos.
It was…oh my god. Do you have ANY idea how awful the vanilla youtube experience is?
And thats just how most people watch it. They just watch youtube, with the official app. Ads and all, and are fine with it.
So even if all the fediverse minded people quit youtube in unison, it would still be less than 1% of their viewership.
It often makes me wonder why you tube keeps squeezing then. If the majority don’t block ads it seems like it would be an acceptable loss.
At this point, I am kind of done with youtube either way. The more I go on with life the more I want to actually do things instead if passively just watch things.
Like was already said, I’m considering cancelling YouTube Premium too but our numbers won’t really matter. The reports of worsening Firefox compatibility almost some me in and I didn’t even notice.
I have a family plan with my brother and cousin on it. I know they’re cracking down on sharing with people who don’t live together, but if they cut them I’m done. I’ll figure it out. And I’m probably petty enough to comment about it on everyone’s videos that I follow. (Which also won’t really matter, but I’ll feel better voicing the discontent.)
I was wondering why I couldn’t see descriptions and comments on seemingly random videos for the past two days. Also, it’s weird because I use Ublock Origin on Firefox and it’s rare that these changes actually effect Ublock Origin. It seems like it may be fixed now though, but I haven’t been actively checking.
For Android user I can recommend Newpipe. For the desktop I use FreeTube
Both have occassional issues when YT rolls out their latest enshittification features, but the devs are quite responsive.
Regardless, YT is a loosing battle, so prepare for the day when Google will win this arms race. That is why alternatives like PeerTube are important.
I was using newpipe but it wasn’t working for a bit, been having great luck with PipePipe though
Looks promising. Thanks for sharing
Apparently there is a way around it as I’ve been watching YouTube all day and haven’t encountered a single ad.
YouTube has been shadowbanning ad blocker users, where you comments appear to post but actually haven’t, for a while now.
I think the issue is with the EasyPrivacy list blocking the heartbeat signals that tell YouTube you are actually someone interacting with the page and not a bot.
Brave doesn’t seem to have this issue as they whitelist those scripts but it has other issues so I recommend keeping it as a YouTube only browser.
Stop using the YouTube app/website, get an alt frontend like FreeTube, Grayjay, Revanced, etc. Not only do they remove ads and make it impossible for Google to track you, they have better UX than the official apps.
I noticed one of my comments was shadowbanned, I thought it was the channel that did it. Hmm, I don’t comment much on YT, I guess I won’t at all now. NBD.
There is no fucking way in hell I’ll ever a) watch ads b) pay for Youtube Premium. They created this monopoly with no alternative option and now we’re suppose to just get fucked while they get even more obscenely rich beyond all tasteful levels. Yeah, I don’t think so. And given how I ditched everything Google, if it ever comes to it, I’ll ditch Youtube too. It’s basically the only thing I still even use from Google because there’s just no alternative.
Soon will be a good time to quit YT completely. Suddenly, you’ll have lots of time to do all the things you were supposed to do long ago. You know like taking a walk, cooking nice food, reading books, getting to bed early etc.
My ad blocker won’t let me watch YouTube. I didn’t know there was a problem. Good ad blocker.
you can kind of ungoogle youtube by using invidious invidious.io
I just use it without account and subscribe to my favorite channels using external RSS feed reader. This way I still keep track of my fav content and doing it entirely outside of Google. If they track me as guest, I really don’t care that much.
Don’t forget the phone. Almost everyone with a smartphone is either an Apple or Google user via it, and everyone seems to forget that.
Is there anything wrong with Nebula? Or is the issue that it acts more like a supplemental streaming service rather than a primary one? It seems like between peertube and nebula creators really could shift their user base to other systems if they worked together to bring attention to the matter as part of an organized campaign against Google.
Great… Fewer humans and even more bots in the comments… That’s a genius idea.
I realised a lot of my yt usage was for having something playing in the background. I’ve been listening to more podcasts and audiobooks instead and it’s been pretty easy to cut back.
Libby,libraries have lots of things…for now
I like Hoopla because of the name, but same thing.
I wish the creators would move. Vlogbrothers, MVG, MrSundayMovies
Move where? Vimeo?
Vimeo lays off ‘large portion’ of staff after Bending Spoons buyout
More options in the videohosting space would good.
Meh. My ad blocking strategy on my phone and desktop still works fine. I use Morphe (formerly Revanced), uBlock Origin on Firefox and AdGuard on my android phone.
No ads. No problem.
Freetube. Sorted.
Revanced is dead.
Im… using it right now…
You shouldn’t present a buased take from developer drama as fact. ReVanced is fine.
I still haven’t seen a youtube ad in years… ho hum…
Why I use Newpipe on the phone, and Freetube.
PipePipe on degoogled android lol
they vibe coded it
68% of people who responded to the poll at the link say that they are not affected. Only 10% of responders are.
Probably A/B testing.
I’m not lowering my security for Google.
Newpipe working for me right now. I hope it lasts.
Another happy NewPipe user here… yeah, AFAIC I’m enjoying YT access with NewPipe while it lasts. The day NewPipe is locked out I’m ditching YT entirely.
I expect I won’t be alone who will switch to PeerTube or another alternative. So hopefully content will remain available 🤞
this just makes me want to cancel my subscription more
I really need to get around to doing that. It’s the one service I pay for.
Freetube is nice alternative to using youtube without an account, since things like subscriptions, playlists, history are saved locally without an account. And you can back up that data.
And with Google being behind youtube its better to avoid signing into their accounts anyways.
Also blocks ads, can download videos, sponsor block, dearrow, and block channels.
Sometimes freetube breaks and that’s when I’ll fall back to youtube with adblock om browser, but I won’t log into youtube. But, you can still use it to get your subscription feed and click on the video to launch to browser.
For mobile I use pipepipe which is a fork of newpipe with sponsorblock and channel blocking.
Just use an Invidious instance instead. It’s more private and free of ads.
I can say that I solved this problem for me (at least in the short term, we shall see) by using a random User Agent switcher, uninstalling and reinstalling uBlock.
I’ll be sad when I can no longer watch my subs but as they say, live by the corporate whim, die by the corporate whim.
I think GrayJay already found a way around it lol
It’s very likely, although it could be hard to gauge since this only affects some users, or only on some videos.
I did notice that some videos stopped showing comments and a description in GrayJay for a short time, but after some updates I haven’t notice this happening recently. So, it’s likely that they did find a workaround for this issue.
The issue is that comment sections are disabled and video descriptions claim to be empty
jokes on them, my enhancer for youtube always disables comments
REDACTED@infosec.pub 29 minutes ago
Pretty sure this does not affect Firefox as my adblocker still does the job