this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
463 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

37725 readers
650 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
alyaza@beehaw.org
TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org
gyrfalcon@beehaw.org
rs5th@beehaw.org
SemioticStandard@beehaw.org
TheRtRevKaiser@kbin.social
Los@beehaw.org
coldredlight@beehaw.org
remington@beehaw.org
463
I totally forgot how terrible a non-ad-free YouTube experience is (beehaw.org)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by bermuda@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
154 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

So I've been using youtube ad blockers since pretty much when ad blocker extensions were first available. Lately though I've been getting hit more and more with these messages that YT was sending out every 5 or so videos telling me that adblockers aren't allowed. No problem, just gotta wait 5 seconds to x it out and then close my video. The straw that broke the camel's back though was when instead of a close-able pop-up, they just posted it in front of a video and wouldn't let me watch anything until I disabled my adblocker.

So I disabled it and... wow. It's just so, so, trash. 2 ads before a video plus midrolls and every video ever. I tried listening to a playlist of songs and was getting a midroll ad every single time. Imagine trying to just listen to music for 3 minutes and getting interrupted by a commercial for a chevy silverado! Half the ads were for youtube premium and they specifically mentioned that it would get rid of all the ads. It just felt so damn predatory. I couldn't enjoy anything that wasn't already demonetized.

And you know I'm fine with ads I guess. I could live with an ad before every video, but the fact that I was getting upwards of 5 ads in a 10 minute video was just plain absurd. I also hate that youtube got rid of the yellow markers to show you when an ad was coming up, so now it's just out of nowhere and always interrupts a key part of the video.

E: I've been on Firefox for over a year.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] xrtxn@lemmy.sdf.org 69 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think ublock origin bypasses youtubes ad detection

[–] DagonPie@kbin.social 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Just tried. It does not.

EDIT: Needed to update my browser.

[–] stardust@lemmy.ca 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What browser? It works for Firefox on my PC and mobile.

[–] averyminya@beehaw.org 28 points 1 year ago

Google has slowly been really pushing their way or no-way. They announced that 3 strike policy against your account for ad-blocking, from my understanding it had only rolled out to chrome but someone within the last couple months posted an image of Firefox showing them the adblock message.

Ublock Origin does still work for some, but I believe it's per account. Honestly, the moment I heard about the policy I immediately switched to Piped. I don't really care about the YouTube algorithm, I hardly use the site outside of information searching (guides mostly) and so the homepage always being YT front page doesn't bother me. I can create an account with piped and have subscriptions, can make playlists and on the LibreTube app I can download videos. That's all I need. Unfortunately there is some downtime sometime but you can host your own instance of it really gets to you - I'm nearly at that point myself just for the peace of mind.

So, fuck YouTube and Google tracking, fuck their forced ad policy, use a wrapper like Piped/Invidious and be done with them.

[–] DagonPie@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

I might need to update my firefox. Think thats the issue.

[–] utubas@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago

Works on my machine

[–] skulblaka@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Firefox + uBlock Origin served me about 4 hours of video last night without an ad in sight.

[–] loops@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

Also NoScript!

[–] djquadratic@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think ublock is working on a fix

[–] mild_deviation@programming.dev 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's a cat and mouse game, except the mouse has effectively infinite lives.

[–] Hegar@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

except the mouse has effectively infinite lives.

Thats basically how rodent ecology works, already, isn't it? Being an r strategy reproducer is pretty much just speccing into unlimited respawns.

[–] holycrap@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

That could feed a lot of cats

[–] xrtxn@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago

Any youtube specific extensions? Or maybe you could check out the enabled rules.