I totally forgot how terrible a non-ad-free YouTube experience is

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.

toothpicks,

Find a peertube instance you like and start uploading content on there! I’ll come watch your videos 😊

artaxadepressedhorse,
@artaxadepressedhorse@lemmyngs.social avatar

YouTube has turned against its users, and user-inertia is the only thing keeping it relevant. Detach yourself from it, read books, go outside, use Firefox (Not chomium or brave), get yourself a nice pirate hat. Maybe consider hosting a peertube or creating content for it. Try to take this negative and make it a positive I’d suggest.

tburkhol,

In the 4(?) days since I got my first anti-adblock popover, I’ve completely stopped watching random videos. My few favorite channels I’ve watched in incognito without harrassment, and the only thing I’ve noticed is having more time for other things.

If those content providers were on some other platform, I’d go there, but that’s honestly asking a lot of them for a small slice of their subscribers.

JokeDeity, (edited )

This thread is in c/technology, but I swear these are some of the least tech literate comments I’ve seen. Stop using Chrome, yesterday. Use Firefox, use ublock origin. On Android use Revanced. I never see an ad on my PC or phone using YouTube, including ads in the video by the content creators (sponsorblock is built into Revanced and can by toggled).

phillaholic,

there have been many posts about YouTube detecting blockers recently and warning users it’s against the ToS. Not sure if they are widespread or not.

JokeDeity,

Because people are on Chrome.

bermuda,

I was already on Firefox.

I switched to ublock origin yesterday and it worked for about 2 hours before YT somehow detected it and shut down every video. My fix for that was to disable ublock, refresh, enable ublock, refresh again

JokeDeity,

Something is wrong, this has not happened to me ever. Is ublock set up to automatically update itself and it’s lists?

sunbeam60,

You might be in different countries. YouTube has shut down adblockers at different rates depending on where you are.

Amends1782,

Use Invidious while it still exists as a project I’m a fan of the yewtu.be instance. Pretty reliable. The Piped project is good as well. Don’t even use the YouTube domain at all, hate giving them analytics and site usage info nevermind ads

raccoona_nongrata,
@raccoona_nongrata@beehaw.org avatar

Ad Block Plus in FF works well too. I haven’t had to deal with any of YouTubes ad nonsense.

Regarding people saying the ad blocker is eventually detected; upping your privacy strictness settings might help. I keep settings as strict as I can, and then if there’s a site that breaks I’ll loosen them on a per-site basis just to allow the minimum needed for the site to function. Or I will sometimes selectively use a chromium browser for limited stuff (ordering grub hub or something)

JokeDeity,

ABP < Ublock Origin. I’m sorry, it’s just facts.

raccoona_nongrata,
@raccoona_nongrata@beehaw.org avatar

I can’t dispute it

JokeDeity,

Quit using shitty browsers? I see zero ads on YouTube in Firefox with ad blockers. I mean there’s about a million other reasons to not use Chrome as well, but use this anger as your catalyst.

bermuda,

I’ve been using Firefox for over a year, so thanks for the assumption boss.

JokeDeity,

Sorry about that, this is just the usual case when I see this complaint. Let’s figure out why you’re experiencing this because I’m a HEAVY YouTube user and I want everyone to have as good of an experience as I do.

JokeDeity,

Just wanted to come back to this and say while I checked and didn’t have any addons besides ublock that should be helping (with many of the extra lists checked/enabled in settings), I do have tampermonkey with these scripts and maybe they’re helping:

Simple Sponsor Skiper YouTube CPU Tamer by AnimationFrame YouTube HD YouTube polymer engine fixes YouTube Web Tweaks YouTube(Chinese characters) YouTube AD Blocker

Along with some others that I don’t think would apply.

Corgana,
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar

Anyone here subscribed to Nebula or CuriosityStream? On paper it seems like a much better arrangement for creators and viewers but I’m curious as to anyone’s personal experience with the quality of the service.

TexMexBazooka,

I’m subbed to both and it’s awesome. No ads, no algorithm, longer videos with better production values especially over topics that YouTube couldn’t have.

The modern conflict series is my favorite example

Corgana,
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar

Great, thanks. Pretty much all of the accounts I subscribe to on YouTube advertize one service or the other and it only recently crossed my mind that maybe they’re promoting it because they… believe in it?

TexMexBazooka,

So there’s actually a pretty good video that one of the founders made, I think it was RealLifeLore, that talks about the making of Nebula. It’s a good watch if you want perspective on the service

Matt,

It was Wendover. Sam is also now the chief content officer at Nebula.

TexMexBazooka,

That’s the one! I always get them confused for some reason

toothpicks,

I really wanna check out nebula when I have consistent income again lol

barsoap,

Wake me when they support standard payment methods. Seriously how can you even attempt to get European customers without accepting SEPA transfers.

millie,

I subscribed to Nebula for a month for Philosophytube, then I promptly unsubscribed because I couldn’t find any other content I was interested in watching. It’s way too many video essays and not a hell of a lot else. Not worth it, imo.

clorofolle,

I caught that deal some time ago where a subscription to CuriosityStream would also grant you a sub to Nebula. I love Nebula, in theory - I spend a lot of time listening to video essays, and I love the quantity and quality of creators there. But the android app has a lot of buffering for me, and up until the last time I’d used it, it wouldn’t remember my watch history / where I left off, making it really burdensome to watch long essays there, so I always just opted for YT Revanced. Just now, I went to check, and the app seems to remember my progress in a video so…!! I guess I’ll be giving it a second serious chance! :D

I tried watching some stuff on CuriosityStream, but I’ve gotten so used to YT-style essays and documentaries, that now anything that has costant background music and fast paced montages kinda bugs me out, lol. But if you like classic-style documentaries, there’s a big catalogue, I’d recommend it! Overall, I think it depends on how much you pay a year - I think I pay around 15/20$/y and I think it’s a steal, even though I enjoy but a fraction of what’s being offered to me. If I used it more consistently, I’d be happy to pay double.

Nipplecreek,

If it says they aren’t allowed should I turn off my ad block or should I just hit okay and leave it enabled?

PeWu, (edited )

Don’t give up your privacy by disabling adblocker. I enabled AdBlock on anything I own. If YT will be persistent about it, I’ll just leave. There are plenty alternatives to YouTube frontend.

Edit: spelling mistakes.

JokeDeity,

It’s only even an issue for people because they’re using shitty browsers like Chrome, lol. YouTube doesn’t even warn me and I never see ads. Firefox for life.

bermuda,

YouTube doesn’t even warn me

Because they’ve been slowly rolling this out. It first happened over summer to a few users and steadily to more and more. I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens to you before the end of the year.

JokeDeity,

Fingers crossed it doesn’t, but in the meantime, let’s figure this out so we all can avoid the BS. I’ll check all my addons when I get home to see if there’s anything else that would be helping me. On Mobile I do have AdGuard (the one not available on the play store), but I believe I would be ad free without it just from Revanced.

DudeDudenson,

I hate how this trend of “I’ll make my service shit so you’ll pay more for the not as shit version” seems to work out for these companies

Corgana,
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar

“Here is how platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.”

Stumblinbear,
@Stumblinbear@pawb.social avatar

“I’ll put in enough ads to actually support your usage habits and you can pay if you want to not deal with them”

DudeDudenson,

I’m not specifically talking about ads. Things like stopping your playlist every 15 minutes and telling you that maybe you should pay for YouTube music or “free” software that is practically impossible to use until you pay for a subscription are examples of what I’m talking about

yoz,

Why are people not using Ublock Origin ?

Sina,

Does Ublock Origin successfully circumvents the new system that is being tested in select countries?

yoz,

I read that you need to update the filters to make it work however I can’t confirm.

itsAllDigital,
@itsAllDigital@feddit.de avatar

I’m using uBlock, so far it works no problem for me :)

MikuNPC, (edited )

EDIT: Ignore the following, the next day the popup message returned unfortunately

I can confirm, I was getting the popup message yesterday with ublock-origin and was able to fix it by not only updating my filters but also subscribing to all the optional filters. It seems the default lists don’t have a fix yet but one of the optional ones does.

yoz,

Can you share the optional filters for others? Probably best to create a new post

MikuNPC, (edited )

The lists are fortunately pre-installed with ublock-origin, just need to enable all lists within options: Built-in, Ads, Privacy, Malware, Multipurpose, and Annoyances

EDIT: I spoke too soon, saw another popup today

amju_wolf, (edited )
@amju_wolf@pawb.social avatar

Yes. You need to not use any other content blocker (including potentially browser tracking protection) and keep uBo up to date. Occasionally it might not be up to date with latest YT changes but that’s pretty rare.

Kolanaki, (edited )
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Two words: Smart TVs

Need a hardware solution (pi hole/router with custom firmware) for that.

yoz,

Please use Smartnext tube app for android TV.

Kolanaki, (edited )
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Unfortunately I have a stupid Samsung TV and the app offering SUCKS (though I am pretty sure it technically runs on Android). There’s also no way to sideload apps afaik.

yoz,

God! Never buy Samsung products. I learnt my lesson after buying a Samsung phone.

limerod,

Ah, what was that? I’m currently using one oneui 5. Compared to xioami, the software is more stable and doesn’t have stupid restrictions like not allowing access to running services or frequently killing background apps and services.

yoz,

It used to drain battery like crazy. Then I bought a pixel with stock android and it was same. After that I installed a custom ROM and this is the result- My overnight idlecdrain is around 1% and if I not use my phone too much, it last 4 days on single charge.https://aussie.zone/pictrs/image/9ed70541-78d4-4b74-98eb-8b03ad8aff59.png

limerod,

It takes a while for adaptive battery to kick (weeks). Especially, when you newly setup an android device. Same with adaptive brightness. Mine drains fast in active heavy use on 5G with motion smoothness set to high. I also have a dual sim model where one can be pulling the lowest signal strength from tower which can also affect battery drain.

yoz,

Mine started to work within minutes. Custom roms are the best. Never going back to stock.

limerod,

Samsung TV’s run on tizen OS, not android.

Corgana, (edited )
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar

PiHole does not work for YouTube sadly. There’s no current solution for YouTube ads on (non-android) smart TVs.

davehtaylor,

Yep. I watch YT primarily on my AppleTV, which is why I’m subbed to YT Premium. Otherwise it’s basically unusable because of the ads. But I fucking hate that I’m being extorted like this

limerod,

OP mentioned already using ublock-origin. Youtube still blocked him for good after multiple warnings to disable

Auzy, (edited )

Here in Australia, there are so many F**king Betting ads on it too.

Just wish they’d ban any form of casino/gambling adverts

Double_A,
@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

The ads are just extremely bad in general. Betting ads for a legitimate casino would already be a huge step up form the shit I get…

Safeguard,
@Safeguard@beehaw.org avatar

I would actually pay for Youtube Premium Family, where it not for the fact that it does not work with gsuite accounts (which I have for my family).

We have spotify for the family, and I would cancel that and switch to youtube and music premium of google. For three dollars more we get ad-less youtube as well as music.

Sorry google, gotta pay attention to these things.

CrypticFawn,
@CrypticFawn@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

they just posted it in front of a video and wouldn’t let me watch anything until I disabled my adblocker.

I’ve never had this happen to me with Firefox + ublock origin.

If you want youtube on mobile, I recommend Libretube. Or just use mobile Firefox with ublock origin.

exponential_wizard,

It’s being rolled out on a person by person basis. If you’ve been targeted like I have you have to keep updating the extension to keep up with their arms race

kzhe,

Consider Piped, Invidious, etc. Yes you can’t log in, but on Piped you can create a Piped account and on mobile use Yattee (iOS) or Libretube (Android). No recommendations on home screen, but subscriptions feed and recommendations per video.

JokeDeity,

Meh. Revanced still working great for me and I have all my subscriptions, no ads, all the features.

Rusty,

No recommendations sounds better to me to be honest

Teknikal,

I tried to give YouTube ads a chance at one point but they got ridiculous to the point I just can’t.

asexualchangeling,

The day YouTube successfullly made it so that it won’t work without playing ads is the day I delete every google account I have

I’m not putting up with it

Ilovethebomb,

I don’t think they’ll care or miss you, to be honest. It’s not like they’re making money off you.

asexualchangeling,

You underestimate the amount of data google collects from it’s users, and then sells to advertisers, whether or not they view ads

Ilovethebomb,

Who would pay for data on a person you can’t advertise to?

charlotte,

Do you seriously think advertisers buy each user’s data individually, and sometimes Google goes “oh hey guys just a heads up, that individual is using an ad blocker 👍🏼”?

Ilovethebomb,

No, but having a handful of people who will never see their ads devalues the whole package.

SignusX,

I could totally see a company doing a market analysis paying for this data. They’d be looking for for counts of people interested in a thing or in a demographic…then they can determine if it’d be worth it to develop a product targeting that group

NegativeLookBehind,
@NegativeLookBehind@kbin.social avatar

They’re absolutely making money

Ilovethebomb,

How? How do they profit off someone who refuses to view ads?

griD,

With their personal data obviously.

OrekiWoof,

their personal data that they use to show them… ads

mikegioia,
@mikegioia@lemmy.ml avatar

Personal data isn’t only used for ads. In this case a users watching history can be sold especially if it’s connected in some way to a demographic profile. There could be many more ways to monetize many other things the user does.

JWBananas,
@JWBananas@startrek.website avatar

They don’t sell data. They sell ads. Selling data would directly erode their ability to sell ads.

mikegioia,
@mikegioia@lemmy.ml avatar

This has a lot more info: eff.org/…/google-says-it-doesnt-sell-your-data-he…

ExLisper,

You can watch YT without google account.

asexualchangeling,

Sure but it would still be a massively ad filled experience, not worth my time

abhibeckert, (edited )

I could live with an ad before every video

I can’t live with that. Often I don’t even know if I actually want to watch the video or not, and if I have to sit through three minutes of ads, only to close the video five seconds after the ad because it’s not what I expected… yuck. Preroll ads are often a deal breaker for me unless it’s content that I’m very familiar with.

Mid-roll ads I’m OK with - by then I’ve already decided the content is worth watching.

I don’t think I’m alone and YouTube seems to be very aware of this issue. They are selective about which videos have a pre-roll ad.

BubblyMango,

Exactly. With youtube’s shitty tutorial search functions ever since they removed dislikes, i kinda need to see the start of the video to know if its even relevant. But no. Full on 2-3 pre-video ads.

Da_Boom,
@Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

Mid roll ads are fine if the video was made with midrolls in mind that the midrolls actually happened at the times the maker of the video has set them up to happen.

Sure they are selective about which videos have ads, but not when the ads come on.

YouTube, with no adblocker or premium subscription has basically become an interrupting cow, making noise at the most innapropriate time and then you have to wat-MOOOOOOOOOO-ch the ad, then you rewind 10 seconds to get your cont-MOOOOOOOOOO-text back. There needs to be a legal limit to the number of midrolls you can stuff in a short space of time.

I’d rather watch a series of multiple consecutive midroll ads placed at a prespecified time than a random number of ads scattered at completely random intervals, Ruining the flow and mood of the video.

Its frustrating af.

davehtaylor,

There also needs to be a hard limit to the length of ads. Cannot fucking stand seeing an ad come on and it’s an hour and a half long for some get rich quick scheme

bermuda,

I mean idk I never really bothered with an ad blocker pre 2013 or so, back when you’d get an ad before the vid and the longer ones had mid rolls.

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