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.

loops,

I use NoScript to block every script from google except for ytimg and youtube and I haven’t seen anything like that; though, I do only watch 1-2 videos at a time, maybe I haven’t ‘triggered’ it.

I can even disable origin and still not see any ads because NoScript blocks them from loading in the first place.

Sprite,
@Sprite@lemmy.ml avatar

I had 4 ads stop me 4 times in 5 minutes from starting to watch my first video. And they were the long ads you can skip, but if not, they will last. I miss back when a banner at the bottom of the video was an annoyance.

Sendbeer,

Add in sponsors that some ass holes throw 2-3 in a video (FU LTT) and I don’t know how people watch YouTube with ads. It sucks so bad.

I do pay for premium, but use smart tube on my android tv box and it feels so good when it rolls right past them.

scarrtt,

SmartTube is some of the greatest software ever made

luno,

sponsorblock is a godsend for that type of stuff

zurohki,

Sponsors are the biggest argument for not getting YouTube Premium, in my opinion.

You spend money on YouTube Premium and still have a bunch of ads, so you need to use sponsorblock, and if you’re using that just use an ad blocker too.

Appoxo,
@Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

At least you can skip LTT ads.Try that with YT ads.

jlow,

Have you tried Freetube (desktop) or Newpipe / Libretube (Android)? Working fine for me.

bermuda,

of course those work its just annoying seeing the main site crumble this way. I shouldn’t have to use third party workarounds when the first party site can be making improvements easily

Karlos_Cantana,
@Karlos_Cantana@sopuli.xyz avatar

Patch it with Revanced.

Pratai,

YouTube- is a terrible experience.

Rai,

For those with iOS, please watch through Firefox Focus. It blocks YT ads!

Marmanvii,
@Marmanvii@lemmy.one avatar

Or sideload uYou/uYou+, works really well!

kzhe,

Or use Yattee and Piped (no need jailbreak)

Marmanvii,
@Marmanvii@lemmy.one avatar

I prefer using yattee, but lately most instances throw an error and has been unusable for me, hopefully it can work more consistently over time

FlashMobOfOne,
@FlashMobOfOne@beehaw.org avatar

Brave Browser gets around YT’s ads.

someguy3,

I had a playlist that I was watching when I was working with raw meat (can’t touch the phone). Next video comes up and it’s a 8 minute ad that I can’t skip because I can’t touch my phone. Argh.

bermuda,

Yeah that part was especially frustrating. I like playing longform content on my 2nd monitor while gaming on my first monitor so I kept having to tab out to skip the ads.

Hegar,

A rich right wing lunatic (but I repeat myself) in Australia had a 45m ad for his vanity political campaign. A friend of mine sent a screenshot.

SayJess,

That’s ridiculous. How is there not a limit on the length of an ad? Money obviously—but still. I make a point NOT to purchase from a company if an ad is longer than 30 seconds. So annoying!

Double_A,
@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

You get ads for actually real products? Literally the only ad for a real thing that is available to me was about a cleaning company for house fassades… but I don’t have a house. Everything else is stupid games or apps, or porn or straight up scams.

SayJess,

Very fair point!

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

I highly recommend using either Piped (has an app for android, too) or invidious (several instances to choose from). No need to use adblock or anything while watching from them. Some videos don’t play, seems more common with music videos, but for most stuff it’ll work fine.

ryannathans,

Where is this mythical app 👀

Evkob,
@Evkob@lemmy.ca avatar

IMO the best Piped app for Android is LibreTube

kzhe,

The two he listed are websites. On Android a really good Piped client is Libretube, and Clipious for Invidious is… eh. On iOS Yattee for Piped.

hellequin67,

This is why I use Smartube on my android TV and revanced/NewPipe on my phone.

The few times I’ve witnessed naked YouTube it’s made be realise that if any of the sources mentioned stop working then I’m simply not going to use YouTube.

Double_A,
@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Yeah it’s horrible. For it to somehow be worth watching with ads, the ads had to be for a legitimate and relevant product, and the algorithm / video quality had to be much better.

xrtxn,

I think ublock origin bypasses youtubes ad detection

DagonPie, (edited )
@DagonPie@kbin.social avatar

Just tried. It does not.

EDIT: Needed to update my browser.

utubas,

Works on my machine

djquadratic,
@djquadratic@kbin.social avatar

I think ublock is working on a fix

dampfnudel,

I think it’s dependent on whether the ads are served server-side or client-side. Server side ad insertion isn’t something that uBO can protect against. Twitch is a good example of this.

xrtxn,

I have never gotten a twitch ad in my life

dampfnudel,

I believe you but Twitch does use SSAI in some geographic areas and uBO is unable to block SSAI based ads

Stillhart,

This was annoying when it happened. Fortunately there are adblockers specifically for Twitch that work fine.

mild_deviation,

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

holycrap,

That could feed a lot of cats

Hegar, (edited )

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.

stardust,

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

DagonPie,
@DagonPie@kbin.social avatar

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

averyminya,

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.

xrtxn,

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

skulblaka,
@skulblaka@kbin.social avatar

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

loops,

Also NoScript!

megopie, (edited )

I used to pay for premium just because it was the simplest way to watch ad free on my phone (IOS so Vanced was not an option), and being able to download videos to watch later on a flight was nice.

But then they wouldn’t let you do Picture in Picture from the app, which, like, fine. Annoying but I’ll just play it in the background and just listen to the audio.

But then they started forcing the tiktok clone onto the home page and subscriptions page. I really do not like the dopamine disinformation vortex. So I deleted the app and just started watching them through the website, which actually enabled Picture in Picture and let me hide the shorts shelf (for 30 days before I have to click the X again.)

Now I’ve just stopped paying for it and just watch YouTube in the Firefox Focus IOS browser which completely blocks YouTube ads in my experience. It won’t let me do Picture in Picture or play audio in the background on their website, but I’ve noticed embedded YouTube videos on other websites will.

So now I’m looking in to using other front ends so I can have complete normal functionality without having to watch adds or pay them money and have their stupid tik tok clone shoved down my throat.

Good job Google, you managed to completely alienate someone who was paying you cash. Now I’m the definition of a free rider on your service.

Illecors,

A bit of an aside, but did you use speech to text to post this?

ripcord,
@ripcord@kbin.social avatar

Impression I got, too.

megopie,

No, I’m just bad at proof reading and a clumsy typer/ not the best with written grammar

Illecors,

That’s cool. Was curious more than anything else.

alcyoneous,

Check out uYou+ with AltStore. It lets you enable PiP and background play, and I think you can disable shorts and such.

ProcurementCat,

ReVanced can patch your YouTube client (even without root) and add (your choice of) features, for example adblocking, picture in picture, playing in background as well ad quality of life improvents like hiding the “block” of news videos, remove reels or certain buttons

https://feddit.de/pictrs/image/48f70f58-33d8-4f38-88f5-368e00ace37a.jpeg

Ganbat,

They said they’re on IOS.

Stillhart,

The reviews on the play store make this sound like a pretty trash app. Maybe I’m looking at the wrong one…

ComradeKhoumrag,
@ComradeKhoumrag@infosec.pub avatar

github.com/ReVanced/revanced-manager

ErilElidor,

Revanced isn’t in an app store (at least not a legit version), you have to build it yourself. Otherwise it would probably end like Vanced. Take care of scam websites, this is the real one: revanced.app

Or check this guide: reddit.com/…/revanced_manager_guide_for_dummies/ (yes, it’s Reddit, but the guide was really useful to me 🤷‍♂️)

Stillhart,

Thanks, that’s much different! lol This looks pretty involved. Does it need to be updated all the time as Youtube updates, similar to NewPipe? Because NewPipe is a pain to keep updated but it also a lot less work. lol

LinuxSBC,

What I usually do is tell the Play Store to not update it. Also, I don’t think it’s that involved. Take this with a grain of salt because I’m pretty experienced with phone modification, but I think it’s just downloading the file, opening it, selecting YouTube, choosing what modifications you want, and installing it.

ProcurementCat,

ReVanced doesn’t really require frequent updates. After modifying the YouTube app, I disable auto updates and keep using it until something doesn’t work properly (usually ads reappear)- Happens maybe every 4-5 months for me.

For example, the YouTube version I’m using right now is 18.23.35 from June 10th, while the newest version that can be patched with ReVanced is 18.35.44. But since I haven’t seen any issues, I didn’t even bother to check for updates. Only your comment made me check and realize that I can update it.

skarn,

I don’t find it at all annoying to keep NewPipe up to date.

I think you may need to take a look at Obtainium.

kzhe,

Anything revanced on the play store is fake. You cannot get Revanced from the play store. revanced.app

Nath,
@Nath@aussie.zone avatar

Hmm. I’ve always had premium so never looked into ReVanced. I knew it existed, but didn’t realise it might be useful for more than just bypassing ads.

Most of these should be regular settings. I want several of them. My biggest bugbear is shorts. But I also want to be rid of those little popup things and the overlay cards at the end of a video.

NiaTheCat, (edited )
@NiaTheCat@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

If you’re open to recommendations, sideloading uYou+ (via altstore or other methods, no jailbreak needed) is sort of like ReVanced but for iOS.

There’s also Yattee which is on the App Store or you can sideload it. It can connect to a Piped or Invidious instance to play YouTube vids.

Both of them are open source if that’s important for you

megopie,

Thanks, I’ll look in to that.

Rexios,

uYou+ is no longer maintained. I use uYouPlusExtra: github.com/arichorn/uYouPlusExtra

RandomStickman,
@RandomStickman@kbin.social avatar

I can do PiP on Firefox android by playing the video in fullscreen and returning home. There's an add on for FF, Video Background Play Fix, that allows me to play in the background as well.

billothekid2,
@billothekid2@kbin.social avatar

Maybe it's an iOS thing, but I can definitely do PiP with Premium on the official app on Android.

SayJess,

I can do PiP on iOS with my premium subscription.

megopie,

It may be different now, but when IOS first added PiP is was super inconsistent with the YouTube app, it worked one week, then the app updated and it didn’t work, then the next week it worked if you were logged in, then only with premium, then only if you were not logged in, then it would exit out of it it the first time you opened it but not the second time you opened PiP

It was just… a mess and it almost felt like there was some back and fourth going on between Apple and Google over how it was implemented.

wren,
@wren@sopuli.xyz avatar

PiP works on iOS, even without premium (with some restrictions). At least it did very recently, I have premium now though so I can’t verify as of today

gregorum, (edited )

AdGuard for iOS blocks YouTube ads. Adblock Pro has an “open in PiP mode” button that lets you open videos in PiP without YT premium, which is cool.

I don’t use the app

kzhe,

Try Yattee. Piped client for iOS. You do have to do weird setup because the app needs to pretend to not be a Piped client. Otherwise, Piped or Invidious website.

darkfiremp3,

The brave browser allows you to Picture in Picture and blocks ads!

StereoTypo,
@StereoTypo@beehaw.org avatar

I stayed at a place last year that had a RokuTV, YouTube was practically unusable on it due to the absurd number of ads that would play. Even more infuriating was that they were often the same ad, repeated.

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