Me neither. I’ve tested Brave, Firefox and LibreWolf+uBlock Origin on desktop. Nothing. Firefox, Iceraven, Brave and NewPipe on Android. Still nothing.
What gives?
Well, besides YouTube giving us videos without ads…
I was getting them on chrome starting a couple of weeks ago. They have gotten more aggressive over time. I switched to Firefox with ublock and I have not received a single message
I got them on Firefox with Ublock Origin but only with my VPN on US or Canadian servers. Then a few days later, even on those servers they disappeared. Haven’t seen one since those first few.
My ad blocker was working so well I didn’t even realize I had it installed and blocking ads on YouTube. I don’t mind watching a few ads as long as it doesn’t get out of hand.
I actually used to have all ad blockers turned off for YouTube because I wanted to support all my favorite creators on there. But then YouTube took away the daily suggestions because I don’t let it track my history. So I said “fuck it” and turned all the adblockers back on.
Now I just support the creators I care to via Nebula and their various Patreons.
took away the daily suggestions because I don’t let it track my history
the funny thing is, if you go to a non logged in session, the suggestion page works fine. It was such an arbitratry grab for the user to consent to them collecting your data. I just bookmarked the subscriptions page and only go there now
I looked more into it and Google doesn’t sell the data, that’s true, but they disclose it as a part of them selling ad spaces.
Google monetizes personal data in other ways, some of which involve disclosing personal data to third parties. One of those ways is real-time bidding system (RTB) that powers Google Adsense.
In a nutshell, a website makes advertising spaces available for advertisers through Google Adsense’s intermediation. Several advertisers bid for the same advertising spaces whenever a visitor loads a page in an automated real-time auction. This real-time bid involves disclosing personal data to advertisers to cater their ads better.
the linked article doesn’t describe getting data from Google, but getting data from grindr and other apps. Grindr is notorious for this kind of thing and makes it easy to locate users…in fact its the main feature of the app so its impossible to fix.
There are different levels of privacy. Many of the issues with Google are theoretical or philosophical, but location broadcasting apps like grindr are clear and present dangers to your privacy.
Many of the issues with Google are theoretical or philosophical
See that comment. Google sends user data to potential advertisers for them to determine the price they are willing to pay to show an ad to that user and which ad they show. So no, the data they collect on you gets out there.
Google owns YouTube and the AdSense advertising network. They don’t need to sell the data to advertisers because they are the advertiser. It’s more valuable for them to just hoard that for forever and use it for ad targeting.
I love that, in a competition between a corporation worth hundreds of billions of dollars and a FOSS project, all Google managed to do was annoy uBlock Origin users for like a week. I just had to manually update the extension and restart my browser a few times.
From my perspective it was ease of use. I remember back in the day ( ~2009 ) that youtube became the defacto standard because its ui was simple, it loaded quickly, it was straight to the point, free, didnt require login and you could upload content straight from your android phone after recording it. So sharing was pretty much instant.
After that they came up with policies to help people create actual content ( reward content that had thought put into it, reward creators etc ) which helped with the rise of quality content and make youtube in the youtube it was today.
Spread the word to install firefox based browser, use different frontends to block youtube ads in browser, Invidious and use piped youtube apps on android to block youtbe ads: Newpipe
I’m using Firefox and ublock on Android and it’s great but YouTube via mobile browser is definitely the worst experience after the official youtube app. LibreTube, NewPipe, PipePipe are all better options. Revanced is probably the best in theory but takes more work to get running. These are just the ones I’ve tried but there are even more options. I’m currently using PipePipe and it’s great.
Considering that, after Netflix enabled anti account sharing, they got an increase in subscriptions, I’ve lost faith in humanity, and believe YouTube will succeed in the same way
But that’s because most people watch Netflix through smart TVs and those TVs are closed systems that don’t have apps, or very limited ones. Trying to get people who barely understand how to operate their remote to stream from their computer or other device, isn’t going to happen.
That’s how you know it’s bullshit, because every major ad blocker allows you to disable per site. There’s no need to uninstall. The claim that they’re being uninstalled was written by uneducated propagandists.
yeah like who has a few days of youtube ad blocking not work then goes "that’s it im uninstalling this ad blocker and going back to ALL THE ADS EVERYWHERE
You vastly overestimate the average user. Probably installed an ad locker cause heard from a friend or coworker. Then stops letting them watch YouTube so they uninstall. Go to a non techie and browse the web it’s insane.
I know someone who is non-technical who asked how to remove the ad blocker they had when YouTube displayed the message, as they didn’t know you could turn it off per site, so anecdotally that is something that does happen.
That’s a good example of unintended consequences. Another is alcohol becoming really dangerous on the black market once Prohibition happened in the US.
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