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Has Youtube Lost it's Mind?

remixedcat said:
On mobile I use Firefox w ublock origin on my phone and VPN into my home connection

You can add VPN to android too and my router has VPN server and whatever policies I have on my home network get applied to connecting VPN clients
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I'm glad that works for you. My home broadband connection isn't particularly speedy and its reliability is questionable (it's the cable monopoly) so I'm not motivated to bother with such a configuration.

I used to do that sort of thing like twenty years ago; I installed custom Tomato firmware on a Buffalo wifi router and used three blocklists. Today I favor solutions that will deal with scripts etc. rather than brute force site blocks.

This thread encouraged me to look at some mobile-based workarounds. I'm currently playing with an Adguard DNS profile on my backup iPhone. It has partial success in filtering ads. It's better than nothing so I might keep it. I'll try it out on my iPad next before I finally apply it to my primary phone. It does look like I can disable the DNS profile so if I run into a problem with disabled functionality that I really need, I can temporarily disable it.

But truthfully I'd rather have 85% ad blocking and normal functionality rather than 100% ad blocking and a bunch of partly broken sites/services. It simply isn't worth my time and effort in 2024 to try to block every single ad. I have more important things to focus on and I'm okay picking the low hanging fruit.

It was easier twenty years ago when the people serving ads weren't all that smart and the people who wrote adblockers back then were still just as savvy as they are today. Even primordial Internet Junkbuster worked great in the late Nineties.

Today network-based blocking is a good secondary protection strategy but it really can't be relied on as a primary security strategy. There are too many script-based things that can sneak by a host block. 'Twas a great strategy twenty years ago. Today, not as much.
 
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Firefox + Ublock Origin works (at least for now) without any issues. Though on some 4K videos I have minor problems but usually reloading the video helps.
 
I got a few unblockable ads today while logged out(Firefox & UBlock). It wasn't just one or two, it was three in a row at the start of the video and then two more in the middle of the video. Very irritating.

YouTube, we know you lurk here, so listen up.

This "unblockable ads thing" is advice we gave you few years ago, this is not a bad move. However, you've made the mistake of being greedy. Limit unblockable ads to 1 or 2 per video and no more than 30secs for every 30 minutes worth of video running time. More is unacceptable and will start pissing people off. I guarantee people will find a way around this, but they'll be less motivated if you curb the greed and NOT annoy everyone.
 
The 4k issues people mentioned appear with or without adblock so it's just youtube being shit.
 
Chomiq said:
uBlock Origin and you're set.
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YT adblock and all it's copy-paste works same.

kilo said:
FF with ublock origin also works on mobile to block ads.
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THANKS for that, on PC there are TONS of adblock addons for ANY browser and no need to use "most known one", but on mobile there are some "YT-clone" apps without ads but they work like sh so I'm better with browser watch :)
 
Thanks for all of the suggestions. I probably should have put this in the opening post but I use Firefox and adblock free I don't know if Firefox is the best choice for me but I've stuck with it for years and years simply out of momentum. Sounds like the most recommendations are to try uBlock. I may give that a try if Youtube keeps hassling me. I just tried Youtube a few minutes ago and it didn't give me any trouble but it might start up again.
 
kapone32 said:
Maybe they are trying to destroy all the Ad block software lol because mine works fine on my Smart TV but I came on Youtube to avoid commercials not have up to 180 seconds of Ads to watch a 5 minute video.
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I miss the days of ad free youtube. Actually youtube pre-google was awesome, we'll never experience something that truly diverse and unique again.
 
I use Brave with some custom code in the block filter and I never have any problems. I've also mostly been able to revert the format to what it was before they decided to update it recently. I use Brave mobile and also have no issues with YouTube there either.
 
I don't go on YT anymore, good ridance for me, too much watching stupid things, unfunny people.
It's not worth my time :)
 
remixedcat said:
Ask they have to do is have a basic 3 or 5 dollar "ad free" tier instead of spending way more money and time being at war w ad blockers..
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They have that tier. It's the basic subscription, $14. I'm ok with it.

KrazyT said:
I don't go on YT anymore, good ridance for me, too much watching stupid things, unfunny people.
It's not worth my time :)
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Really? What the hell else is there that is not either,
A: Wildly over-priced
B: Bloated with ads
C: A total crap-show

Or do you just not stream?
 
at this rate youtube is just as bad as those pop ups back in windows 95 and 98 saying that you are 999,999th winner... please click to claim your prize... browsing shorts every 3-4 is an advertisement... just an advertisement revenue app now
 
lexluthermiester said:
They have that tier. It's the basic subscription, $14. I'm ok with it.
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I watch it so rarely too... I don't give a flying duck about 99.9999% of the content there. Some rare reviews and that's it. It does not give any value to me, too expensive price/perf wise. I still get abused from google everywhere else using Android platform, they are going overbroad.
 
Dunno the Tube is behaving badly for me too. I am on premium, no ads for sure, but it laggs SO much switching rapidly from video to video! Buffering seems fine once the video bites. No, it's not my internet. Fast enough, PC is on LAN, not Wifi. Tried a few browsers, the same. Will try Brave and see what happens as well.
 
peppermint said:
Actually youtube pre-google was awesome, we'll never experience something that truly diverse and unique again.
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Unique? You do know what there business model & eventual plan was? Do you think all the other startups who don't make money these days, like 90% of them, don't plan to be bought or list for insane amounts on the stock market :rolleyes:

The only way YouTube could be "free" was through ads, otherwise it'd have been Netflix lite at best!
 
Update for me. The Youtube shenanigans started up again and they added a new twist to irritate me by locking up the screen if I didn't agree to turn off my adblocker. I finally gave up and turned off Adblock and the crap hasn't been as bad. At least now I get ads that give me the option of clicking on skip after a few seconds and the ads don't pop up nearly as often. Maybe I got sorted into some special category for people that resisted so hard?
 
64K said:
Update for me. The Youtube shenanigans started up again and they added a new twist to irritate me by locking up the screen if I didn't agree to turn off my adblocker. I finally gave up and turned off Adblock and the crap hasn't been as bad. At least now I get ads that give me the option of clicking on skip after a few seconds and the ads don't pop up nearly as often. Maybe I got sorted into some special category for people that resisted so hard?
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So you're still on Chrome? Why?
 
64K said:
Update for me. The Youtube shenanigans started up again and they added a new twist to irritate me by locking up the screen if I didn't agree to turn off my adblocker. I finally gave up and turned off Adblock and the crap hasn't been as bad. At least now I get ads that give me the option of clicking on skip after a few seconds and the ads don't pop up nearly as often. Maybe I got sorted into some special category for people that resisted so hard?
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There's at least a dozen or so (adblock) extensions still working on the Tube or maybe it's based on where you are?
pavle said:
Use fireferret, it's less google-d.
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And what will that achieve? You can block maybe 90% of google domains easily but the rest, like Gmail, are more essential than ever! Also it's almost impossible to get rid of Google completely unless you use none of their services & even then they can still track you.
 
PC: UBlock Origin addon (using in both Firefox and Chrome, but works on all chromium-based browsers and Firefox forks)

Android: ReVanced - using this method and it is working for years now; only I have other account for YouTube, it is not my main google account where my primary gmail and smartphone are. Working OK and playlists are saved so no problem, but nothing else I use with that account. Of course, you can use it without microG login but then you cannot save anything.
 
Just a side note, I just noticed that YT embeds in Discord now include ads just like the web version without adblocker, example:
1723030280174.png
 
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