YouTube just quietly blocked Adblock Plus — the internet hasn't noticed yet, but I've found a workaround
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I think youtube might have implemented something that prevents the server from delivering the video files until the expected duration of the ad has passed. This idea is completely unfounded, but this is what it feels like to me.
Maybe it is a regional thing? I was watching YouTube 30 mins ago with no issues and haven't ever had any unless I open a new tab but don't try to watch until the next day. Then I just need to refresh and it is off to the races.
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I hate when they say paying the premium is a "solution". It's worse. That's why nobody is doing it.
How is it worse?
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I think that's fine. Let the non-tech-savvy users pay for the service. It seems like they deserve it, and also they keep YT running for "free".
You can keep enjoying YT with Firefox + uBO or PipePipe on your phone.
I'm pretty tech savvy and pay for premium. It's just too good a value for my household right now.
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How is it worse?
It costs money.
Having money is better than not having money.
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With all due respect, no the fuck it ain’t
Agree. I was just citing the article.
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are you paraphrasing what the article said or saying it yourself?
I was just citing the article's stated workaround since that's what everyone will want to know.
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Have you noticed uBlock Origin being a bit hit and miss on YouTube lately? I’ve had it happen a few times lately where the video won’t play, or an ad comes up but doesn’t play. I’ve had to keep refreshing until it gets to normal where it just plays the damn video.
I sometimes get a popup warning from YouTube that my account will be blocked from viewing videos if I keep running an ad blocker. But the warning goes away after a while and YouTube still works. I don't see ads except on mobile.
Oddly, they also keep begging me to "return" to YouTube Premium, though I have never paid for YouTube Premium.
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I think you stopped scrolling too early
That said though, there is one ad blocker that still works. Two words: uBlock Origin. Yes, I know that Google has blocked it from its Chrome Extension store, but there is still a way to get uBlock Origin on Chrome that our how-to extraordinaire Kaycee has detailed.
They even link to what I assume is that process.
But...
It costs the same as Spotify
I used Google Play music and it was awesome, when it shuttered I tried Spotify and didn't like it.
YouTube premium is worth it just for music on your phone/car, getting YouTube ad free is kind of just a bonus. But there's a couple podcasts I watch on there, and I've found a couple really good channels for all the crazy science stuff that's been happening. Not to mention a lot of UK shows upload full episodes, and there's more than one account that somehow uploads full runs of shows after being upscaled to 4k.
I really don't understand why so many people are against YouTube premium. It makes sense if someone just pirates all their other media. But people pay for a music streamer and a couple TV streamers.... It seems like an arbitrary line.
Edit:
The article is from "toms guide" not "toms hardware".
The guide has every article like this where it reads like paid advertising. The "hardware" one is a good resource.
But yeah, pretty much anything from "tomsguide" is going to read like paid advertising for something. I legit don't know if they're affiliated or it's a ripoff site built to confuse people with the "hardware" site.
People on Lemmy might be more likely to be trying to do things like de-google in general, or try to cutdown on account based usage for big corporations.
So not really want to give Google their payment information for YouTube and sign in to use YouTube.
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"If your adblock doesn't work, a workaround is to pay for YouTube Premium"
AW NO I HADN'T FUCKING THOUGHT OF THAT
Honestly, I just did that. YouTube has costs, storing and sharing all that data at high resolution and speed, so expecting that service for absolutely nothing is a little weird. We can find reasons that they’re bad, that’s fine, but good or bad they do have to pay for things.
I also pay for the Patreon of one of my favourite mandolin players because I want him to keep making content and I wanted access to backing tracks and the Discord server. He can’t do it at that level for free, and that’s ok.
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Or even better, Librewolf.
Honest question, but what makes librewolf BETTER?
In firefox you can easily toggle off the studies telemetry bullshit in the settings. Librewolf is just firefox with those things ripped out right? -
Three out of four of the paragraphs in the article's solution were spent convincing people of the benefits to buying premium. Still feels like an ad despite the tiny mention of uBlock Origin at the very bottom.
I do agree that Youtube, premium isn't bad value. But I refuse to support google or youtube directly with my money. If I ever want to support a creator, I can throw them a couple dollars on patreon and help them far more than buying premium ever would have.
Yeah, the site is pretty garbage and every article reads like an ad.
"Tom's hardware" is still an amazing resource, but "Tom's guide" is so shit I can't tell if it's a ripoff site or just how they find the good one. Especially since the sites look the same, just different background color.
I'm used to it now so I didn't mention that, but for people who don't know about the site it makes sense why they were thrown off.
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Adguard still works too
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Maybe it is a regional thing? I was watching YouTube 30 mins ago with no issues and haven't ever had any unless I open a new tab but don't try to watch until the next day. Then I just need to refresh and it is off to the races.
Work PC and I have to use edge there with Ghostery (ugh). Was trying to find a decent coding tutorial. Every page load of a video was a playback error that instantly vanished when I hit reload. No problems on FF with uBO today, though.
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Honestly, I just did that. YouTube has costs, storing and sharing all that data at high resolution and speed, so expecting that service for absolutely nothing is a little weird. We can find reasons that they’re bad, that’s fine, but good or bad they do have to pay for things.
I also pay for the Patreon of one of my favourite mandolin players because I want him to keep making content and I wanted access to backing tracks and the Discord server. He can’t do it at that level for free, and that’s ok.
I don't care what YouTube's costs are, I don't want to pay. I'll leave that to people like you.
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Honestly, I just did that. YouTube has costs, storing and sharing all that data at high resolution and speed, so expecting that service for absolutely nothing is a little weird. We can find reasons that they’re bad, that’s fine, but good or bad they do have to pay for things.
I also pay for the Patreon of one of my favourite mandolin players because I want him to keep making content and I wanted access to backing tracks and the Discord server. He can’t do it at that level for free, and that’s ok.
For my wife and I, whose main background noise/entertainment is Let's Play style videos on YouTube (Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, RTGame and such), paying for premium just makes sense. Like you said, we can and should criticize them for how they handle things, but everyone making a fuss about premium existing just makes no sense.
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Sadly i have to stop using it. Librewolf has start getting some graphic bug, i also can't upload pictures to some website (it show just lines). Now i'm trying Floorp.
This is caused by not allowing the website to access your html canvas data. You can fix this in the address bar by clicking the icon on the left of the URL to grant permissions.
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Honest question, but what makes librewolf BETTER?
In firefox you can easily toggle off the studies telemetry bullshit in the settings. Librewolf is just firefox with those things ripped out right?Yes. I consider it better because it's preconfigured for privacy, includes UBlock Origin by default, and rips Mozilla's telemetry out. So you never have to worry about them sneaking something new in a later update.
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That said though, there is one ad blocker that still works. Two words: uBlock Origin. Yes, I know that Google has blocked it from its Chrome Extension store, but there is still a way to get uBlock Origin on Chrome that our how-to extraordinaire Kaycee has detailed.
Or..... You could just ditch Chrome altogether!
I don't know why people are so fixated on using Chrome. It's a crippled browser made by an evil company that is actively looking to screw the user at every turn.
I switched to Firefox when Google essentially killed uBlock Origin on their browser. At first I ran into some problems with some sites not rendering correctly. But it seems like that's become much less of an issue with later updates. And the best thing is that there are some phenomenal extensions for blocking ads - like a fully-fledged uBlock Origin to name just one. I don't even see sponsor promotions in YT videos now.
And if you don't want to deal with Mozilla directly you can use Waterfox instead.
All this dancing around and jumping through hoops to get uBlock Origin working on Chrome is kind of absurd. Just ditch Chrome (and all Blink-based browsers) altogether where you can (I get that corporate environments are often off the table for this).
Collectively we should be sending a message to Google whenever we can that we are done with their browser bullshit.
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I think you stopped scrolling too early
That said though, there is one ad blocker that still works. Two words: uBlock Origin. Yes, I know that Google has blocked it from its Chrome Extension store, but there is still a way to get uBlock Origin on Chrome that our how-to extraordinaire Kaycee has detailed.
They even link to what I assume is that process.
But...
It costs the same as Spotify
I used Google Play music and it was awesome, when it shuttered I tried Spotify and didn't like it.
YouTube premium is worth it just for music on your phone/car, getting YouTube ad free is kind of just a bonus. But there's a couple podcasts I watch on there, and I've found a couple really good channels for all the crazy science stuff that's been happening. Not to mention a lot of UK shows upload full episodes, and there's more than one account that somehow uploads full runs of shows after being upscaled to 4k.
I really don't understand why so many people are against YouTube premium. It makes sense if someone just pirates all their other media. But people pay for a music streamer and a couple TV streamers.... It seems like an arbitrary line.
Edit:
The article is from "toms guide" not "toms hardware".
The guide has every article like this where it reads like paid advertising. The "hardware" one is a good resource.
But yeah, pretty much anything from "tomsguide" is going to read like paid advertising for something. I legit don't know if they're affiliated or it's a ripoff site built to confuse people with the "hardware" site.
I read that. But the way the article is written suggests that the workaround they're implying is to buy YouTube premium.
I am not per se against YT premium, after all its normal business to take money and serve a product, but what my biggest cons are- The price
- I already use all of the mentioned premium features and more but for free
For example:
YT music -> ReVanced (background play, no ads)
YT App -> ReVanced (no ads, Sponsorblock, no shorts)
YT on browser -> Extensions (uBlock, Sponsorblock, block yt shorts)If I were to pay for premium and use the regular app, I would lose that functionality and 130€ per year. This money would support a company whose business model involves extensive collection of personal data, which is then sold to third parties, effectively contributing to the global surveillance infrastructure.
I would rather not use YouTube than pay for it.
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I am willing to completely ditch YouTube and not access it, but there are a couple of channels that just aren't anywhere else that I do enjoy watching.
Currently, I use RSS feeds in order to stay up to date with their videos, and I use new pipe to actually watch the videos, but still, it's annoying. I would like to stop using them and cannot. I feel as though I'm being held hostage.
I have this running on a local server: https://github.com/alexta69/metube
It’s a frontend for yt-dlp and whenever I want to watch something I just download it and have a copy saved locally. It makes it harder to binge youtube feeds that the algorithm tries to shove down my throat, and that’s a good thing.
