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YouTube just quietly blocked Adblock Plus — the internet hasn't noticed yet, but I've found a workaround

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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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • "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.

  • 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

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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

    1. The price
    2. 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

    We already pay with all of the personal data they steal from us (adblocks or no), and all the lifetimes wasted watching ads for those who don't or can't block them (and the ad revenue paid to them by corps who buy those ads) so no, Google doesn't deserve our money for Premium.

    Same thing as when cable TV was new, they said paying for it was to require fewer ads... how long did that last?

  • 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.

    I'm more worried about the updates not happening in a timely fashion. Is it just a passion project by a handful of devs, or is there some kind of funding?

  • I don't care what YouTube's costs are, I don't want to pay. I'll leave that to people like you.

    I care about making google lose money. They deserve it. I will only make accounts on big tech just to abuse them.

    All of big tech deserves to be bankrupt, convince me otherwise.

    They only care about money. No ethics, no rights, no environment, just money. And money IS NOT more important than ethics, rights, etc.

  • 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.

    Sure, if paying them ment that they also didn't data mine the shit out of you and sold it to 3rd parties...but no they insist on double-dipping so they can get fucked.

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    Everyone breaking the website so they can watch gigabytes of content without ads or subscription: You're not allowed to break things just because you disagree with the other party! You should find an amicable alternative!

  • Reddit will block the Internet Archive

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    U
    Yep. Voyager is way nicer. Good call friend
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  • SHUT THE FUCK UP!

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    teft@piefed.worldT
    Why censor fucking but not fuck?
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    iavicenna@lemmy.worldI
    Oh nice I hope they end up destroying themselves
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    dojan@pawb.socialD
    Don’t assume evil when stupidity I didn't, though? I think that perhaps you missed the "I don’t think necessarily that people who perpetuate this problem are doing so out of malice" part. Scream racism all you want but you’re cheapening the meaning of the word and you’re not doing anyone a favor. I didn't invent this term. Darker patches on darker skin are harder to detect, just as facial features in the dark, on dark skin are garder to detect because there is literally less light to work with Computers don't see things the way we do. That's why steganography can be imperceptible to the human eye, and why adversarial examples work when the differences cannot be seen by humans. If a model is struggling at doing its job it's because the data is bad, be it the input data, or the training data. Historically one significant contributor has been that the datasets aren't particularly diverse, and white men end up as the default. It's why all the "AI" companies popped in "ethnically ambiguous" and other words into their prompts to coax their image generators into generating people that weren't white, and subsequently why these image generators gave us ethnically ambigaus memes and German nazi soldiers that were black.
  • Anthem Demo - Napster plus Distributed Machine Learning

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    eyekaytee@aussie.zoneE
    They will say something like solar went from 600gw to 1000 thats a 66% increase this year and coal only increased 40% except coal is 3600gw to 6400. Hrmmmm, maybe these numbers are outdated? Based on this coal and gas are down: In Q1 2025, solar generation rose 48% compared to the same period in 2024. Solar power reached 254 TWh, making up 10% of total electricity. This was the largest increase among all clean energy sources. Coal-fired electricity dropped by 4%, falling to 1,421 TWh. Gas-fired power also went down by 4%, reaching 67 TWh https://carboncredits.com/china-sets-clean-energy-record-in-early-2025-with-951-tw/ are no where close to what is required to meet their climate goals Which ones in particular are you talking about? Trump signs executive order directing US withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement — again https://apnews.com/article/trump-paris-agreement-climate-change-788907bb89fe307a964be757313cdfb0 China vowed on Tuesday to continue participating in two cornerstone multinational arrangements -- the World Health Organization and Paris climate accord -- after newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump ordered withdrawals from them. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250121-china-says-committed-to-who-paris-climate-deal-after-us-pulls-out What's that saying? You hate it when the person you hate is doing good? I can't remember what it is I can't fault them for what they're doing at the moment, even if they are run by an evil dictatorship and do pollute the most I’m not sure how european defense spending is relevant It suggests there is money available in the bank to fund solar/wind/battery, but instead they are preparing for? something? what? who knows. France can make a fighter jet at home but not solar panels apparently. Prehaps they would be made in a country with environmental and labour laws if governments legislated properly to prevent companies outsourcing manufacturing. However this doesnt absolve china. China isnt being forced at Gunpoint to produce these goods with low labour regulation and low environmental regulation. You're right, it doesn't absolve china, and I avoid purchasing things from them wherever possible, my solar panels and EV were made in South Korea, my home battery was made in Germany, there are only a few things in my house made in China, most of them I got second hand but unfortunately there is no escaping the giant of manufacturing. With that said it's one thing for me to sit here and tut tut at China, but I realise I am not most people, the most clearest example is the extreme anti-ai, anti-billionaire bias on this platform, in real life most people don't give a fuck, they love Amazon/Microsoft/Google/Apple etc, they can't go a day without them. So I consider myself a realist, if you want people to buy your stuff then you will need to make the conditions possible for them to WANT to buy your stuff, not out of some moral lecture and Europe isn't doing that, if we look at energy prices: Can someone actually point out to me where this comes from? ... At the end of the day energy is a small % of EU household spending I was looking at corporate/business energy use: Major European companies are already moving to cut costs and retain their competitive edge. For example, Thyssenkrupp, Germany’s largest steelmaker, said on Monday it would slash 11,000 jobs in its steel division by 2030, in a major corporate reshuffle. https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/High-Energy-Costs-Continue-to-Plague-European-Industry.html Prices have since fallen but are still high compared to other countries. A poll by Germany's DIHK Chambers of Industry and Commerce of around 3,300 companies showed that 37% were considering cutting production or moving abroad, up from 31% last year and 16% in 2022. For energy-intensive industrial firms some 45% of companies were mulling slashing output or relocation, the survey showed. "The trust of the German economy in energy policy is severely damaged," Achim Dercks, DIHK deputy chief executive said, adding that the government had not succeeded in providing companies with a perspective for reliable and affordable energy supply. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/more-german-companies-mull-relocation-due-high-energy-prices-survey-2024-08-01/ I've seen nothing to suggest energy prices in the EU are SO cheap that it's worth moving manufacturing TO Europe, and this is what annoys me the most. I've pointed this out before but they have an excellent report on the issues: https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/97e481fd-2dc3-412d-be4c-f152a8232961_en?filename=The+future+of+European+competitiveness+_+A+competitiveness+strategy+for+Europe.pdf Then they put out this Competitive Compass: https://commission.europa.eu/topics/eu-competitiveness/competitiveness-compass_en But tbh every week in the EU it seems like they are chasing after some other goal. This would be great, it would have been greater 10 years ago. Agreed