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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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

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!

I experience the same issue. All the elements on the page load extremely slow or sometimes not at all.

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.

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?

What about the UI elements? Because they take a long time to load too

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?

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.

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.

Update frequency/latency hasn't been an issue in the 2 years I've been using it.

LibreWolf Browser

A custom version of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom.

(librewolf.net)