- cross-posted to:
- technologie@jlai.lu
I’m sure many of you are already aware that YouTube has been rolling out anti-adblock detection for Chrome users for a few weeks now.
Today, as a long time Firefox user with the fantastic uBlock Origin extension installed, I got my first anti-adblock popup on the platform. Note that this may not happen to you personally for a while, but it is inevitably coming for everyone.
Thankfully, the fine folks at uBlock Origin have already advised a simple workaround (on Reddit, yuck!) which I will duplicate in a simplified form below for your convenience. I have tested it on Firefox and it is working fine for me (so far).
PLEASE READ AND FOLLOW ALL OF THE INSTRUCTIONS IN THIS POST.
Update uBO to the latest version (1.52.0+) . <== The extension itself, for technical improvements. You do this in your browser.
Remove your custom config / reset to defaults. <== This means removing your custom filters (or disabling My filters) and disabling ALL additional lists you’ve enabled. It might be quicker to make a backup of your config and restore to defaults instead.
Force an update of your Filter Lists. <== This is within the extension. Lists are what determine what’s blocked or not. How to update Filter lists: Click 🛡️ uBO’s icon > the ⚙ Dashboard button > the Filter lists pane > the 🕘 Purge all caches button > the 🔃 Update now button.
Disable all other extensions AND your browser’s built-in blockers. <== No need to uninstall, just disable them. They might interfere with our solutions.
Make sure you follow all 4 points above. If you’re seeing the message, it’s likely due to your custom config (either additional lists or separate filters in My filters).
Restarting your browser afterwards may help too.
Once you’ve gotten rid of the issue on default settings, you can slowly start restoring your config (if you really need it). Do it gradually, to easier find out what was causing the issue in the first place. Once you find the culprit, simply skip it in your config.
If you want to use Enhancer for YouTube*, you have to* disable its adblocking*.*
May the force uBlock Origin be with you!
Update
Just wanted to mention a few things that have been pointed out in the comments:
- There are quite a few projects that provide an alternative ad-free front end to YouTube. These include Invidious, FreeTube, LibreTube, Newpipe, Revanced, and I’m sure there are several more options I’ve missed. I don’t have any particular preference really but I routinely use NewPipe on my cellphone just because I tried it once and couldn’t be bothered trying all the others.
- In step 4 listed above, to clarify, afaik you only need to remove adblocker extensions (if you have more than one installed) that might conflict with the uBlock Origin rules and trigger the anti-adblock, not all extensions.
- If you hate non-stop ads but want to support your favorite content creators then be sure to give them some love on Patreon or whatever alternative options they provide. Creators typically make only a tiny, tiny fraction of what YouTube makes in ad revenue, assuming YouTube doesn’t just outright steal the lot, and it’s a shitty business model that’s ruining the internet. Even if you watch the ads, you’re only supporting YouTube most of the time, not the creators.
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I’ve just noticed that this is in c/piracy. I suppose there’s lots of interest in the story here and everywhere else, but I’d just like to remind you all that ad-blocking is not piracy.
c/piracy is just c/useful, the only community on lemmy where you are actually getting something useful.
People interested in piracy are also interested in ad blocking. Seems relevant to me.
I do think it is piracy, for me piracy is taking what you want exactly how you want it and don’t ask for it, absolute freedom.
We small people don’t have the possibilities as the rich to save much money with tax tricks or anything similar, so this is how we’re compensating.
I rather have piracy seen more positively than distant certain areas from it. Just my opinion.
While I wholeheartedly agree, you’ll hear a different tune from others. “You’re accessing our service without paying in ad-revenue!!!” and the like.
Linus Tech Tips seems to think it is, lmao
Emphasis on #4 here - the anti-adblock will trigger if it detects any subpar adblocker, including e.g. Brave Browser’s “Shields” thing (even if you also use uBlock Origin). Helped a friend figure this out lately and found out they were running 3 adblockers and Brave Browser. Some people are truly special.
Definitely, and note that (for me anyway) I didn’t have to disable any of my other extensions. I think they are referring mainly to adblocking extensions in that step.
I thought Brave Shields was just repackaged uBlock Origin?
Not as far as I know, but I don’t have much experience with Brave Browser. They probably use the same ad-filtering lists on the backend but their implementation is probably not identical. I know that for this situation in particular, Brave Shields was causing Youtube to act up but Ublock Origin wasn’t (might be fixed at this point in time).
Ah thanks for clearing that up, I don’t rember where I got this misconception
So annoyed at how all these services keep degrading for users. I was happy to pay for premium light. I don’t need download/music/etc I just wanted no ads. Simple as that. The price was fairly reasonable and I would have kept paying it. Now they got rid of the premium light and I have to pay at least 50% more for additional things I don’t and will not use.
Alright then, well you lost a customer and I’ll just use AdBlock. And if you somehow figure out how to disable that, I’m just going to find content somewhere else. I’m fucking sick of ads. I’ll pay a reasonable amount to remove them. But I will not be continually wrung out for more and more money. Just leave me alone.
Holy Hell, I just checked and Youtube Premium is more expensive than Disney+ here in Canada, and D+ includes STAR which is basically Hulu. Youtube Premium is a terrible deal.
Yeah it’s fucking absurd
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I would be inclined to agree with you if they didn’t get rid of Premium Light. I think charging users for avoiding ads is completely reasonable, we live in a Capitalist country and video hosting isn’t cheap. Even still, axing Premium Light shows a desire to screw over users in order to achieve more profit, which in my mind makes YouTube scummy.
Bingo. This move right at the same time they killed premium light really muddies the messaging on this one
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I didn’t mind the ads back in the day, like 10+ years ago. They were ads for cars, cleaning products, food and drink, movies, games, theme parks, shit like that. Regular products, wasn’t really any super scummy stuff there. Now half the ads are scummy mobile games designed to cause a gambling addiction, impersonation frauds and scams, crypto doubling scams like it’s fucking Runescape, and a whole bunch of other shit that is actively harmful or brainrotting. I don’t mind seeing a funny little fox selling me laundry detergent, but the fart-piss-and-shit mobile ads are just genuinely revolting. If YouTube wants to make me watch ads, they should have some standards and vetting processes for those ads. Like, I still listen to the radio. I hardly notice the ads there because they aren’t actively making me feel worse physically for having listened to them. Very rarely I’ll watch regular TV and, again, don’t really mind the ads there 90% of the time.
And that’s not even touching on what the creators actually get from the hours of my life I would end up watching ads. If you donate 2 bucks to your favorite creator or sub to their patreon or whatever, you’ve probably given them more money than they would get from your ad views in a year. It’s not the loss of adblock revenue that’s making so many creators take sponsorships, it’s the lack of revenue in the first place.
Same here. I would have been tempted to pay for premium light but they removed that, and I’m not paying extra for things I don’t use.
Alternative solution: Since YouTube disabled all ads in Russia, you can just use russian vpn/proxy for the most effective YouTube adblocking possible.
Wow! What a great idea! What could be better than routing all your traffic through a Russian VPN provider and probably bypassing sanctions? What could possibly go wrong?
Even your dog will get hacked
Thanks for a solution that nobody will ever use
Nice try, Roskomnadzor
This one’s hilarious, but that one’s not gonna work for long as they will axe almost all non-government approved VPNs
Pretty sure its the same with Syria too
Why did they disable ads there?
Ukraine use ads for anti-putin propaganda. So the russian goverment told Google to moderate ads, or all Google services will be banned. Google decided to just disable ads in Russia completely.
Lol That’s awesome, less of a workaround and more of a “we fixed it already, but whatever you’re using probably hasn’t caught up yet”.
Thank god we have people working tirelessly to prevent Google’s greed
While I’m thankful for the team at uBlock Origin, I still wouldn’t call it greedy that a company that provides a quite excellent free video streaming platform, would also like to make a little profit from it too or at the very least to cover the expenses.
They already do make more than “a little profit” from YouTube. The shareholders demand infinite growth tho, so Google has to nickle and dime their users for even more profit. The bane of any publicly traded company.
more than “a little profit”
Can we be sure about that? YT is owned by Alphabet, a publicly traded company. However, they have chosen not to disclose the financial statements of YT, thus not telling investors about profits or losses. Now think about it: if you had a cash cow that was making you a fortune, wouldn’t you want to disclose that to investors, make it public, so that your company (and the stock you own in it) is worth more? And yet they don’t do that, which makes me (and Louis Rossman apparently) think that YT is likely not as profitable as we may think, if it even turns a profit. The ad business, especially now, is not doing well, which coincides with YT’s crackdown on ad blocking. Why would that be? Probably because they are at a loss rn, and are truing to make that back by forcing users to watch ads.
Youtube may be making a loss, but Google is not and they are better off keeping users in their ecosystem. If there was a viable alternative, I doubt this would be happening. There isn’t though, and with no competition anymore they’re free to capitalize and attempt to make as much profit as possible.
That’s why I was going through my list of Youtubers I’ve subscribed to the other day. So basically, many of them are on Odyssey or PeerTube, and some have their own podcasts and blogs, so I’ll be able to keep up with most of the creators I follow on YT, and the work they do.
I have been using YouTube almost since the day one. I’ve watched tens of thousands of hours of free content, and I’ve not watched a single ad. If their every user was like me, then how could they make any profit from it? Now the profit comes from the people that do watch those ads aswell as people who pay for premium. What does that make me then? A freerider.
You’re still adding views to the video and engage by liking which is good for the influence metrics. Google uses that to ask for higher prices to show ads on that video. Well, they give the influence metrics to advertisers and they have to decide themselves how much showing an ad on this video would be worth for them. It’s like an instant auction, there is no fixed price. So, while you are freeriding, the compensation of you not seeing ads is mainly covered by advertisers.
To be clear, advertisers are not paying more because they pay Google for an ad that is blocked (that’s not happening), they pay more because Google uses your views to tell advertisers that this video is a good investment.
You adding views to some random video absolutely does not offset the cost of your usage through ads. Ads can make a surprising amount of money for a platform (upwards of 4 or 5 dollars a month per free user). Based on YouTube removing premium Lite, I think it’s actually very safe to assume that the consumption of free users is around that, so approximately $7 per month on average. Do you honestly think this would offset that cost in any universe?
It’s okay to want stuff for free. Just make sure you fully understand the consequences and don’t try to play it off like you’re the good guy.
Google is also keeping you in their ecosystem. Doing so allows them to learn from user behaviors and other things that make money. YouTube doesn’t need to make money for Google to make money from YouTube users.
It’s not the advertising that’s the problem, it’s the tracking and surveillance that comes with it. Until they get rid of that, uBlock Origin is a necessary security measure.
To me it is the advertising that is the problem. Without ads, there’s no need for collecting user data either. Even if it’s non-targeted ads, that would still make the advertisers the customer, not the people watching those videos. This incentivizes them to optimize the platform to please the advertisers, not the users, resulting in a worse service.
I understand why many people feel like the option to have non-targeted ads instead of monthly fee seems tempting, but in my opinion this doesn’t solve the root of the problem, which is the ads-based bussines model. It’s what makes everything go to shit.
Ad based models aren’t great, but the alternative is subscription based. And we know exactly what the internet feels about that. Look at the amount of people here in this thread given that exact choice and refusing to pay
Yeah but those same people are already paying for Spotify, Netflix, Disney+ and so on. I’m not some bussines genious, so I’m obviously talking out of my ass, but I’d imagine if YouTube had switched to a affordable subscribtion model like 5 years ago, today we’d have a much better platform. I don’t think it’s so much the subscribtion model itself that’s the issue, but the transition from a free platform to paid one.
The irony is if they did have non-targeted ads I’d have more good-will towards them and I would be more likely to pay their subscription. But spying on users and being sneaky about it makes me hostile and want to double-down against what they want.
Monthly fee for everyone or you mean freemium? Freemium in my opinion wont be enough to cover the cost, because works well only with services with low cost per-user. And monthly fee for everyone is a very hight incentive of not using YouTube.
Original YouTube, before Google, was one of many Video streaming websites – living alongside competitors such as Dailymotion, Vimeo… And Google video. Those guys, yes, would’ve deserved this sort of compassion.
Google’s YouTube is an evil entity that bruteforced itself into a de facto monopoly, routinely changes the rules for content creators that have built the platform and often depend on it for their living, allows a predatory system of copyright trolls to thrive at the expense of the creators, frequently allows creators to be robbed of their channel and income by arbitrary strikes while being completely deaf to requests for help, leverages Google’s power to crush potential competitors, influence public opinion, stifle free speech… I could go on. Sympathy for such an entity, quite frankly, for me, is a form of Stockholm syndrome.
Whether you like their actions or not, they still have bills to pay
the nature of the web is that you are sent information and a suggestion of how to render it. The user is free to view as little or as much of that content as they decide.
“ad blockers arent allowed on youtube” is an insane statement. ad blockers arent on youtube. you are just being selective about which content you render.
it is greedy to try and rewrite the fundamental workings of the web because you feel entitled to profit.
Okay, let’s get rid of all ads and move to subscriptions across the entire internet. What a fantastic idea.
Donations work too.
Donations don’t work by themselves. Pretty much ever.
Maybe expecting payment for freely given information isn’t actually a good business model.
Corporations have taken the ‘supermarket chain’ methodology of using huge amounts of capital to cement themselves as the standard until competition dies and then hiking the prices. But i don’t think that actually works for the web. They get all the users and sink (or buy out) the little guys, sure. But how many of these platforms are able to turn that into profit?
As the platforms become more and more desperate, they bend further and further to advertiser’s whims and everyone suffers. Its not like they’re really paying content creators anyway. Most of them make their money from patreon/etc.
I cant stop giant corporations from breaking the web but i’m not going to pretend that disabling my adblocker would be helping some small struggling company, and im certainly not going to thank them for it
Hell yes, lets do it
You know you could just subscribe to remove them anyways right? I don’t see the difference here
Along with what the other comment says, it’s also how intrusive it is. If it was in-line ads or banner ads or something that’d be one thing. It’s constant ads that stop videos though. Even short videos I feel like you get multiple ad breaks. It’s horrible.
I just replace youtube.com with piped.video all the time
Nobody should ever share data with american corpos - there is no example where corporations harvested data and anyone but the shareholders benefited. So for me it feels like a win whenever they fail.
Do you know who is running piped.video?
https://github.com/FireMasterK (the piped repo admin)
I just wish I could sync my history to different devices :/
I thought the piped accounts did exactly that, or is it only playlists that sync?
Maybe across different computers, but not on mobile :/
Maybe it is time that we start to write our favourite youtubers to start developing alternative means of distributing their videos. Patreon and so on.
I feel there will be a lot less people watching YouTube in the future and as a whole many youtubers will see their revenue drop significantly. Watching YouTube as a whole will become less and less bearable. I watch videos without ads on my pc, but on mobile i use the app and endure the videos (for now) as the app is just nicer to use compared to the browser.
But if I have to see ads all the time (also these unskippable 20s ads) I think I’ll simply stop using YouTube all together. about 90% ofy YouTube use isn’t neccessary at all. I’ll just watch it, because I’m too lazy to do anything else.
I could be should read a book instead. Maybe others will do that too in the future?
That’s called nebula.tv
Must I pay to watch content on the Nebula Platform?
So, you won’t even click a link and glance at a platform unless it’s free (/ has ads that you can bypass with a blocker)?
Here’s the important bits…
How do the creators get paid?
Nebula profit is divided 50/50 between the creators and Standard. The creator pool is paid out based on watch time.Who owns Nebula?
Nebula is owned and operated by Standard and the creators, with Curiosity Inc (CuriosityStream) holding a minority stake and a board seat. There are no plans to bring in additional investment.Obviously yes I will click & check out the different channels, etc. For me the name is new, so I had to ask. I am used to ads being shown such as in YouTube.
Yep, that’s the whole point of Nebula
Well, the alternative would be it is free, but we’re the product and we’d cry for another more honest and credible services like we’re doing right now.
I think Nebula is only $3 a month? So, you’re only paying €36 per year which is inexpensive compared to other subscription services. There is a once off payment of $300 and you have a lifetime subscription. The price is cheap for a lifetime subscription assuming Nebula, you and I will be around for more decades to make it worthwhile.
Nebula also have promo codes to tie the subscription prices with other streaming services like Curiosity Stream and other classroom/tutorial websites. I think I am paying $15 per year for both Nebula and Curiosity Stream.
Appreciate the info you provided.
Yes. Making videos is a job and the creators need money to eat and remain housed, it’s reasonable for them to want to be compensated for their work.
Too much use of patroeon would be awful. I dont want cable 3.0 where I’m forced to pay for every Chanel
True. I just used it as a stand-in for other ways of making content + earning something while doing it.
If everytthing is on Patreon it might be slightly better, but not good
Get fdroid and download newpipe or alternative if you want to keep an app for YouTube without ads.
Alternative web front ends also exist if you are okay with watching videos in a mobile browser. I use an invidious instance, pick one that’s close to you here. Other front ends also exist.
Alternative video platforms such as LBRY also exist and I’ve found a few youtubers I watched on it.
Absolutely take it as an opportunity to reduce your video content consumption. I like the invidious solution because I don’t get notifications and it takes a bit more effort to manually open the link in the web client so I tend not to watch videos I’m only half interested in.
Edit: froid => fdroid
Get froid
FDroid
It was a froidian slip
Haha yah right. Most people just watch the ads or pay for premium. And it has been shown again and again most people don’t want to pay for anything.
or lbry/odyssey
I started using freetube for linux a month or so ago. This is so much better than native youtube. The entire interface is smoother, I get less “loading” moments (none really) and it does not try and constantly reduce my resolution by “auto adjusting”. No ads, no BS. Just better all around.
ugh, I wish they didn’t use Electron.
Decided to start using Freetube on desktop, Newpipe on mobile. It works!
Also try yewtu.be (Invidious instance)
I wonder what made youTube decide to fix this loophole? These days the vast majority of people use phone apps or smart TVs to watch. The number of people using Firefox plus ad blockers must be quite small and it’ll be a constant effort to keep updating their anti ad block algorithms.
They’re probably just trying to prevent any user momentum away from Chrome from gaining traction. Ensure there remains no better options for the people who don’t care about privacy or ethics (which sadly is the bulk of ppl)
A LOT of companies have pushed hard on the enshittification pedal lately, apparently it has to do with interest rates or something like that, i guess it also affects Google
The number of people using Firefox plus ad blockers must be quite small
Hmm, apparently either it’s not fully spread to all users yet, or AdGuard + MalwareBytes gets around it automatically. Of course, I also run Anti-Adblock Blocker, Bypass Paywalls Clean and Sponsorblock so it could be one of those stopping it from bothering me either.
Maybe they want to start pushing ads harder and are afraid that more people will discover ad blockers? Once people switch it may be harder to bring them back. So you first close all the exists and than start increasing ads per minute. Because where will everyone go? There’s no where else. Ad blockers are the only option really.
maybe this problem is more than it really is, maybe youtube really really needs eyes on ads.
Thank you for the comprehensible instructions!
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work with Edge (yet?).Ayo who tf uses Edge?
Me, sadly, as it is the only browser installed on my work pc. We can’t install any other programs (working with highly sensitive data).
EDIT: It works now :D
working with highly sensitive data uses windows
that sounds like it’s going to blow up at some point
I work in government and spend all day remoting into judges’, prison officers’, and social workers’ PCs. The most sensitive material you can imagine and all of it on windows.
If you can run EXE filles on your work PC and you just don’t have administrator rights to install software, you should be able to download a portable version of your favorite browser.
I used portable Firefox, Chrome, Notepad++, Eclipse, Sysinternals stuff and many more without problems that way.
Disclaimer: Althought this probably works technically, it might still violate some company policy.
Can confirm. I did that at college. Yes, it technically violated the policy, but even though my lecturers and everyone else knew, nobody batted an eye. When OP is working with sensitive data, however, things coupd be different.
If it’s a significantly controlled environment then executable whitelisting is likely in place. With my employer not only are applications whitelisted but even limiting it to specific versions of them. Makes for a bureaucratic nightmare if you want to do something outside the approved channels, but good luck ever pulling a drive-by on one of their machines.
Quit your iob
Uh, if it’s work:
A. Shouldn’t you be working?
Or
B. Ads while I get paid, doesn’t seem too bad.
C. Principle of the matter dammit!
I watch on duckduckgo video search results (no ads, fully private) or yt-dlp if I want to watch it again later.
Good to have the ad-block instructions for using the actual YouTube site.
Also thanks other commenters for recommendations of freetube and futo, reminders of pipe. Will try em out soon!
invidious.io is unstoppable. unshackle yourself from the g**gle gulag
invidious and piped instances regularly get rate-limited or blocked. it’s a perpetual arms race where google can decide to fight harder at any time.
Use LibRedirect too, really helpful tool that I wish I had discovered sooner.
So far, I’ve seen nothing on Firefox – but I am getting some minor hiccups on ReVanced which seem to be consistent with the influence of the AdBlock detection. Stuff like playback stopping after 3 videos until I unpause it, probably coming from the pop-up appearing.
Thank the good god for the incredible folks maintaining uBlock origin.
Edit: and ReVanced, and SmartTube, and Newpipe, and everything… But especially uBlock origin. That thing is a security necessity.
Stuff like playback stopping after 3 videos until I unpause it, probably coming from the pop-up appearing.
Yep, that’s exactly what happened when I blocked ##opened on youtube.com.
