YouTube is getting serious about blocking ad blockers

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 144 points – YouTube is getting serious about blocking ad blockers
theverge.com

YouTube is getting serious about blocking ad blockers::YouTube is cracking down on ad blockers. In a statement to The Verge, YouTube’s Christopher Lawton says the company has launched a “global effort” to urge people to allow ads on the platform.

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Uninstall Chrome (includes Edge, Brave, Vivaldi & many more) and replace with Firefox plus uBlock Origin

Problem solved

I personally prefer LibreWolf (Firefox based)

I think we should stop sending people to alternative "Firefox based" browser that will likely break compatibility even more than it is broken on Firefox. It will only frustrate the user and send him back to random chromium based alternative like brave. Firefox default privacy settings are more than enough for the regular user.

I didn't say it's good for most people, I just prefer it and think other privacy oriented people should as well

I understand. I am sure that most, if not all people who care about privacy already use Firefox. We need to help regular users to hope into Firefox. These people tend to know almost nothing about computers and a site that doesn't work is Firefox not working.

Yeah but Firefox uses non private defaults like Google as the default search engine

We need to rid chrome of its monopoly first. Google is a privacy nightmare but it's only because of chrome hegemony over the browser ecosystem that they are able to forcibly DRM the web and castrate adblockers.

My rule: if it's not in my distro's apt repository, it's too niche to use. If you want folks to use Librewolf, package it.

There's a Flatpak

ಠ_ಠ

It's not about whether it's possible to install via a single command; it's about signaling that its popular enough for the distro to justify maintaining a proper first-party package for it.

That's an arbitrary way to decide if a package is worth installing

What's arbitrary about popularity? We use it to decide all sorts of things, including voting in a democracy.

Yeah but determining popularity based on wither or not it's in a distro repo doesn't make sense

I'm pretty sure modern programs by modern people are primarily released as Flatpak while every other traditional package manager comes second, if at all.

If you want to measure popularity, you can see the download count of programs on flathub.org . 550,000 installs of LibreWolf is not niche.

Why the recommendation for Firefox in this matter since ublock is promising support for multiple browsers?

Because Google broke how websites load in Chrome specifically to destroy adblock. They can punch holes in any adblocker that uses the Chromium web rendering engine. However Firefox does not use any Chromium code and still works the way it always has. uBlock (use uBlock Origin instead) will likely still work somewhat on Chorme, but would be helpless to block some ads.

This may be true for chrome, but as far as I can tell anyone building chromium can also change that open source code to not break ad blockers?

While in theory that is true, Chromium is still mostly controlled by Google. Some people may decide that they are going to maintain forks of Chromium that strip out certain features of Chromium, but the pace of development is relentless, releasing new builds several times per day. It would take some seriously deep pockets to be able to staff developers who can keep up with the contributions from Google and Microsoft and others and ensure their fork remains up to date and not broken.

So yes, someone could change that open source code, but it’s really not feasible in the long run, and so Google (and to a lesser extent Microsoft), can control the browser experience for the majority of desktop users, including things like Manifest V3 or that “Digital DRM” that we were hearing about a while back.

Installing adblocker on Chrome is kind of like putting on a rain jacket once you're already wet.

It doesn't solve the problem they still throw a warning every three videos. Brand new Firefox install with only u block. Both at latest version you block updated daily

Purge cache and update, it's that simple.

What part of I update daily did you miss? You think I'm here updating daily and not clearing my cache? Yt is blocking the updates 6 hours after they are live...

Don't be a condescending prick if you have no idea of the situation on the ground It's that simple.

Dude, I've been using Ublock for years and this last month I had to update 4 times tops, it works just fine.

On my tv I just downloaded smart tube and I'm also ad-free.

On my phone ublock didn't even need updating.

Did you read the article? Specifically the part about how YouTube are selectively rolling out the warnings and how not all users are affected? I'm trying to not be pissy but you lot are infuriating.

I have gotten the warnings and got rid of them, Google is updating their script every so often but the ublock devs update the filters pretty quickly.

You'll get the warning in between these updates but that's it.

Could you do me a favor and inform my browser of that so it only shows me a warning tonight? I could deal with a warning instead of the blockade that stops any content from loading.

Just follow the steps the devs listed on their reddit post, that should work.

To avoid any miscommunication can you please link the post and then I will confirm if those are the steps that I have already been applying

Yikes response

If you would happen to have further information I am all ears. I don't have time for people who reiterate information from a script when I've already preformed the troubleshooting step they suggest. Just because it's still works for them does not mean I'm not being rotisseried by Google and it's never-ending ads. My current temp fix is I rip FF out of my PC and Reinstall it after nuking all it's data then I add unlock back. Which is the only temp fix I have found....

So in a word yes I am pissed.

Hmmm, weird.

Anyway, cross-posting one of my favorite random comments from some other cool person I saw in a thread the other day :

Android :

iOS :

Web :

Desktop :

TV :

Android TV - SmartTubeNext

Apple TV - Yattee with this guide

All this accomplishes is doubling down my resolve to never give youtube a penny

YouTube wants users to allow ads or sign up for Premium.

Youtube wantses, Youtube don't getses. Just like Gmail wantsed and I moved to another email provider. They want the money to stop shoving the ads, but still keep the tracking going. Well, I'm the product or the customer, I can't be both.

Youtube doesn't even serve ads to me if my useragent is a crawler.

Oh, interesting.

Care to share the string?

Pretty soon we're going to need an adblock blocker blocker

Ublock origin has it already, it's been a few years now. I think it just blocks the JavaScript code that checks if the ads are being played (not sure though)

This is the best summary I could come up with:

YouTube is broadening its efforts to crack down on ad blockers.

The platform has “launched a global effort” to encourage users to allow ads or try YouTube Premium, YouTube communications manager Christopher Lawton says in a statement provided to The Verge.

YouTube confirmed that it was disabling videos for users with ad blockers in June, but Lawton described it as only a “small experiment globally” at the time.

Over the past several weeks, more users with ad blockers installed have found themselves unable to watch YouTube videos, with a post from Android Authority highlighting the increase in reports.

YouTube has made several changes to the way ads operate on its platform this year.

YouTube is likely hoping that its lengthy ad breaks drive more users to sign up for its ad-free YouTube Premium subscription, but a $2 price hike and the discontinuation of its cheaper Premium Lite plan might make the option less attractive.

The original article contains 290 words, the summary contains 154 words. Saved 47%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Christ we know already. Bitch bitch ads bitch bitch privacy bitch bitch firefox ublock origin bitch bitch. There are other things happening in the world of technology.