Oh fuck odd Google. Literally the only reason I was paying for your crap videos is so I could play music on my TV uninterrupted.
Wait. I pay for YouTube with my time, the most important resource I have access to. There’s a level where you pay money and STILL SEE ADS?
I pay money to ride on the bus and still see ads there.
The bus doesn’t stop when you look at an ad.
Try harder.
YouTube became shittier, what’s new.
Because the fucking line must go fucking up! the large hot forks should be going up the CEOs and investors asses instead!
Cable TV providers in the 70s: “No commercials when you pay for our services!”
Cable TV providers in the early 80s: “Ok, we actually meant no commercials on premium channels, but local channels will, and it’s not our fault.”
Cable TV providers in the late 80s: “Fine. What we meant was no commercials on movie channels.”
Cable TV providers in the 90s: “Uhm, so only on-demand shows will be commercial free.”
So what we need is a new disruptive media type that puts is on the head-end of the cycle again?
Probably 10 years until AR starts this cycle over.
Nah. We need to hack the planet.
Super tube next on android tvs, free tube for android
freetube still works great! no ads, and an easy to use interface.
And it has an Android fork (FreeTube Android), and can have playlists, subscriptions etc. synced across devices with Syncthing. It does sometimes result in sync conflicts though, but if you reload it before using it on a device, you will be fine. Most sync conflicts I get are for history, and that’s fine by me to lose some history.
It’s a sad state of affairs. I would pay for youtube in a heartbeat if it wasn’t connected to the biggest spyware company in the world. But now, even while paying you still get ads and they still track you. The people working at Alphabet are bad and should feel bad.
I still use an ad blocker. They can fuck themselves in the ass. I’ll never stop.
Common People, Black Mirror Season 7
Adblock/revanced are working. Google’s ad revenue is getting squeezed and so they need to shoehorn more ads everywhere to get the same revenue levels, since so many people never see the ads.
Keep using them. You’re making business really difficult for scummy Google.
Adblock, maybe a noticeable fraction on desktop, but Revanced users are within a rounding error of the total users, surely?
I feel like both populations are now dwarfed by the numbers watching YT on their TV’s built-in apps, which throw demented amounts of ads at you.
I’m dating this person and we were watching YT and she didn’t have any ad blocker up and I was fucking blown away
The $ revenue share to creators per video view has dropped, even though the percentage of Google’s ad revenue shared with the creator has remained the same. So to me this means Google is earning less per video view. (That could also be just a result of the ad market in general collapsing, eg advertisers just pay less)
Also, Google has added new requirements to get the video share. You need to post new videos at a regular cadence, or they kick you out–even if your old videos are still getting views. (began being enforced in 2023, I think). Its another way they can keep their revenue numbers looking OK by cutting a cost associated with older videos.
Google has also escalated their efforts to make it more difficult to view content without also viewing the ads.
So maybe its wishful thinking, but I think they are feeling the squeeze.
Unfortunately unlike the reddit or twitter situations its significantly harder to accumulate enough fresh video content to attract the views necessary to get the ball rolling and make a shift away from YouTube.
Revanced users are within a rounding error of the total users, surely?
Some of us use NewPipe. 🤷♂️
UBlockOrigim
Easiest methods to ditch Youtube ads:
- PC: Firefox + uBlock Origin
- Mac, option 1: Safari + AdGuard
- Mac, option 2: Firefox + uBlock Origin
- Android, option 1: Youtube ReVanced (FYI: ALL Play Store listings for this are fake; the official site is revanced.app and is the only place to get it)
- Android, option 2: Firefox Mobile + uBlock Origin
- iPhone/iPad: Safari + AdGuard
For those who may have heard about Pi-hole and are wondering why it’s not on this list: PI-HOLE DOES NOT BLOCK YOUTUBE ADS. IT NEVER HAS AND NEVER WILL.
No Grayjay? Been using that almost exclusively since they released the desktop version. Had to log out and back in with my (new, basically blank) YT account a few times after updates, and there are very rare cases of certain videos not wanting to load, but overall it’s been working well so far.
I use IgeBlock on Android. It has the banner ads, but not the video ads, so it’s pretty good if you don’t wanna deal with Revanced
uBlock on mobile Firefox gets rid of all the ads though.
That, and Revanced isn’t difficult to set up, you don’t even need root:
- Disable stock youtube app
- Download Revanced manager
- Grab the recommended .apk version from APKMirror
- Patch it with Revanced manager
- Install it
And you’re done. Update once every 6-12 months or so.
deleted by creator
Can I block youtube ads with a transparent proxy like squid ? What about a self-hosted youtube auto-downloading queue list ? I’m fine with .mp4 files !
Can I block youtube ads with a transparent proxy like squid ?
I haven’t tried that, so I’m not entirely sure. I just focused on the easy methods that most people will gravitate towards.
Try it and let us know what you find!
What about a self-hosted youtube auto-downloading queue list ? I’m fine with .mp4 files !
Sounds like
yt-dlp. Lots of people use that to get around ads, and also for data hoarding.I think it is extremely hard because they are served from the same servers (technically, ads are YouTube videos)
And if the logic on the client isn’t removed, it will hang waiting for the ad
Youtube ReVanced
Revanced still Relies on G services
Also, Theres this very unknown app Called Freetube for all plattforms or newpipe for Android
Revanced uses microG, which is optional. I also mentioned that these were the easiest methods. But, you’re absolutely right in that there are plenty of other methods to choose from.
I tried Freetube for a while, but it just never works. An actual coin flip each day whether or not anything would load at all. I got so tired of it I just went back to Youtube, as I’ve only ever seen one single ad in my entire time using uBlock Origin on Librewolf.
If you want to give it a try again, get mpv and yt-dlp installed in your system then activate from Freetube settings the external player button, which you’ll be able to click from search or from a vid page
I use it consistently with few issues. Once in a while, usually on Thursdays (when it seems YT rolls out changes), something breaks, but the devs are quick to fix it. The last issue I experienced was when YT transitioned to SABR, and it was out for a day or two before they had things working again. I am at least perfectly capable of going without for a day once every two months.
It’s also one of the projects I’ve used to learn more about how fixes are worked on in FOSS. I will typically run nightly builds also - I find it pretty cool to follow an issue and once they push a fix I can instantly grab that fresh build without waiting for it to be packaged.
Google is constantly making changes that break it, the developers fix them quickly… but if your distro doesn’t keep the newest version in their repo then you’d have to install it from their git repo.
Generally they have a patch for any breaking changes within the day.
Android, option 3 (Better): newpipe from fdroid. 0% algorithmic feed, exclusively show who you’re following, in chronological order
How does Newpipe work? It feels too good to be free.
How does Newpipe work?
Yeah, this will work for a while but I think the days have gotta be numbered.
Best long term solution? Leave YouTube.
Also, if on PC grab the freetube flatpak. Really decent client, anonymous and created subscriptions without actually subscribing.
I’d love to see a transition to other platforms like Nebula. As users it would be nice to start choosing by principles too.
