youtube getting more aggressive… i’ve got firefox and ublock but this shit is still coming up

288 points

Get Firefox, install uBlock Origin, clear the filter cache, and reload the filter cache.

Worked for me and my dad

It is time to stop the Chrome plauge.

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161 points

It’s currently working, but every few days youtube will tweak something, and sometime later (minutes to hours) there will be an ublock update for it.

Sometimes you have to wait a little longer, but this is the arms race.

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68 points

I find it funny that a company as big as Google is loosing to little ol uBlock

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62 points

It’s often far easier to attack than defend.

Google has to find and block every way, ublock just has to make a new way to bypass the blocks.

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36 points

They’re working on a final solution to the ad blocker problem. If they’re successful in pushing their Web Environment Integrity API, there’s nothing Firefox or ublock will be able to do.

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14 points
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I find it funny

I’m not having any fun. How dare they! With all the evil virus attacks nowadays and most of them starting through online ads, using an adblocker is a matter of security. And it is my decision, not theirs. None of their business.

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3 points

Especially funny since blocking ublock is illegal in the EU

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8 points

Some arms races aren’t what they appear to be: https://blog.codinghorror.com/revisiting-the-black-sunday-hack/

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2 points

I might read the article later, but your thesis is right.

This isn’t a arms race, it’s also convenience race.

Is it more convenient for me to turn off ublock, or go through ublocks menus and update its filters? Do I dislike ads that much? Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. But some people will turn off their adblock of choice, even if it technically still works if you update it. Their conversion rate of viewer to ad consumer will (probably) go up.

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31 points

yep… i did. they keep coming up, somehow. very annoying.

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25 points

I switched over to piped.video and no ads. Just moved my subscriptions over. Not sure how long it will last but so far it’s good

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12 points
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If that doesn’t work, get the youtube enhancer extension. Turn off it’s built in adblock. You’ll have a bunch of buttons on the bottom of the video, one of which is remove ads, which becomes skip ads when an ad plays. You will still get ads, but you’ll be able to instantly skip them all without setting off their adblock detector. (Ps, to get the bar in fullscreen, set it to bottom of window)

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1 point

Huh I might try some ytenhancer only sessions to keep a eye on how bad eds have been getting without having to waste my time

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12 points
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Yet, I’ve not gotten any of these messages on Chrome + uBlock Origin so far.

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29 points

They are probably hitting people in waves, in an effort to make sure this isn’t a surge, then a massive protest like the Unity situation.

But once google realizes they’ll have to burn serious money and make their product worse on the global stage to fix the problem, they’ll quit just like Microsoft, AOL, and Netscape.

But I think this campaign is just there to loosen the people who installed an ad-block, but have no idea what an ad-block is.

Which will be different from the people who know about “alternate methods,” and will easily slip the google net unnoticed.

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4 points

It’s more like field testing the change than managing backlash. They go somewhat hand-in-hand, but the intention Google has is mainly to reduce false positives.

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0 points

That didn’t work for me. Seems theyre still detecting it.

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6 points
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Updating uBlock and filters has a bigger Impact than choice of browser. You could be situated in one of the data clusters that implement new detection methods first, so the filter lists are not updated yet when they hit you with a changed detection script.

Also, if you use Enhancer for YT, disable the built-in ad blocking there. That feature triggers the pop-up as well.

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0 points

I feel like all of these suggestions will have short lifespans.

There is no good replacement for YouTube currently, but ultimately a long term solution means replacing the service.

A long(er) term solution than little hacks with FF and ublock are things like piped.

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91 points

My family watches several Youtube channels on the main HTPC. It had Chrome for them to use, as that is what the kids and my wife are familiar with from school/ work. Then this BS started. I use Firefox on my personal PC and have yet to have a problem.

So I dumped Chrome off of the HTPC.

It would be amusing if Chrome lost a ton of market share to Firefox and other browsers.

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108 points

It won’t. We are an extreme minority who really have the know-how to get around this. The majority will just give in and subscribe.

This is what happened with Netflix. Everyone thought that Netflix would lose subscribers with the crackdown on password sharing. On the contrary, they gained subscribers and is bringing even more revenue: https://www.ign.com/articles/netflix-adds-88-million-subscribers-amid-password-sharing-crackdown-hikes-prices-for-some-plans.

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31 points

In other words, the general population likes to be used by companies and really don’t give a shit as long as they can watch videos.

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36 points

not so much that they like to be used by companies, but that they don’t care enough to change or learn how to stop it. for most people, the idea of giving up their favorite online service because of ads or whatever other predatory anti consumer shit it implements is a little extreme.

as long as it works, the vast majority of people who are not tech-literate will just use it regardless.

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14 points

Not quite.
If users see thry need to invest more brain power in tech than plugging a cable in and pressing the power button, they will either give up or ask tech literate folk. They are like an extreme toddler with tech.
You wouldn’t expect a toddler to write a speech

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2 points

Lmao you all are so cringy. The general population sees it as a value proposition that makes sense for them.

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2 points

Three persons sharing one user profile vs just paying for Netflix myself, I don’t feel used.

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1 point

correct

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0 points

But but cat doing funny thing, who cares about privacy??

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10 points
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Blocking ads on YouTube is kind of like eating meat. It can’t quite be morally justified, but I’m still guilty of it.

Currectly I’m updating uBlock 3 times a day to keep up with YouTube’s detection algorithms, so I’m obviously willing to go to great lenghts to block ads, but after it gets difficult enough, I’ll most likely just give in and get a subscribtion. It’s by far the most valuable streaming service for me, yet I’ve used it (ad)free for more than 15 years. If now is the time they say enough, then fine. It was good while it lasted. I don’t think that ads-based bussines model is the way to go anyways, so perhaps I should practice what I preach. Currenltly I’m only paying for Spotify and one podcast.

If competiton comes along that’s even one tenth as good, I’m perfectly willing to jump ship, though. Google has lost my trust.

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1 point

We really are all sissies now aren’t we?

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1 point
Deleted by creator
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2 points
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this is an issue. whole family can use netflix etc with one payment. if you have separate youtube accounts (everyone has their own subs etc) you all need individual youtube premium accounts so you can watch ad free. it’s stupid (I’m ignoring why yt premium isn’t a good idea anyway unless you use yt music)

edit: I see there is a family plan. my bad

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1 point

I use Chrome on my work laptop and Firefox on my personal computron and I either get the pop-up on both devices or not at all.

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55 points
16 points

Freetube has been a great alternative for me. While it still doesn’t have tabs, I just figured out earlier today that middle clicking opens the link or video to a new window.

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12 points

I’ve been using free tube for about a month now and been really happy.

My only downsides are that I use it on multiple comps, and like to watch YouTube on my tv as well, and by freetubes very nature, those don’t sync subs/history etc. which is expected of course.

The other bummer for me personally is I did really like the YouTube algorithms suggestions for me, so it’s a little harder for me to find new creators now.

But all in all, minor issues for some completely free software that works well and does what it says it’ll do! Would absolutely suggest people at least give it a try!

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4 points

Yeah, honestly that’s the main blocker for me. For all of the hate it gets, I had the YouTube algorithm pretty well-tuned to what I liked.

Wish there was something like freetube that would still preserve views/ suggestions.

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54 points

Sharing this: don’t know why this works, but my dad found refreshing the cache in UBlock makes this thing finally shut the fuck up.

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30 points

It updates Ublocks filters. They are updating those as YouTube changes things. Ublock has worked flawlessly on firefox YouTube for me so far. I have not even seen the popup once.

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0 points

Plus you should add Anti-adblock killer by Reek, a combination of those 2 makes the entire problem go away… for now. I would also whitelist youtube in other addons like disconnect as those can also trigger youtubes immune response.

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24 points

Anti-adblock killer by Reek

That thing is unmaintained and have not been updated for over 7 years. It will do absolutely nothing.

If you have issues with YouTube: https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/about/sticky?num=2

I have to add some things though:

  1. Read the thread thoroughly, you may have missed a step or 2, or may have misunderstood something. There’s a lot of noise in the replies. Filter maintainers can’t always give support or keep up with the noise. Being pushy, unfriendly, or replying to the thread without doing every step will not fix the problem for you. If you have technical knowledge, consider contributing that knowledge.
  2. Do not add random filters, scripts, extensions from random users. If you don’t understand what you’re doing you may add something that may work against you instead of for you, or in worse cases add something malicious.
  3. YouTube seems to update their anti-ab script at least twice a day more or less. So just: Click 🛡️ uBO’s icon > the ⚙ Dashboard button > the Filter lists pane > the 🕘 clock icon at the end of the uBlock filters – Quick fixes list > the 🔃 Update now button. Do NOT click purge all caches and update now, that will only add more pressure to the filter hosts.
  4. If there’s a mismatch between the filter fixes and YouTube’s latest fixes, just wait, watch the video logged out, or use an alternative front-end like piped, invidious, or whatever.
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5 points

Anti-adblock killer

Wow I didnt know it was unmaintained, I see that now. Well something I did actually worked because Im currently not getting any warnings from youtube

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52 points

Honestly, if YouTube offered a $5 adfree video plan I’d pay for it. It’s not worth $14/month in my opinion

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30 points

I think these companies are starting to run into the brick wall caused by disgusting wealth inequality and the subsequent inability to spend as frivolously as needed for a healthy economy.

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11 points

Also just coming to the realization that advertising on the internet has always been done atrociously (not that RL advertising is any better but at least follows some kind of structure and isn’t thrown in your face repeatedly) and that a large swath of people do not want to deal with it or interact with it.

Rather than fix something that is clearly broken, they’d rather double down, throw money at it and make it more of a problem than admit they need to reign it in and put some common sense and sanity checks on how advertising should take place online.

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3 points

Its product life cycle in their eyes came to the phase of “cash cow” . They are milking what was built in past untill there’s anything left. It was same with gaming industry. It seems inevitable once company reaches certain size (not in people count sense). That’s why we need alternative to keep things good for users.

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1 point

The majority of Internet ads are ableist. I have ADHD and they’re too distracting.

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24 points

That’s the YouTube Premium Lite plan that they killed off less than a month ago.

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20 points

Youtube would profit off of $2 a month the fact that they need to charge 14 is just greed

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21 points

How did you compute that?

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21 points
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According to the latest reports, over 2.70 billion people worldwide use YouTube per month.

This was 2022 and there is conflicting figures, most of which are 2 billion to 2.8 billion regular users (regular use of at least once a week, most daily.) https://www.globalmediainsight.com/blog/youtube-users-statistics/

Google has claimed youtube costs 5 billion a year to run back in 2019 but has never put out a solid figure or statement to the public, Entourage Marketing & Design did research in 2019 but the article seems to be down as I can’t locate the actual source. This could be inaccurate today but all information I’ve seen points to it still being single digit billions to operate year to year.

If these figures are accurate, 2USD from their claimed regular users would put them near their break even point without even considering income from advertisers or other investors and business opportunities. If they really did intend for every adult youtube user (roughly 80% of their audience) to pay them 14USD a month, that’s still over five times their operating costs alone.

Clearly, youtube is getting a lot more money from advertisers then they are from premium users, which is why they are trying to make the free to use option on their website so awful and unbearable that people will pay them directly to skip the ads (though rumblings have been going around at them finding ways to insert ads into premium user viewing experience as well.) And since the advertising side is so toxic and predatory they can tell when people are using ad blockers to avoid it, it reports back they aren’t watching ads and thus tries to prevent people from utilizing the service entirely until their participation generates money for youtube.

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13 points

Fuck that shit. They’d just increase it gradually until it hit 80$. They also don’t care about the user experience playing shit ads that are some times horrific (like the recent Israel propaganda ads with war, or 1 hr + ads, or salacious ads). They also inject the ads at the worst possible spots. They should give creators that control but fuck them.

Don’t give Youtube or Google that option. This is what they want. They are ruining the internet further.

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7 points

That’s way too expensive. I guess regional pricing did me good because here it costs an equivalent of $3.75 (RM 17.90). That much for Premium + Music ain’t no way I’m not taking it.

Spotify costs $3.35 (RM 15.90).

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1 point

I cancelled Spotify and use YouTube for music and videos now so it’s worth $14 to me. Just loaded all my Spotify playlists into YTM. Interface isn’t as good as other music apps, but it has a pretty insane catalog, especially for stuff like remixes and bootlegs

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1 point

I’d pay €1 a month. Max. If only 50 million people did the same, they’d make 50 million per month. Must be more than they make now from ads…

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-1 points
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Not to mention, ads make so much less per user. And if you started to click on most of them they will demonetize the content creator for it.
So those 14 bucks / per user is like the user was thousand people watching hundreds of videos roughly speaking.

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