Somehow I’m completely sleeping on that entire issue. I’ve been running JS-blockers, ad-blockers and privacy-protectors for so long, the ad spam went entirely by me. Every now and then I’m testing something on my add-on free, unmodified Edge just to see if it’s my addons or the site is actually broken, and I’m shocked at how sites actually look compared to my experience. I wouldn’t know how anyone is able to rawdog the internet.
Once server side ad blocking makes its way into mainstream, ad blocking I think will get interesting. Closer to the old ad blockers for cable television.
Don’t worry, we’ll always be able to detect ads and block them. It’s by nature of an ad to be detectable. I highly doubt YT will manage to add ads into the content, not the into the video part, but inside the content, like some Youtuber do already for their sponsoring and even then we have sponsor block.
Heres a better article on the technology: https://adguard.com/en/blog/youtube-server-side-ad-insertion.html
It basically makes ad blockers as we use them not work by injecting the ads into the video itself. It will also make things like sponsor block/ublock origin/etc… not work. They are testing the waters as of now.
I noticed that YouTube began setting my videos to the lowest resolution, when set to Auto, since a day or two ago.
I installed an extension to force the resolution I want, and it took maybe 10 seconds to grab.
Like hell am I allowing ads.
I’m on premium and my videos load like shit too when forced to high resolution with the plugin.
and before anyone says anything, I get family YouTube for $3 a month. switch your VPN to turkey, login in incognito, buy it. I had to go this route to keep even more shitty ads playing on my kids switch. my home is already layered with pihole adblocking and ublock on every computer. $3 is fine by me.
I don’t care about “tracking”, you need to decide if that’s something you really even need to worry about. you need to set your expectations of what you are “protecting”. privacy is a very grey area, if you think the government is tracking or looking for you, you’ve got larger issues. for most people, blocking 99% of ads is perfectly acceptable. use disposable accounts if you want for other things. use bitwarden or another password manager and MFA. you’ll never be 100% “private” unless you buy a cabin in the woods and disappear.
What annoys me about YT premium is that if I’m at my friend’s house and they own premium but I don’t then any videos I add to the queue on their TV will have ads.
Damn. Looks like I’ll have to update Ublock again.
Revanced is the answer
It’s an android app that allows you to follow content creators across several platforms and enjoy their content. Platforms includes the like of patreon, youtube, nebula, peertube, soundcloud…
Its tagline is: “Follow Creators not Platforms”. You can only get it from their Website: https://grayjay.app/ made by https://futo.org
my tv, laptop, and phone continue to play ad free. good thing googles fighting this war on what’s probably under 10% of their user base though
