Youtube vs ad blockers
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@Zerosquare I've just started watching everything in "private browsing" windows.
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@Zerosquare Meanwhile, I've still never seen any adblock messages on Youtube, despite very much using adblock on all my devices
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@HardwareGeek after a couple of rounds of purging the cache and updating the blocklists on uBlock Origin with Firefox it's kept the stupid adblock popups at bay even signed in.
For now at least, as this is just going to become a cat & mouse game until Youtube either give up or start embedding them in the video stream.
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@Zerosquare There aren't enough shocked Pikachu faces in the world for this.
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@Arantor an interesting one, to be sure.
They cannot win the "force people to watch" part of it, unless they plan to go full Clockwork Orange. However, they could theoretically win "don't serve any more data until the time the ad should have finished playing".
I just checked and unfortunately there's been no new releases of the ad-blocking youtube app for my TV since January 2022. Maybe I need to learn how that works and pick up the slack ...
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I also want to plug Sponsor Block:
Definitely go check it out, IMO it is a must-have to make youtube watchable.
Also, linked from there by the same developer, I've just discovered DeArrow. I've not used that before but the premise is to get rid of the fucking clickbait by crowd-sourcing better titles and thumbnails without the fucking youtube-faces and arrows.
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A was temporarily defeated. Suggestions for a better title welcome.
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@loopback0 I was just about to un- too, but you saved me from having to do it.
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@loopback0 I was reading those posts when they were moved and I've found myself in the new thread.
It happened surprising.ly smoothly.
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@Zerosquare said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
https://www.androidauthority.com/youtube-ad-block-installs-3382289/
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@Zecc said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
I was reading those posts when they were moved and I've found myself in the new thread.
I was reading some entirely unrelated thread and also found myself in the new thread. I, too, found it surprising; but I'm not sure I could call it "smooth".
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@ixvedeusi I wasn't reading any of these threads at all at the time (making takes precedence) so it was about as smooth as could be expected.
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@ixvedeusi Oh, that's just a known bug which I am sure will be fixed any day now...
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I'm kind of interested in how this will shake out. It's a bit rich of Alphabet to be taking this tone since they keep getting called out for malware in their search advertisements.
AdBlockers generally remove an entire attack vector when it comes to online security.
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@DogsB that’s true in general, not quite as much for YouTube.
However, their ads are bottom-tier garbage.
And I’m not just talking about everyone plugging Raid Shadow Legends (whatever that is) and NordVPN, but shit that is outright bullshit (think homeopathy), deceptive, maybe even dangerous (think eating tide pods). If that’s the videos you watch, you got only yourself to blame, but don’t show this shit as ads to people.
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@Deadfast said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
That was my first thought when YouTube started this stupid shit.
Prior to declaring war on adblockers Google/YouTube was making a lot of money, so they can't claim (with a straight face) that adblocking is hurting them financially.
I really can't think of a motivation for this other than there's some executive at Google/YouTube who is hoping to get a raise and/or promotion because they can show their boss a Powerpoint chart that says "Our ad revenue is up 0.001% since we banned adblocking".
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YouTube is quite costly to run, and advertising revenues have fallen significantly those last few years. Also, a "mistake" that conveniently caused Google to overestimate ad views has been made public recently.
I wouldn't be surprised if managers had been told "enough fooling around, we want to see money rolling in now", and now they're desperately trying to make their numbers look better (and shooting themselves in the foot).
Like what happened with Netflix and its shift of attitude regarding account sharing.
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@Gern_Blaanston said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
Prior to declaring war on adblockers Google/YouTube was making a lot of money
Weren't they losing money every quarter since YT's inception?
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@topspin said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
Raid Shadow Legends (whatever that is) and NordVPN
You forget brillant.org, which I'm kinda surprised we've never made jokes about yet.
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@topspin said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
everyone plugging Raid Shadow Legends (whatever that is) and NordVPN
That's the kind of thing I don't mind. They actually pay the video creator, and at worst you can just skip ahead in the video. Betterhelp, Raycon, I've heard of 'em, →→→→. Contrast that with Youtube's midroll ads that cut off the video and replace it with whatever bullshit (sometimes skippable, mostly not).
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@hungrier It used to be any ad longer than 10 seconds could be skipped after 5 seconds. I think those numbers were 30 and 15 when I started using an ad blocker, and they may have risen again since.
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@PleegWat Maybe at some point it was, but I've seen longer ads (most recently when I tried the Youtube app on xbox) that were unskippable
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@hungrier said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
That's the kind of thing I don't mind. They actually pay the video creator, and at worst you can just skip ahead in the video.
Yeah, some of the channels I watch the most shill for those sorts of companies. As long as they're not outright scams, like the Scottish Laird company (I forgot the name, and that's a good thing), I don't mind the creators getting paid. Don't get me wrong; I nearly always skip those sections of the videos, and I really appreciate the creators who divide their videos into chapters, making it easy to find where to skip to, but it's better than YT's injected ads
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@PleegWat said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
@hungrier It used to be any ad longer than 10 seconds could be skipped after 5 seconds. I think those numbers were 30 and 15 when I started using an ad blocker, and they may have risen again since.
Unfortunately, I don't have a working ad blocker on my phone (maybe there's something that works, but what I have installed doesn't), so I get their ads there. Most of them are skippable after 5 seconds, although a few are longer, and a very few are unskippable.
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@HardwareGeek Firefox mobile with ublock origin.
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@HardwareGeek said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
outright scams, like the Scottish Laird company
I think the pile-on when everyone called them a scam was a bit overblown. To me it always seemed like one of those gag gifts for people with too much money, like those companies that would "name a star" after you
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@HardwareGeek On my phone I use NewPipe. If you want to get it, make sure you get it from f-droid, as most if not all of the versions on Google Play have their own nasty ads and malware. The beauty of open source projects and licenses
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@hungrier said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
gag gifts
There's a fine line between "gag gift" and "scam", and I think both of those are on the wrong side of the line. Sure, if you know it's a gag and want to waste your money, that's on you. But they promote those "gag gifts" as if they're real, and I think a lot of people don't know they aren't. If you're selling a gag as real, that's a scam.
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@HardwareGeek They're both useless, for sure. But what sets this apart in my mind is that you get exactly what you paid for: a piece of paper that tells you you're special. A scam, on the other hand, purports to sell you something (a 2 TB flash drive, some tech support service, a Gucci handbag, etc) but instead you get something worse (a 2 GB flash drive with tampered firmware or a purse stamped with "Goochy"), outright malicious (a remote access session where someone across the world steals your money), or nothing at all.
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@PleegWat said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
@HardwareGeek Firefox mobile with ublock origin.
I installed FF on my phone, but I haven't been using it, because it didn't work with one of the sites I use most often. I think I couldn't log in here, but it seems to be working now. Or maybe it was Brave that didn't work. I don't remember. I tried alternative browsers when I first got my new phone, but went back to Chrome when something didn't work. But if FF with ublock works, I'll start using it as my primary browser.
However, I'm seeing one really annoying quirk of FF that doesn't happen with Chrome. If a notification arrives while I'm typing a post, the keyboard closes. In fact, it happened right in the middle of typing the word keyb...
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@hungrier said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
you get exactly what you paid for: a piece of paper that tells you you're special.
I guess it depends on whether you look at it as selling the piece of paper, or what it says on the paper. Yes, you get the piece of paper you paid for, but what the piece of paper says is false. Maybe not false; they probably did record your name in a registry book, but the book has no official status and zero value, other than as a list of suckers that can be sold to other scammers.
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@hungrier said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
Youtube's midroll ads
Those were the ones that prompted me to install a blocker. Especially when the Algorithm decided that every two minutes through a 90 minute album I was listening to, I really needed a 30 second unskippable casino ad.
I still get annoyed by the thought of that, and that was years ago.
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@hungrier said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
@HardwareGeek said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
outright scams, like the Scottish Laird company
I think the pile-on when everyone called them a scam was a bit overblown. To me it always seemed like one of those gag gifts for people with too much money, like those companies that would "name a star" after you
I have alien abduction insurance.
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@Gustav said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
@Gern_Blaanston said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
Prior to declaring war on adblockers Google/YouTube was making a lot of money
Weren't they losing money every quarter since YT's inception?
Nobody knows, with Hollywood accounting you can be both making billions and losing billions at the same time. So you'd have to trust one of their lies but not the other.
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@PleegWat said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
@topspin said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
Raid Shadow Legends (whatever that is) and NordVPN
You forget brillant.org, which I'm kinda surprised we've never made jokes about yet.
*angry Sabine noises*
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@loopback0 said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
@HardwareGeek after a couple of rounds of purging the cache and updating the blocklists on uBlock Origin with Firefox it's kept the stupid adblock popups at bay even signed in.
Also uBlock Origin on FF; the popups are gone, but occasionally an ad slips in, audio only, starting with horrible noise so I have to hit the mute button (no idea what it is about, because the video does get blocked).
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Also
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GARcKCaUfI
TL;DW: People who used adblocker will just try different ones until one works, but a lot of people who never even knew adblockers were a thing are hearing about them now and at least some of them are gonna try … and find out how much better the experience is, of course. Also enshittification by another name of ad-supported content.
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Too bad that a certain former regular is no longer here to argue for the point of view that it is wrong to use an adblocker.
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@jinpa said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
Too bad that a certain former regular is no longer here to argue for the point of view that it is wrong to use an adblocker.
Yeah, because it also blocked his analytics crap.
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@jinpa we could always go disturb his playing Farm Simulator to get his opinion, Twitter-reporter style.
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@DogsB said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
AdBlockers generally remove an entire attack vector when it comes to online security.
There is a reason they are outright recommended by the FBI:
The FBI recommends individuals take the following precautions:
[...]- Use an ad blocking extension when performing internet searches
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@hungrier said in Youtube vs ad blockers:
@HardwareGeek They're both useless, for sure. But what sets this apart in my mind is that you get exactly what you paid for: a piece of paper that tells you you're special. A scam, on the other hand, purports to sell you something (a 2 TB flash drive, some tech support service, a Gucci handbag, etc) but instead you get something worse (a 2 GB flash drive with tampered firmware or a purse stamped with "Goochy"), outright malicious (a remote access session where someone across the world steals your money), or nothing at all.
I was listed in one of those Who's Who type books when I was in high school. Technically not a scam since it didn't cost us anything to be in the book, but the "honor" is meaningless and only exists to get people to buy stuff with no real use.
Mom's still got the book, I think.
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@Parody #MeToo I don't know what happened to the book, though; my mom's been dead for more than 20 years.
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This reminds me of the time I entered a poetry competition, I didn’t “win” but they wanted to publish it in their anthology. Which to 18 year old me was cool, until I realised that a) I wasn’t going to see any money for that and b) they were making this book so me and the fellow contributors could buy it in the scummiest form of vanity publishing.
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@Arantor Wait, they published your stuff and didn’t even give you a complimentary copy but expected you to buy one?