Originally published at: Youtube blocking ad blockers leads to rapid evolution of ad blockers | Boing Boing
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I manually blocked the pop up element and a few other related elements and that worked. Eventually the extension updated and it’s natively circumventing the pop up nonsense now
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Meanwhile, YouTube for people not using ad blockers is filling up with commercial breaks for two skip-less 15 second ads.
Start a video, immediately pause it for a bathroom break, return and play, bam, instant commercial break.
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At work I’m forced to use an intel 3 windows 10 pos and chrome browser and I’m locked out of installing any apps.
Any tips on a chrome extension that gets around this and the YouTube “are you still watching this video?” pop up that interrupts my long dj-set videos that I’m trying to listen to?
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YouTube is becoming completely unusable without adblocking.
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Despite some jumbo-size misgivings (not least the outrageous price), I gave in and signed up for YouTube’s paid service.
Partly it’s because, unlike most sites, youtube ultimately will win against ad blockers, because if necessary, they can refuse to serve the bytes of a video until the length of the mandated ad(s) has expired. You can always hide a 30-second ad on your end, but no ad blocker could force youtube to show the real video before that 30 seconds is up.
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Heck, the internet is becoming unusable without one. Even boingboing; the difference on my phone between regular safari (no adblocking) and Brave (with ad blocking) browsers is astounding. I can copy and paste the url from safari and open the page in Brave and it still saves time over waiting for all the crap to load and be done bouncing all over the screen while I’m trying to hit the tiny little x to close the various ad boxes.
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Remember when signing up for Netflix or Prime guaranteed you’d never see an ad when you watched a movie? And now they’re making their members watch ads – and jacking up the price? That’s what paying for YouTube is going to get you in a couple years.
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For those still using Firefox, Ublock Origin is working with the latest updates.
Nah. They’ll eventually cry uncle because of how much its costing them just to stay ahead of the blockers.
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I am using AdBlockPlus on Chrome. If I click on a YT link, I get the anti-blocker splash page, but if I open the link in anew tab, I can watch it just fine.
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They seem to take a phased approach. When they first started showing me the “ad blockers not allowed” popup, I could reload the page and watch the (ad-blocked) video. Then after a while the popup changed to “we will only show you X more videos”, and when that number counted down to zero they did indeed stop serving videos altogether.
But it’s worth mentioning, if you are not logged in, none of this currently seems to apply. You can right-click to open a video in an incognito window and it lets you view it even with the ad blockers. This means it won’t retain your history or video settings (volume, subtitles etc), so it’s annoying even if you don’t use any other google stuff.
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I haven’t seen an ad in … I don’t know when. FF + uBlock Origin at first. then my rabbit knocked over my water onto that computer and I’ve been phone only for a long time: Android with Blockada app which starts at boot. I also use NewPipe to browse YT but I still never see ads from the embeds when I’m on the web so apparently FF+uBO still works, although presumably everything is going through Blockada on the phone first, anyway.
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That would be nice, but I don’t think it’s true. They have billions in ad revenue at stake (basically their whole income), and they’re already paying an army of developers anyway.
It’s not even a case where they need to maintain goodwill, because if you’re seeing these popups, your value to them is negative. Unless you give them cash, they don’t want your brand loyalty, because serving video costs actual money.
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I found this extension for FIrefox called Fadblock, and knock on wood, it works still on youtube. It is made for their ads. I have no idea how long that will continue to work. Videos now have the ad breaks still interrupt a video, but it is a 1/2 - 1 sec blip. Frustratingly, those ad breaks have no rhyme or reason and are jarring. I still use Ghosterly for the rest of the internet.
At some point it’s either going to be unusable, or I am going to have to shell out for their premium version, which is stupid expensive IMO. 
hrm
Maybe I should just start listening to music again instead.
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YouTube are aiming to corner a large chunk of that segment too, for those who listen online.
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I still got nearly all of my CDs ripped to MP3s, so I can go old school that way.
Part of me wants to get some sort of speaker/player set up for my room, but I’d need like a remote and be able to play MP3s, CDs, and I guess bluetooth, but I am so out of it, I don’t know where to begin!
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I have some 10k tracks on my MacBook and plug it into my stereo or use a bluetooth speaker. The Mac Remote app lets me use my iPhone as a remote control. Perfect.
YMMV - esp on Windows.
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Just for the record: I do not block ads as such. I block malware vectors. But oddly enough…
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The real question is, “Why are you people not using Firefox?”
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(Although recently it has sometimes ignored YT’s bleating and sometimes it has let the ads through so, TBH, if it does not get on top of this YT nonsense soon…)
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