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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by bermuda@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

So I've been using youtube ad blockers since pretty much when ad blocker extensions were first available. Lately though I've been getting hit more and more with these messages that YT was sending out every 5 or so videos telling me that adblockers aren't allowed. No problem, just gotta wait 5 seconds to x it out and then close my video. The straw that broke the camel's back though was when instead of a close-able pop-up, they just posted it in front of a video and wouldn't let me watch anything until I disabled my adblocker.

So I disabled it and... wow. It's just so, so, trash. 2 ads before a video plus midrolls and every video ever. I tried listening to a playlist of songs and was getting a midroll ad every single time. Imagine trying to just listen to music for 3 minutes and getting interrupted by a commercial for a chevy silverado! Half the ads were for youtube premium and they specifically mentioned that it would get rid of all the ads. It just felt so damn predatory. I couldn't enjoy anything that wasn't already demonetized.

And you know I'm fine with ads I guess. I could live with an ad before every video, but the fact that I was getting upwards of 5 ads in a 10 minute video was just plain absurd. I also hate that youtube got rid of the yellow markers to show you when an ad was coming up, so now it's just out of nowhere and always interrupts a key part of the video.

E: I've been on Firefox for over a year.

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[-] pseudo@jlai.lu 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Not long ago, I was watching 5 skipable ads after 10 minutes of video on Viki. It was a time when they were distributing Korean and Chinese Drama at a pace no independent subtitle team would keep up. The shows were culturally interesting, they were a community spirit you could feel even when not participating in subtitling. The video player was good with nice features like learning mode and timestamped comment. It was an acceptable tradeoff. Today's Viki and YouTube quality is barely sufficient for not favoring pirated website which have in the mean time greatly improved their user experience.

[-] emma@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

Use Piped as a front end for y--t---. It's open source & non-tracking, but views still count. The creator is active on the fedi too.

Individual servers sometimes go off line or lose quality when they're rate limited. Just try a different server when that happens. If the one you're using at the time shows ads and there are too many, check preferences to turn them off.

(My addiction is Thai. Also watch some c- and k- too.)

[-] victron@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

Serious question. Can a pihole stop this? I've been thinking about building one for my house.

[-] limerod@reddthat.com 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Pinhole works at the network level. You need browser extensions like ublock-origin to filter this on the client side.

Edit: You also have apps like adguard, which work like Pihole, and do cosmetic filtering like ublock-origin.

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[-] jlow@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

Have you tried Freetube (desktop) or Newpipe / Libretube (Android)? Working fine for me.

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[-] Pratai@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

YouTube- is a terrible experience.

[-] Nipplecreek@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

If it says they aren't allowed should I turn off my ad block or should I just hit okay and leave it enabled?

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There's probably a good workaround to program. I noticed that, when in "windowed" mode on a computer, you can just drag the cursor to the end of ads and it skips them.

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this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
519 points (99.8% liked)

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