Yep I've had to do this a couple of times. I'd rather go through this dance than watch a single ad.

delete all site data of youtube (in the shield thingy left of address bar)

For me that step alone has always worked. No need to touch UBO or restart the browser. Just clear data and refresh.

So... They've been A/B testing this the whole time and will continue to do so. Do you think OP is lying or could it be that you're having the B variant until it flips for you too?

And make sure to read the guide. I think they recommend setting the extension to defaults. As fiddling with the settings and enabling additional filter lists can cause this.

Freetube is so amazing, I'm never going back.

desktop use

May be time to explore Android emulators. I know some linux distros incorporate them, and there are some options for Win and Mac.

I don't think you can be sure they're not profiling you for advertising on other sites just because they're not showing ads on YouTube. The purpose of uBO is security. Plus I wouldn't give money to a shady company like Google anyway.

Lol

For everyone who feels righteous by paying YouTube for content, here are some things to consider:

1. A part of your payment goes to Google - who is involved in unethical and often illegal subversion of privacy and user rights on the internet by corruption of the very foundations of the web.

2. They're coming up with their 'content is not free' argument after they've killed off all their competitors. They're in a position to demand because they played a bait-and-switch and succeeded in it.

I'm not against paid services, and especially not against paying the content creators. But when you pay a crook for their services, you bear responsibility for their actions.

That’s what I do. Works great. Or don’t pay and don’t use it. Crazy talk, I know!

This looks promising. Just the fact that it autopings the list of servers on demand solves much of my Invidious frustration.

Isn't that because all extensions are disabled unless you explicitly turn them on for private windows? uBO is off so you obviously won't see the nag screen.

There are a multitude of reasons to recommend against using Brave.

Personally I refuse to install it because the CEO and creator, Brendan Eich, unapologetically donates to right wing and anti-gay establishments. Many people refuse to use it because it games the users and advertisers with a proprietary cryptocurrency that isn't actually useful for anything except making money for Brave. Others refuse to use it because in 2020 Brave was caught adding their own affiliate codes and tracking data to websites in the url bar, even ones that were typed in by hand. That was eventually rolled back but it didn't help me trust them any.

Vivaldi is a better browser option, in my opinion.

Its just not that you want to pay a company that sold your data and stuffed ads down your throat. Like, at all. Will they still track you using Premium? I am totally certain.