I'm sure many of you are already aware that YouTube has been rolling out anti-adblock detection for Chrome users for a few weeks now.
Today, as a long time Firefox user with the fantastic uBlock Origin extension installed, I got my first anti-adblock popup on the platform. Note that this may not happen to you personally for a while, but it is inevitably coming for everyone.
Thankfully, the fine folks at uBlock Origin have already advised a simple workaround (on Reddit, yuck!) which I will duplicate in a simplified form below for your convenience. I have tested it on Firefox and it is working fine for me (so far).
PLEASE READ AND FOLLOW ALL OF THE INSTRUCTIONS IN THIS POST.
Update uBO to the latest version (1.52.0+) . <== The extension itself, for technical improvements. You do this in your browser.
Remove your custom config / reset to defaults. <== This means removing your custom filters (or disabling My filters) and disabling ALL additional lists you've enabled. It might be quicker to make a backup of your config and restore to defaults instead.
Force an update of your Filter Lists. <== This is within the extension. Lists are what determine what's blocked or not. How to update Filter lists: Click 🛡️ uBO's icon > the ⚙ Dashboard button > the Filter lists pane > the 🕘 Purge all caches button > the 🔃 Update now button.
Disable all other extensions AND your browser's built-in blockers. <== No need to uninstall, just disable them. They might interfere with our solutions.
Make sure you follow all 4 points above. If you're seeing the message, it's likely due to your custom config (either additional lists or separate filters in My filters).
Restarting your browser afterwards may help too.
Once you've gotten rid of the issue on default settings, you can slowly start restoring your config (if you really need it). Do it gradually, to easier find out what was causing the issue in the first place. Once you find the culprit, simply skip it in your config.
If you want to use Enhancer for YouTube*, you have to* disable its adblocking*.*
May the force uBlock Origin be with you!
Update
Just wanted to mention a few things that have been pointed out in the comments:
- There are quite a few projects that provide an alternative ad-free front end to YouTube. These include Invidious, FreeTube, LibreTube, Newpipe, Revanced, and I'm sure there are several more options I've missed. I don't have any particular preference really but I routinely use NewPipe on my cellphone just because I tried it once and couldn't be bothered trying all the others.
- In step 4 listed above, to clarify, afaik you only need to remove adblocker extensions (if you have more than one installed) that might conflict with the uBlock Origin rules and trigger the anti-adblock, not all extensions.
- If you hate non-stop ads but want to support your favorite content creators then be sure to give them some love on Patreon or whatever alternative options they provide. Creators typically make only a tiny, tiny fraction of what YouTube makes in ad revenue, assuming YouTube doesn't just outright steal the lot, and it's a shitty business model that's ruining the internet. Even if you watch the ads, you're only supporting YouTube most of the time, not the creators.
I've just noticed that this is in c/piracy. I suppose there's lots of interest in the story here and everywhere else, but I'd just like to remind you all that ad-blocking is not piracy.
c/piracy is just c/useful, the only community on lemmy where you are actually getting something useful.
People interested in piracy are also interested in ad blocking. Seems relevant to me.
Alternative solution: Since YouTube disabled all ads in Russia, you can just use russian vpn/proxy for the most effective YouTube adblocking possible.
Wow! What a great idea! What could be better than routing all your traffic through a Russian VPN provider and probably bypassing sanctions? What could possibly go wrong?
Just for the sake of clarity, what exactly do you think will happen?
lol the US security apparatus is bad but it's not that bad. you might get put on a watchlist though.
Im imagining any russian person who sees this comment just smiling smugly
This one's hilarious, but that one's not gonna work for long as they will axe almost all non-government approved VPNs
Ukraine use ads for anti-putin propaganda. So the russian goverment told Google to moderate ads, or all Google services will be banned. Google decided to just disable ads in Russia completely.
Lol That's awesome, less of a workaround and more of a "we fixed it already, but whatever you're using probably hasn't caught up yet".
They're just being dicks considering how tiny the Firefox userbase is
I fully expect to have to be fingeprinted, DNA tested and retinal scanned to access cOnTenT in a year or two
They already requested my ID a couple of years ago, because for some reason they classified some RDR2 channel I was watching to be 18+. I literally blacked out EVERYTHING besides my name and date of birth and they accepted it lol.
I just replace youtube.com with piped.video all the time
Nobody should ever share data with american corpos - there is no example where corporations harvested data and anyone but the shareholders benefited. So for me it feels like a win whenever they fail.
That's what they want. Consume ads, pay or stop using bandwidth.
I am unsure how much they care about views when so many have adblockers. It will be a useful metric when the huge majority can not block ads.
They probably don't care as they weren't making money off you anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Maybe it is time that we start to write our favourite youtubers to start developing alternative means of distributing their videos. Patreon and so on.
I feel there will be a lot less people watching YouTube in the future and as a whole many youtubers will see their revenue drop significantly. Watching YouTube as a whole will become less and less bearable. I watch videos without ads on my pc, but on mobile i use the app and endure the videos (for now) as the app is just nicer to use compared to the browser.
But if I have to see ads all the time (also these unskippable 20s ads) I think I'll simply stop using YouTube all together. about 90% ofy YouTube use isn't neccessary at all. I'll just watch it, because I'm too lazy to do anything else.
I could be should read a book instead. Maybe others will do that too in the future?
Obviously yes I will click & check out the different channels, etc. For me the name is new, so I had to ask. I am used to ads being shown such as in YouTube.
It’s been around for years now idk how you haven’t heard of it haha
Get fdroid and download newpipe or alternative if you want to keep an app for YouTube without ads.
Alternative web front ends also exist if you are okay with watching videos in a mobile browser. I use an invidious instance, pick one that's close to you here. Other front ends also exist.
Alternative video platforms such as LBRY also exist and I've found a few youtubers I watched on it.
Absolutely take it as an opportunity to reduce your video content consumption. I like the invidious solution because I don't get notifications and it takes a bit more effort to manually open the link in the web client so I tend not to watch videos I'm only half interested in.
Edit: froid => fdroid
I wonder what made youTube decide to fix this loophole? These days the vast majority of people use phone apps or smart TVs to watch. The number of people using Firefox plus ad blockers must be quite small and it'll be a constant effort to keep updating their anti ad block algorithms.
The number of people using Firefox plus ad blockers must be quite small
Hmm, apparently either it's not fully spread to all users yet, or AdGuard + MalwareBytes gets around it automatically. Of course, I also run Anti-Adblock Blocker, Bypass Paywalls Clean and Sponsorblock so it could be one of those stopping it from bothering me either.
maybe this problem is more than it really is, maybe youtube really really needs eyes on ads.
youtube seems to be making changes as fast as the ublock people are so if it doesn't seem to work you might have to wait for the ublock volunteers to catch up again.
I started using freetube for linux a month or so ago. This is so much better than native youtube. The entire interface is smoother, I get less "loading" moments (none really) and it does not try and constantly reduce my resolution by "auto adjusting". No ads, no BS. Just better all around.
ah right, I forgot there are only two ways of creating a software - making the user install a separate Chrome browser that eats 10 times as much resources as it should for what it does, and a command line tool. there are no options in-between.
it uses barely anything. youtube-tui is a TUI not CLI, you can click on shit and it'll run on hardware that for some reason cannot handle freetube of all things. you will have to set up mpv or something for most leaner alternatives to get video running on hardware that modest.
Disable all other extensions AND your browser’s built-in blockers. <== No need to uninstall, just disable them. They might interfere with our solutions.
Is this just privacy-adjacent extensions, like privacybadger and disconnect, youtube-altering like sponsorblock and clickbait remover, all extensions, or some combination of the possibilities? All extensions seems a little extreme.
edit: May have answered my own question. Skipped step 4 and restarted my browser and no popup after loading a couple videos.
Edit The Second [Sadness Remix]: Got the popup again :( Guess it's on a timer for how often it comes up. I'll disable my youtube addons and report back. Already removed all privacy addons that aren't uBlock at recommendation of others.
Decided to start using Freetube on desktop, Newpipe on mobile. It works!
I think because people may have added additional filters manually that might trigger the ad block detection, but that's just a guess. The guide was written by the uBlock Origin developers so I assume they have a reason for that step. But you can try without that step, it might well still work, especially in stock configuration.
I watch on duckduckgo video search results (no ads, fully private) or yt-dlp if I want to watch it again later.
Good to have the ad-block instructions for using the actual YouTube site.
Also thanks other commenters for recommendations of freetube and futo, reminders of pipe. Will try em out soon!
So far, I've seen nothing on Firefox -- but I am getting some minor hiccups on ReVanced which seem to be consistent with the influence of the AdBlock detection. Stuff like playback stopping after 3 videos until I unpause it, probably coming from the pop-up appearing.
Thank the good god for the incredible folks maintaining uBlock origin.
Edit: and ReVanced, and SmartTube, and Newpipe, and everything... But especially uBlock origin. That thing is a security necessity.
