145

YouTube screwing itself with adblockers again (beehaw.org)

submitted 11 months ago by TheBaldness@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

55 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I use Firefox and uBlock Origin. Not sure what kind of experience anyone else is having with YouTube, but recently my home page has been empty because I "don't have watch history turned on". Okay, fine. I won't be able to browse suggested videos, and I'll spend less time on their platform.

Then I began to get warnings about using an adblocker. Okay, fine. I know they need to make money, so I turned off the adblocker. Now when I'm having my time wasted by ads, I have to ask myself, how bad do I really want to watch this video? Not badly enough? I close the tab and spend less time on their platform.

Finally, I began experiencing glitches when playing videos. The video stops, but the audio continues. This never happened before. Perhaps mistakenly, I attribute this to YouTube, which is owned by Google, trying to force me off Firefox and on to Chrome. That was the last straw.

Now I use YouTube to simply follow the channels I'm subscribed to. When I want to watch something, I copy the URL, paste it into YT-DLP, download the video and spend zero time on their platform at all.

To summarize; Now I'm watching zero commercials, and YouTube is streaming the entire video to me, even if I only watch a small portion of it, and they're collecting less information about my watching habits than ever before.

Nice job, YouTube. Nice job.

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] MiddledAgedGuy@beehaw.org 55 points 11 months ago

The YouTube adblocker battle is going to be a constantly moving target, so take this with a grain of salt as who knows when it'll break.

I use Firefox with ublock origin and watch directly on YouTube. I don't sign in, and I track the content I follow via rss. No ads, no nags, no issues.

Piped and similar as well as yt-dlp are also great and are better options for giving YouTube the middle finger, which I fully endorse. Just giving another option.

[-] Fizz@lemmy.nz 45 points 11 months ago

They've destroyed all the competition by offering a free service on the back on unlimited funding and then switching to an aggressive payment model once they have complete market dominance.

Google doesn't care if ad block users stop watching. They want ad block users to watch ads or go away.

[-] ShadowRam@kbin.social 41 points 11 months ago

Ya know, I wouldn't mind ads,

If google would just FUCKING LISTEN TO MY CURATING DECISIONS!!

No, I'm never going to buy a car based off an ad. Block em all.

No, I'm never switching insurance companies based on an ad.

No, I'm not interested in mobile games. Ever.

And yet when I tell google, block this content, not interested, I don't want to see this particular topic.

It just doesn't fucking listen.

You'd think this would be an absolute GOLD MINE of information that google would want, to better focus their ads,.

But they just ignore it,

It's not about linking people to stuff they are interested in and taking a percentage... it's about wasting everyone's fucking time, and then they wonder why people run ad blockers.

[-] plasticcheese@lemmy.one 30 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

More often than not, adverts are about brand awareness. You might not buy that car based off that advert right now, but when you do decide to buy a car, you'll remember that brand name and they become a consideration.

I hate adverts.

[-] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 10 points 11 months ago

It still has to be remotely relevant to me. If they showed me 10 different cars that look like Mini's aesthetics, hey, I'd probably keep those in mind. Instead they show me 5 SUVs and 5 pickup trucks, and unless I actually start to make enough money to start that llama-petting-zoo-cafe I dream about in my worst work moments, I will never need or want either of those vehicle classes.

[-] blindsight@beehaw.org 4 points 11 months ago

Research shows it still affects you, though. You'll have more brand awareness, whether you want to or not. Everyone in the US & Canada know what a RAV4 and Forester are. You don't need that explained to you when your coworker tells you about their new car.

And even if you don't drink pop at all, you still know Coke is better than Pepsi.

[-] hulemy@ani.social 9 points 11 months ago

This kind of stuff makes me sad, in a way. Knowing there are people with psychological degrees whose job it is to ""indoctrinate"" people with marketing and advertisements to minmax profits.

Pepsi still better than coke though.

[-] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I do know what a Rav4 is, because my coworker drove one, but without looking it up I don't know what a Forrester is.

But also, I think you're confusing the studies that show that all people are susceptible to marketing, with saying that all people are susceptible to all marketing, which is not what studies show. Nor is there such a thing as marketing with 100% market penetration.

Believing that all marketing works on everyone is just as false as believing that there are people whom no marketing works on.

"You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time... Well, you keep saying it differently, Abe."

[-] jherazob@beehaw.org 2 points 11 months ago

I do have brand awareness, if i get ads shoved in my face about a brand, that brand goes into a shit list to NOT buy from

[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Do you tell your friends how shitty that brand is, so they can go and check it out for themselves...? 😜

They say there is no such thing as bad publicity. Even if it's only people who think you're full of shit, who go check out a brand you criticize, that's still working as advertised.

Veblen goods can also benefit from brand recognition by people who can't afford them. It's why Rolex, Ferrari or Lamborghini advertise to everyone, so the rich kids know they can flaunt their wealth in your face. Interestingly, the likes of Bentley barely advertise outside of their target market.

[-] detectivemittens@beehaw.org 18 points 11 months ago

What’s funny is Google pushed me to turn off all my targeted ad preferences + watch history on YT. I basically did what you did and they started pushing me PragerU and other weird conservative ads, so I just straight turned everything personalized off. And pretty much stopped using the platform.

[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Less popular ads can pay more to get shown, so while Google charges by the click, at some point fewer clicks from a less targeted ad at a higher price, can make them more money than more clicks from a more targeted ad at a lower price.

And yet... that's still less enshittification than with the likes of TikTok. Expect for it to get much worse.

[-] bluGill@kbin.social 4 points 11 months ago

Statistically you will buy that so the ad companies pay google to ignore your prefferences.

[-] Evkob@lemmy.ca 26 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

If pasting into yt-dlp works for you, go ahead, but if you (or anyone reading) wants a more user-friendly experience, I recommend FreeTube for desktop and LibreTube for mobile.

Both these apps strip ads, respect your privacy, and have Sponsorblock built-in. You can import your subscriptions from YouTube via csv.

EDIT: Forgot to mention SmartTube for Android TV, which blocks ads and has Sponsorblock but is less privacy-respecting as you have to login to your YouTube account.

[-] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 3 points 11 months ago

Linretube only works for me about 50% of the time. I tend to default to NewPipe because of this. Both are great, when they work, though. FreeTube for desktop is amazing. The ONLY thing I don't like it about it, is that download progress isn't shown (they're working on that, I think).

[-] dog@suppo.fi 18 points 11 months ago

Give piped.video a try. Basically a youtube frontend that isn't ass.

[-] DigitalPaperTrail@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

although I use it, too, be prepared to have to hop around instances because of errors that stop a video from loading, or keeps them eternally buffering. I still find it more preferable to the ad-filled hell

[-] bedrooms@kbin.social 18 points 11 months ago

I love the empty top page. It's the single best update they've ever done.

[-] Scary_le_Poo@beehaw.org 14 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Allow me to help. Get the libredirect pluggin for Firefox. Go download and install freetube. Set libredirect to direct all YouTube links to freetube. Enjoy!

load more comments (2 replies)

[-] chahk@beehaw.org 14 points 11 months ago

To YouTube people like you and me are not the intended demographic. We were never going to pay either directly or through watching ads, so they don't need us.

[-] SapphironZA@lemmings.world 11 points 11 months ago

My YouTube homepage has been set to the subscriptions tab for 7 years now.

[-] TheBaldness@beehaw.org 3 points 11 months ago

Didn't know I could do that. Gonna change it now.

[-] SapphironZA@lemmings.world 8 points 11 months ago

To clarify, I changed my bookmark to be the subscription page

[-] TheBaldness@beehaw.org 2 points 11 months ago

Got it.

[-] jay2@beehaw.org 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I use Brave Browser (with Ublock Origin and AdBlock) and rarely have any issues. I do have Freetube downloaded, installed and ready to go for when they escalate their game (and they will). For certain other applications, a youtube downloader can be quite handy.

Ads truly are the most annoying, counterproductive and least creative way of putting yourself out there. Even worse, they can never seem to match an ad with the content it gets forced upon, and this serves only to train people to associate their brand with uselessness and irrelevance. Even if you have a product that is good, you've just presented yourself as an obstructing pair of clown shoes and that becomes your first and long-lasting impression. When the time comes that they may need it, most people will not remember your product from that ad, only that your brand is a pair of clown shoes.

The simple truth is, if you have a good product, you do not need advertising. You only need advertising if you have a bad product and you are worried that negative word of mouth will spread faster than you can dupe your share of people into buying it.

Edit: Replaced a word that may be taken as a slur.

[-] admin@beehaw.org 9 points 11 months ago

In your second sentence, please remove/change the 'r' word. It is considered a slur and is not nice. Thanks.

[-] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 4 points 11 months ago

I kind of cringed at that one, too :(

[-] TheBaldness@beehaw.org 7 points 11 months ago

I use Brave Browser (with Ublock Origin and AdBlock) and rarely have any issues.

You don't have issues because Brave is based on Chromium, which is basically Chrome.

[-] sculd@beehaw.org 8 points 11 months ago

Even though I have premium, YouTube recently has been very hit and miss. Live streams keep buffering for no reason. Some videos failed to play and needed a refresh.

Just odd behaviour all around. In their battle to take out adblockers they destroyed the average viewer experience as well.

[-] IllNess@infosec.pub 7 points 11 months ago

I don't have my adblocker on and I get the "Your YouTube history is off" message. I cleared my cookies specifically for YouTube and Google. I still get that message.

When I go to Private mode in Firefox, the message disappears. Same thing happens when I change my User Agent in Developer Mode and changing device size.

Makes me wonder how they are specifying my non private tabs...

[-] toodd@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 11 months ago

There’s a small army of cookies and local storage data on any of their sites. Private tabs are devoid of cookies and storage data on initial launch which starts YouTube in its default state. Unless you’re clearing cookies and storage every time you visit YouTube they’ll track you.

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 4 points 11 months ago

https://amiunique.org/fingerprint

If you are unique, and keep browsing with the same set of parameters, then they can track you (any web, not just YouTube).

Private tabs tweak some of those parameters to make you appear less unique, so webs have a lower confidence in you being the same person, are less likely to correlate that tab with your actual browsing habits, and less likely to punish you for "past transgressions" like having used an ad blocker.

Private tabs also clear up any data stored in your browser by a given website when you close them (not just cookies or site data, but also whether it has some fonts or tracking pixels in its cache), usually have fewer extensions enabled (each extension and data stored in it can make you more unique), and so on.

[-] IllNess@infosec.pub 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Thank you for the information and the link.

Edit: I just ran this. This site basically says I am unique because of I updated my OS on my old computer. There are a lot of other factors but those are the main ones. This is so interesting. I'm gonna do more research on how to mess these variables up. Thank you very much for this. Bookmarked.

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] BurningRiver@beehaw.org 7 points 11 months ago

Jesucristo. Can you guys just not use YouTube for like a month? Seriously, when they roll out unpopular features, just don’t fucking use it. Why is this all too hard to understand?

[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 11 points 11 months ago

YouTube is still the best source for long format content. They're trying very hard not to be... but still are, for now.

[-] coffeejunky@beehaw.org 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I have been using revanved for years, never really had major issues.

Also just not using the service isn't going to change anything. I think Reddit was a good example of how companies really don't listen to their users.

So I'll just keep using it without ads, once it doesn't work anymore I'll just switch to the next solution or stop using YouTube. I do have Nebula so maybe I'll just, only use that at some point.

[-] ExLisper@linux.community 4 points 11 months ago

Because addiction.

[-] Zaphod@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 11 months ago

Firefox + uBlock as well and I the only issue tha I have is that YouTube always takes a few seconds to load, before that the page is basically frozen

[-] Rangus97@beehaw.org 2 points 11 months ago

You could get around the load time by spoofing your useragent to chrome on Windows

[-] Zaphod@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 11 months ago

I did try that with the extension, but unfortunately didn't work

[-] Sleestak_Chaka@lemm.ee 5 points 11 months ago

I use the desktop FreeTube app and watching YouTube works smoothly. On mobile, I use invidious via a browser or Safari in iOS with 1Blocker and NewPipe on Android.

[-] Nyfure@kbin.social 5 points 11 months ago

I won’t be able to browse suggested videos

Whats funny, you do get recommendations on videos, so would be quite easy to grab the last 30 or so videos of your subscriptions and display some of those on the home-page.
But at that point.. might aswell switch to Freetube/Piped

[-] ares35@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago

lately i haven't even been able to get some pages (just pages, not streams themselves) on yt to even open up in firefox, with or without ubo enabled.

[-] TheBaldness@beehaw.org 3 points 11 months ago

I seem to remember reading that Google is purposely degrading the YouTube experience on Firefox. Don't know if it's true, but it sure seems that way.

[-] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 1 points 11 months ago

Had the same issue. I changed my user agent to safari on macos, and haven't had an issue since.

[-] jet@hackertalks.com 3 points 11 months ago

As of many things Google does. It does not have to make sense. There's probably some high muckety muck with an OKR. They need to make some metric go up. Viewership, less ad blockers, less logged out users, something. And they're going to move to heaven and hell to make that number go up. It doesn't matter if they destroy everything else. They only care about their metric.

[-] rengoku@social.venith.net 3 points 11 months ago

If you dont like it and dont want to circumvent it just leave. Dont need to make it hard for yourself.

[-] stoy@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 months ago

I have a powershell script with the settings I want to use for yt-dlp, open VSCode, paste the URL in the variable and click run, and it just goes.

So far I have yet to find a reason to get multiple videos, but that just needs a foreach-object loop and a quick array to get that working.

Won't the the most efficient solution, but it'll be fine.

[-] bluGill@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

Let me add the regular reminder to look for content on peertube first.

load more comments

this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023

145 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

37742 readers

811 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

alyaza@beehaw.org

TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org

gyrfalcon@beehaw.org

rs5th@beehaw.org

coldredlight@beehaw.org

Los@beehaw.org

SemioticStandard@beehaw.org

TheRtRevKaiser@kbin.social

remington@beehaw.org