YouTube is Taking its Fight Against Ad Blockers Global
Viewers have to enable ads if they don't want to pay for the $14-a-month YouTube Premium:
YouTube is no longer preventing just a small subset of its userbase from accessing its videos if they have an ad blocker. The platform has gone all out in its fight against the use of add-ons, extensions and programs that prevent it from serving ads to viewers around the world, it confirmed to Engadget. "The use of ad blockers violate YouTube's Terms of Service," a spokesperson told us. "We've launched a global effort to urge viewers with ad blockers enabled to allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad free experience. Ads support a diverse ecosystem of creators globally and allow billions to access their favorite content on YouTube."
Youtubes anti-adblocking offensive appear to be working.
Youtubes anti-adblocking offensive appear to be working.
The developers of various adblockers are reporting record amounts of un-installation during October. A majority of the people uninstalling their adblockers claim that it is due to the Youtube crackdown.
The cat-and-mouse game is sure to continue as new methods of blocking or skipping are sure to follow.
Previously unreported figures from ad blocking companies indicate that YouTube's crackdown is working, with hundreds of thousands of people uninstalling ad blockers in October. The available data suggests that last month saw a record number of ad blockers uninstalled - and also a record for new ad blocker installs as people sought alternatives that wouldn't trigger YouTube's dreaded pop-up.
https://www.wired.com/story/youtubes-ad-blocker-crackdown-spurs-record-uninstalls/
Youtube Users Avoiding Ad-Block Rules With These Alternatives
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
[...] However, that doesn't mean those users are just accepting YouTube's copious advertisements or paying for YouTube Premium ($13.99/mo) to get rid of them the preferred way. Instead, as Android Authority noted and as you can easily find on Reddit, people are frantically searching for working alternatives.
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a free alternative that's guaranteed to work perfectly on an indefinite basis right now.
One popular browser extension called uBlock Origin seems to be the easiest and best bet right now, with users claiming it works best on Firefox (though it's worked for me on Chrome, too).
Some folks are switching browsers to Firefox or even Microsoft Edge just to find a way to watch YouTube videos in peace.
The problem with this is that YouTube will almost certainly weed out working alternatives over time, so some degree of adaptability may be required here on the user end. Or, you could just give in and pay for YouTube Premium. It's not fun or ideal, but you can at least guarantee it'll work.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday November 08 2023, @03:07AM (13 children)
They have a right to put ads on their platform, and they have a right to ban users who block them.
But it will be a cold day in hell before I put up with ads for the dumb shit that's on youtube.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by anubi on Wednesday November 08 2023, @05:23AM (2 children)
We just need to make a downloader that watches the ad for us, but only stores the desired content.
You know, if AI can generate content for us, it can also watch it for us.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday November 08 2023, @04:08PM
As long as their software can distinguish between unskippable ads and skipable video, my software can too.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Chromium_One on Thursday November 09 2023, @01:14AM
It doesn't watch the ads, but yt-dlp downloads videos.
https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/tags [github.com]
When you live in a sick society, everything you do is wrong.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mhajicek on Wednesday November 08 2023, @06:52AM (1 child)
In the Brave browser, you can just open the video link in a new private window, and it plays fine. It just won't record that you've watched it, and you have to use the blocked window to like or comment.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2023, @10:15PM
What is this "like or comment" of which you speak?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by EvilSS on Wednesday November 08 2023, @03:33PM (7 children)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 08 2023, @04:31PM (1 child)
At this point in time, that's not the best answer. Yeah, there's Rumble, Gab, Vimeo, and more. But, Youtube long ago positioned itself as The Town Square. The new squares are little known, and little used. I don't think any of them have been monetized quite like Youtube. Anyone and everyone who wants to make money through their channel knows to use Youtube. So long as the money resides with Youtube, all the competition works at a major disadvantage.
Do an experiment, go to Youtube and do a search - maybe "Ukraine War News". You will get a pretty long list, albeit, many of the hits are just re-digestions of news already shared elsewhere. Now, go to Rumble, and do the same search. Rinse and repeat for your short list of Youtube alternatives.
You may find that the alternatives offer a different bias than Youtube does. You may find that the alternatives offer insights that are totally absent from Youtube. But, you will definitely find that you get far fewer hits than you did on Youtube.
Some alternatives that you may be unfamiliar with:
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-12-sites-watch-videos-youtube/ [makeuseof.com]
https://kinsta.com/blog/alternatives-to-youtube/ [kinsta.com]
I would suggest that people hit all of the sites mentioned in those lists, and they may find something they really like.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Wednesday November 08 2023, @10:58PM
So someone who thinks everything on Youtube is ‘dumb shit’ has no choice but to watch ‘dumb shit’?
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday November 08 2023, @05:47PM (4 children)
I'm not interested in selling anybody on Youtube's subscription, I mean its library is valuable to you or it isn't, but it is strange to me that that option never discussed.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Wednesday November 08 2023, @07:30PM (3 children)
Because paying them implies that you're okay with their business practices, and many people would prefer not to do that.
There's of course a reason that they're doing this now, after they've thoroughly crushed all competition. Now it's time to monetize! "The goal of a company in the market is not to offer the best product; it's to offer the *only* product."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday November 08 2023, @07:53PM (2 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday November 08 2023, @08:25PM (1 child)
I still find it a bit crazy that people can make a living off of YouTube videos, but they've been doing that for years, before this latest adblocker kerfluffle trying to wring extra money out of us.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday November 08 2023, @09:04PM
YouTube has been dropping the creator's payout share significantly over the past few years. Most which I follow have had to turn to Patreon and sponsorship.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2023, @03:19AM (1 child)
I will never bow before the abusers of advertisers. I will give no quarter to advertisements. I will not budge an inch. No foothold, no consideration. Full stop. There is absolutely no way, on Gods green Earth that I will allow tracking, ads or anything else that takes what is permanent (my data) in exchange for what is temporary (a video).
The ad industry has completely abused their position and the Internet is far worse because of it.
“We can’t support our service without forcing crap”. Good. Maybe your service could use some distributed (self-)hosting. That’s how the Internet was designed.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Wednesday November 08 2023, @07:27PM
Ooh, I actually saved the URL for this one in my quote file, too! That's a surprise.
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=900&cid=21914#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 08 2023, @03:46AM (2 children)
Paste the code into "my filter" tab, and restart browser.
I don't remember where I found that - you can search for it if you want to check it's origin. But, it seems to work, in at least one browser - Thorium
Version 117.0.5938.157 (Official Build) (64-bit)
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @04:53AM (1 child)
Do not use manual filters they will become obsolete.
Just keep your filter lists up to date.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @06:38AM
Well, yes. It's an arms race.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2023, @04:01AM (1 child)
YouTube's adblock war is backfiring in the worst way possible [youtube.com]
https://odysee.com/@rossmanngroup:a/youtube's-adblock-war-is-backfiring-in:c [odysee.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by Tork on Wednesday November 08 2023, @08:23PM
The gist of the 25 minute rambling video is that Google made a big enough stink about ad-blockers that a.) there was a surge in ad-blocker downloads, b.) said surge ignited a race for ad-blockers to do an even better job, and c.) the internet said "don't tell me what to do." and now people are doing things like using private/igcognito mode a lot more. Bravo, Alphabet. Glad you're in my stock portfolio. >_
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Touché) by maxwell demon on Wednesday November 08 2023, @04:48AM (5 children)
Just don't log in to Google. If you are watching not logged in, you can watch as much as you want even with ad blocker.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by EJ on Wednesday November 08 2023, @04:56AM (4 children)
Not true. I never log in, and YouTube forces ads now. I had to disable AdBlock. Maybe I'll try uBlock.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday November 08 2023, @05:23AM (1 child)
Interesting, it seems to work for me.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by EJ on Wednesday November 08 2023, @04:19PM
It seems to be person-specific still. They don't give ads on my laptop or HTPC, but my main PC appears to have hit their clip level with whatever fingerprinting they use now.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday November 08 2023, @06:54AM
Try Brave, and open the video in a private window.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Zinho on Wednesday November 08 2023, @02:04PM
Youtube is currently giving me anti-adblock popups on Chrome, but not on Firefox. Same plugins installed on both (duckduckgo, privacybadger, ublock origin), logged in to same Google account on both. I'm chalking it up to Google either being schizophrenic or feeling more entitled on their own browser.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2023, @05:44AM (4 children)
This video downloader does a great job. Just queue up the videos you would like to watch, then come back in a few minutes and open them in your video player of choice. The free version does limit you to 30 downloads per day however.
https://www.4kdownload.com/-53 [4kdownload.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mhajicek on Wednesday November 08 2023, @06:55AM
This is also useful for controversial videos which may get deleted.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday November 08 2023, @11:41AM
Thanks for that link. I've installed it and it is working like a charm - for now...
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 5, Informative) by epitaxial on Wednesday November 08 2023, @01:53PM (1 child)
That's probably just a front end for yt-dlp which is open source anyhow https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp [github.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @04:58AM
Yep and a better front end is Open Video Downloader (yt-dl-gui).
(Score: 5, Interesting) by darkfeline on Wednesday November 08 2023, @07:08AM (2 children)
"The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree,
the anecdotes are usually right. There's something wrong with the way
you are measuring it."
One of the common tips for evading anti-adblock is to uninstall and reinstall your ad blocker, and people are generally trying out different ad blockers to see which one works on each day. So "Youtubes anti-adblocking offensive appear to be working. The developers of various adblockers are reporting record amounts of un-installation during October." is at best a huge misrepresentation of the data.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 5, Informative) by bart9h on Wednesday November 08 2023, @04:03PM (1 child)
also, it makes no sense to *uninstall* your adblocker if you happen to decide to allow youtube ads.
you just disable the adblocker for that specific site with two clicks.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday November 09 2023, @02:55AM
At a guess, what really happened is that people tried a different browser that didn't YET have an adblocker installed.
OR... Google is trying to create a herd effect: "All these smart people uninstalled their adblocker, so you should too."
(Because we really want to follow you around with our OTHER ad platforms TOO.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pTamok on Wednesday November 08 2023, @07:25AM (10 children)
Either you pay for a service or someone else does. Very little costs nobody anything to use.
YouTube is (mostly) funded by advertising revenues, unless it is being cross-subsidised from other revenue producing services, or someone is paying out of their own pocket.
If you don't watch advertisements, it's not unreasonable that advertiser will not want to pay. It follows that it is not unreasonable that the service provider will want to prevent advertisement-blocking, as it means the advertisers are not getting the value they paid for.
I don't see enough value for me in YouTube that I would want to pay the requested monthly fee to access it.
Which is fine.
So I won't be watching YouTube videos.
It's a pity that so many people link to them, on the assumption that there is open access. But I choose to not have that content available to me. Which means that many links that people share are useless to me: much like linking to text behind paywalls.
There was a time when the fee you pay to your ISP included services like Usenet and email. That is no longer true, so it is difficult to find services on the Internet that are truly open access, because they all need funding in one way or another. There are a lot of philanthropists, but services can disappear when people run out of inclination or money. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone, always, is paying, even if temporarily, it isn't you.
One of the reasons public libraries are such a good idea is that they provided open access to knowledge to all, funded (usually) by taxpayers. We need more 'public libraries' on the Internet, with some way of minimising/mitigating the abuse that 'free' services get. For some people, that's political: services funded from taxes are regarded as a bad thing, to be minimised.
I'm in favour of public libraries. YouTube is not a public library, and I understand that. Perhaps we need a public library for video content?
(Score: 3, Touché) by isostatic on Wednesday November 08 2023, @08:24AM
You pay either way.
Google pays $channel 50c to show an advert form Company C to Viewer V
Company C pays google $1 to show the advert
The only reason Company C pays that it because it makes $1.50 from Viewer V in exchange
Viewer V ends up paying $1.50 and their waste of time, but Channel C only gets 50c
Same applies with all adverts. They are a cancer on society
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday November 08 2023, @11:01AM (7 children)
It's not that simple.
I would agree that if you don't want to pay for Youtube and you don't want to be served malware by Google, you should be free to move to the competition.
However, Google has crushed the competition. Youtube is the only (reasonable) choice to share video. Youtube is the de-facto sole town square for video.
SInce they set themselves up to be unavoidable and have a monopolistic position, and - like it or not - Youtube videos are part of the public discourse nowadays, I make an exception: not paying for the service you can't do without and you can't avoid is fair game.
Exactly. There's no "perhaps" about it: we-the-people should yank the monopoly from Google's clutches. The question is: who will pay for it?
Personally I'd be in favor of seeing some of my taxes fund public versions of services that have now become essential in a modern democracy, such as Youtube or Twitter. But most people have been brainwashed into thinking this is communism and the hard feudalism that currently rules the land and crushes them is what they truly want. So until people come to their senses and realize they've been told lies by the elite, it's not gonna happen.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday November 08 2023, @11:47AM (3 children)
It is an interesting concept - but some people will simply abuse it and post unsuitable material. The powers-that-be (PTB) will have to employ more people to check the content and to restrict those who can post. Running the library becomes expensive and so POTB seek alternative means of creating revenue. And the circle starts all over again.
You stand a better chance of trying this idea in the USA where freedom of speech is far more tolerant (but not completely so!) of extreme views. Europe would not permit it.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday November 08 2023, @11:50AM
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Zinho on Wednesday November 08 2023, @02:20PM (1 child)
The U.S. Library of Congress could fulfill a role like that, although the obstacle I see is that they could not (per the 1st Amendment) block any content for almost any reason. The raw archive would be a cesspool of "unsuitable material". I can see various elected officials being squeamish about hosting everything the unwashed masses produce; not a small roadblock.
Once we get past that, I could see private organizations providing curated lists of LOC videos, with standards applied to fit various audiences' concepts of "suitable". With various options for whose filter to apply, and no government interference, the censorship argument would go away - people could always go directly to the archive any time they wish.
We'd be back again at the point of Google asking for ad money to support their filtering efforts; however, they wouldn't have to pay for hosting/distribution costs anymore, and they'd have competition.
Interesting to think about...
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 3, Interesting) by deimtee on Wednesday November 08 2023, @10:26PM
Is there anything stopping them from requiring ID to post and attributing all content to the poster? Would cut most of the filth if people had to post it under their own name.
One job constant is that good employers have low turnover, so opportunities to join good employers are relatively rare.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Wednesday November 08 2023, @11:47AM
I agree with you. Some things that are 'essential in a modern democracy' really ought to be better regulated, and quite possibly taken into public ownership. I'd include the 'smartphone' ecosystem; where identity and financial transactions are intimately entwined with 'smartphone' apps. I know people, who for ideological reasons, don't use smartphones, and things are deliberately (or possibly negligently uncaringly) being made progressively more difficult for them.
Some governments are considering whether to make acceptance of cash a requirement, as so many services (including things like shopping an hairdressing) allow payment only by card or 'smartphone' app. Handling cash is difficult and expensive, more so because bank branches have been removed, and those that remain don't handle cash (partly due to the risk of robbery, but also because it is much, much cheaper not to). The problem is that when the Internet and/or electricity goes, people can't pay for things.
But back to the original point: it is hard to argue in favour of taxes funding a YouTube equivalent, when things like social care of the elderly, health, and other essential services (like infrastructure maintenance) are in difficulty. Being able to download a cat video (which is how it will be characterised) is hardly essential. One gets dangerously close to saying that taxes are not yet high enough, which is 'somewhat' contentious.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by crafoo on Wednesday November 08 2023, @04:31PM
>Personally I'd be in favor of seeing some of my taxes fund public versions of services that have now become essential in a modern democracy, such as Youtube or Twitter.
This is the nationalist view as well. Alexander Hamilton would agree with you. Tariffs (and taxes) used to build public works and internal infrastructure. In Hamilton's day that meant improving waterways, ports, roads, etc. It did not mean spending our internal treasure to bride other nations. In fact Washington and the rest of the Federalists spoke frequently and strongly about "foreign entanglements" and their danger to the country. Even with France, and other strong allies.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday November 09 2023, @03:03AM
Good thoughts. However there's the problem that Sturgeon's Law also applies to vids. I don't want to pay taxes to support cat videos, but there's a lot of value in say, how-to, historical, or political discourse.
As a public library -- limited video quality might be a good way to limit costs.
For that matter, YT could do the same. Say, 720p and below are "free" (I pick that because I find it's the lower limit for clear text in a vid), but HD costs in ads or subscription.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2023, @11:56AM
Google doesn't get a lot of sympathy from me with the "someone has to pay" argument because they are producing revenue in the billions of dollars a quarter by recording and tracking everything everyone does and selling that information. In 2020 YouTube reportedly made $20B in ad revenue and in 2022 it was almost $30B. It also bothers me at some level that they want to impose requirements on me on how I use my computer and what software is installed on it. Like with web pages insisting I not block their third party software from runing on my computer. They need another paradigm to serve ads, at least to me, but trying to make me feel guilty on $30B of revenue isn't going to get them very far, particularly when they are constantly tracking me in my daily life regardless of whether I watch YouTube or not.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday November 08 2023, @09:38AM (3 children)
Use NewPipe [newpipe.net] or Grayjay [grayjay.app] on Android.
Use FreeTube [freetubeapp.io] on the desktop.
Better: FreeTube can import NewPipe subscriptions.
Those apps are better than the Youtube client, be it the browser client or the standalone client, and they just don't serve any ads.
I'm sure Google will break them eventually: they have many times in the past. But I'm also sure the authors of those wonderful applications will find a workaround, because they're still working.
Worse comes to worst, I can live without Youtube, and there are better platforms for the content I like that I have I have no problem paying for - unlike Google which will never get a cent from me.
Fuck you Google. You've already lost and you don't even know it.
(Score: 2) by cykros on Wednesday November 08 2023, @01:46PM
I was using NewPipe and either Invidious or bypass-paywalls with youtube in a browser, but you just gave an even smoother option. Thanks!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2023, @06:09PM
Grayjay needs to become a desktop application like FreeTube, or FreeTube should integrate more sites like Grayjay. Then you have a real winner. But since most activity is still on YouTube anyway, FreeTube will do for now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @05:07AM
Better yet the fork called NewPipe x SponsorBlock x Restore YouTube Dislike Button (NewPipeSponsorBlock).
(Score: 2, Touché) by crafoo on Wednesday November 08 2023, @12:16PM (3 children)
sites like invidious still work although they're trying to freeze them out. Brave works fine too. I've never seen an ad using Brave and I haven't had to use a private window.
I don't care for the malware argument. I'm not making a moral argument. I'd like to see the entire advertisement industry be sent to small pacific islands to kill each other with hand weapons for our broadcasting amusement. they deserve nothing more, certainly not money.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by cykros on Wednesday November 08 2023, @01:26PM
Indeed. And I'm certainly not trying to pay Google for having created a platform that creators feel compelled to use because of how they've dried up the competition. I'll watch those who are on Rumble/Bitchute/Odysee on those platforms, and will block ads on YouTube for those who are not, until they move over.
And if it's about supporting the creators, that's what direct tips or other support is for. No need to pay their pimp too.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Wednesday November 08 2023, @01:31PM
Invidious seems to be throwing up a crapton of error messages during the last couple of days. It was my preferred viewer in some regard. So they are clearly messing with things.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday November 09 2023, @03:16AM
I'd have been okay with a banner or vid (even if persistent) at the top of my suggested stack. In fact for a while that's what YT did -- showed the ad in the stack, to click or not as I liked. Visible enough, but also easy to ignore.
Skippable garbage ads were just barely tolerable.
Unskippable garbage ads, especially LONG unskippable ads, are why I now use an adblocker. Did it to themselves.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by cykros on Wednesday November 08 2023, @01:23PM (2 children)
This seems odd; why would anyone completely uninstall an adblocker instead of just disable it on YouTube? Guess I should be happy this means even the plebs are using ad-blockers these days, but it's a bit of a completely ridiculous response.
Also, bypass-paywalls seems to work wonders at letting you use YouTube with adblockers still enabled (both Brave and uBlock origin), with a bonus of giving you a fresh experience instead of the echo chamber the algorithm usually ends up leaving you with.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday November 08 2023, @07:17PM
Because your average Internet user has no idea how to configure the thing per-site. Somebody told them "google this name, click the first result, pound the big 'install' button", and that's as much as they've interacted with the thing, since it auto-updates the blocklist in the background.
Perhaps not coincidentally, uBlock Origin has a huge button on the popup when you click it, to turn it off on the current page, that even a trained monkey could figure out. That, plus the eyedropper to point-and-click to zap UI elements, and it's pretty user-friendly.
Huh--hadn't heard of this one.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bypass-paywalls-for-firefox/ [mozilla.org]
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by deimtee on Wednesday November 08 2023, @10:35PM
Can google tell the difference between someone uninstalling uBlock and someone telling uBlock not to block on youtube? I can see google trying to spin the news by upping the "uninstall" number to include everyone no longer using it on their site. If people have actually uninstalled it then I foresee a huge increase in re-installations when they find out how much crap it was blocking on other sites too.
One job constant is that good employers have low turnover, so opportunities to join good employers are relatively rare.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday November 08 2023, @02:51PM (1 child)
Seriously, did anyone ever see that kind of "blocker-blocker"?
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Thursday November 09 2023, @12:32PM
I saw it, so I disabled uBlock Origin on YouTube for the few days it took for the programmers to fix the bug. YouTube was painful for those few days.
(Score: 3, Informative) by dwilson98052 on Wednesday November 08 2023, @07:26PM
I've been using various adblockers on firefox since it became a thing, I currently use uBlock Origin and a plugin called "Enhancer For Youtube".
What one can't block the other seems to take care of.
It works so well that I haven't seen an ad on YT in many MANY years.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2023, @10:48PM
I block things that consume lots of bandwidth . I block things that consume RAM and CPU.
I stop going to websites that overly block the screen.
Some of those ads are malware. I don't want them on my system either.