OT - YouTube ads

Within the last couple weeks, my experience with YT took a downturn after they began placing two ads back-to-back at the front of videos. These are the "your video will start soon", meaning that I can't opt-out after some seconds. Anyone know whether this is a system-wide change, or it it happens after users cross some magic bandwidth? It became SO annoying that I switched to another browser specifically for viewing YT, one that (so far) is successfully blocking all their inane ads that I zero interest in. (Yes I know I can pay them to not run ads, but it's the principle of the thing. I mean, they know it's me, and they know that after showing the same ad 100 times, if I didn't click through before, it's probably not going to happen on the 101st try.)

I have seen some of that.  Usually for me there is a timer in the lower right corner of the screen.  When the timer is done I can opt out of the ad and go to what I wanted to see.

i have used Chrome and find that everytime Youtube updates the ad injection I have to go looking for which chrome extension works best that day.  Today it's uBlock Origin but in the past it has been something else.  

I.E. you have to accept that you're going to need to spend a few minutes on google searching for which tool works in the google browser to block the google video site (i'm sensing a theme here)

I use Firefox with Ublock Origin, and so far it's been rock solid.

Yeah it's kind of annoying. On the plus side, it will boost their earnings and stock price. ;)

Firefox is your best best. OTOH I got google to offer me premium when I was on a trip in Taiwan super cheap. Maybe the same thing could be accomplished with a VPN?

Opera is also good, it also has a free VPN that allowed me to watch the N24 on YT this year

my method that has been working for years is when I click a video, if an ad plays, I quickly page back (alt + left arrow) and then page forward (alt + right arrow) and it seems to trick YT to not play an ad

ClearWaterMS said:

i have used Chrome and find that everytime Youtube updates the ad injection I have to go looking for which chrome extension works best that day.  Today it's uBlock Origin but in the past it has been something else.  

 

I.E. you have to accept that you're going to need to spend a few minutes on google searching for which tool works in the google browser to block the google video site (i'm sensing a theme here)

So Chrome is changing the way that they approve extensions pretty soon. UBlock and a few others used to roll out almost daily updates, now they have to wait for approval. Chrome is changing heavily under the skin. "to protect user data" in a way that also makes blocking ads almost impossible to do. Why because google sells the ads and controls the delivery keys, we used to be able to get around this but they are masking data now along with the ads to get around this and delaying updates.

Firefox is not doing this along with a few others but even my PiHole does not catch everything anymore. 

WonkoTheSane said:

I use Firefox with Ublock Origin, and so far it's been rock solid.

Same experience but with AdBlock.  Never have ads.  

Google has vested interest in making YT show ads, so Chrome is really out.  Never tried Edge.  

At the risk of screwing myself forever......I don't have ads on YouTube vids I watch. I don't know if it's Ad Block's doing or somehow related to the number of vids you post to the site (I don't do a huge amount, just here and there) keeping the ads out. 

It used to make me so mad when I'd be in the middle of watching a video and it would stop for a commercial or three  - so much so that I would just close the vid.

They want you to sign up for YouTube Premium, which is ad free.  I decided to do it - I watch more YouTube than anyting else these days, so I figure it's basically the same as paying for any other sort of streaming service.

I also have AdBlock Plus on my computer, and as I recall prior to signing up for YouTube Premium I was starting to get warning messages about using it there.

alfadriver said:

WonkoTheSane said:

I use Firefox with Ublock Origin, and so far it's been rock solid.

Same experience but with AdBlock.  Never have ads.  

Google has vested interest in making YT show ads, so Chrome is really out.  Never tried Edge.  

I had Ad-block (I think) and it worked great - right up until YT warned me one day that I "appear to have" ad-blocking, and that if I persist in using it, they'd block me. Game on.

Like I said, if a viewer (who YT easily tracks) doesn't click-through after seeing the same ad 100 times, YT would be wise to decide, "huh, maybe he's not interested, show something different." But they don't... okay.

In reply to kb58 :

AdBlock stopped working on Chrome, with a bunch of warnings.  But it works fine on Firefox.  

alfadriver said:

Google has vested interest in making YT show ads, so Chrome is really out.  Never tried Edge.  

Edge is a Chromium browser, so 99.9% likely to be affected by anything negative google does is relation to ads.