• Welcome to ASR. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

YouTube cracks down on ad blockers

Status
Not open for further replies.
There have been multiple updates per day from Google and the ad blockers, each trying to stay a step ahead. Reminds me of then the BBC were trying to block get_iplayer...

The odd thing so far is that the worst experience has been for their subscribers - an incentive not to sign in.
 
Personally, I don't object to ads being displayed on Youtube, I just don't pay them any attention. Something has to fund the service and infrastructure required to host Youtube, and that's either going to be advertising or subscription revenues or a combination of both. Since i'm not prepared to pay for a subscription, I can hardly complain that I am shown ads.

In the early 00's, I had a discussion with an advertising executive regarding the skipping of adverts on broadcast TV. I'd been a PVR user since the late 90's (a Phillips TiVo) and informed her that I hadn't watched an advert for years - I always skipped past them. She was absolutely shocked by this and got quite upset. Apparently I was guilty of breaching some kind of un-written contract between myself and the broadcaster. She claimed that I was contractually obliged to watch the adverts whilst watching TV and that not watching the adverts was somehow stealing the TV!

This wasn't the first time I'd witnessed someone's reaction when their worldview was shattered by a new piece of technology and I'm sure it won't be the last.
 
JSmith said:
github.com

GitHub - TheRealJoelmatic/RemoveAdblockThing: The intrusive "Ad blocker are not allowed on YouTube" message is annoying. This open-source project aims to address this issue by providing a solution to bypass YouTube's ad blocker detection

The intrusive "Ad blocker are not allowed on YouTube" message is annoying. This open-source project aims to address this issue by providing a solution to bypass YouTube's ad blocker...
github.com github.com



Ironically the video is on YT... chicken and egg here. :cool:


JSmith
Click to expand...
Lordy, I love capitalism. ;)

I have profoundly mixed feelings about stuff like this. YT/Google/Alphabet is in business to make money. They can do whatever they want, within the confines of applicable law. It's the tactics that hack me off. The big media conglomerates (and some of the smaller media apparatchiks, too) operate like drug dealers: the first hit is free. :(

Ironically...

"In 1906, the American inventor Lee de Forest created an amplifier [i.e., the triode] that made broadcasting possible. Of commercial radio, de Forest said: 'What have you done with my child? You have sent him out on the street in rags of ragtime to collect money from all and sundry. You have made of him a laughingstock of intelligence, surely a stench in the nostrils of the gods of the ionosphere.' "

www.garrisonkeillor.com

The Writer's Almanac for Thursday, November 2, 2023 - Garrison Keillor

Today is the birthday of George Boole (1815), the English mathematician responsible for Boolean algebra, whose three basic operations of AND, OR and NOT, became the basis of comparing sets of things mathematically. He also composed all-important algebraic identities like: (X or Y) = (Y or X)...
www.garrisonkeillor.com www.garrisonkeillor.com

oldyale_deforest.jpg


PS I am listening to the Beatles :facepalm: via a small box of triodes (and one dual-diode HV rectifier) even as I type this. OK, the source is digital (a - ahem - CD)... but... still... ;)



PPS Credit where credit's due: I saw this quote first at https://hifihaven.org/index.php?thr...er-peculiar-snippets.8220/page-28#post-246292

PPPS Maybe it's just me, but the photo of de Forest I posted makes him look like one of Gerry Anderson's marionettes. Sorry about that. :p

MV5BNDE4NWQzZDYtNDhlNy00NDdjLWJlZmQtNzNiZDFlYjBkZjdiXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTczNDE0NDc@._V1_.jpg
 
Holdt said:
I know them because I see them every time I'm shopping. Not because of ads.
Click to expand...

lets imagine product X and product Y have exactly the same quality. product X pays millions for marketing, product Y doesn't. product Y should be cheaper. majority of what you buy should be Y, but it is X. you are not special. we all feel that it doesn't work on us, but we all buy the brands....we all
 
dasdoing said:
lets imagine product X and product Y have exactly the same quality. product X pays millions for marketing, product Y doesn't. product Y should be cheaper. majority of what you buy should be Y, but it is X. you are not special. we all feel that it doesn't work on us, but we all buy the brands....we all
Click to expand...
Speak for yourself - that's pretty much the exact situation for generic vs. branded painkillers. I'm not wasting my money on the branded ones.
 
I've been in an ongoing battle for years, trying to maintain a clutter-free screen. It's beyond frustrating to have to constantly fend off intrusive ads, pop-ups, and auto-playing videos that disrupt my online experience.
We deserve better, and we shouldn't have to pay a premium or jump through hoops just to reclaim a little peace and sanity while browsing.

The time and effort required to fend off these intrusions are absurd. It's as if we're being forced into a digital battleground, where only the most persistent and tech-savvy survive. The endless quest for a clean and distraction-free browsing experience shouldn't be this arduous.

It's high time for a change. We should be able to use our devices without feeling like we're constantly under siege.
 
dasdoing said:
lets imagine product X and product Y have exactly the same quality. product X pays millions for marketing, product Y doesn't. product Y should be cheaper. majority of what you buy should be Y, but it is X. you are not special. we all feel that it doesn't work on us, but we all buy the brands....we all
Click to expand...
How do you know I buy X? Mostly, I buy the one that’s least expensive. Often, that’s the “no brand” generic version. Under no circumstances am I walking into a grocery store and buying the more expensive brand X because I saw an ad pop up for it on a website.
 
Last edited:
somebodyelse said:
Speak for yourself - that's pretty much the exact situation for generic vs. branded painkillers. I'm not wasting my money on the branded ones.
Click to expand...
nor I -- and I made my way professionally in the "name brand pharmaceutical" industry -- and gratefully so.

Mind you, if I needed recombinant human coagulation factor VIII for type A hemophilia, I'd stick with the higher priced spread, as it were. :)
Of course, gene therapy'll even render that a vestige of the past.

1698933843120.png
 
I get ad blockers & I also get YT, google & whoever trying to charge for content & somehow block ad blockers. What I don't get is why people think they have some sort of "right" to watch content. Also If you think you have any right to privacy on the internet think again.
 
dasdoing said:
lets imagine product X and product Y have exactly the same quality. product X pays millions for marketing, product Y doesn't. product Y should be cheaper. majority of what you buy should be Y, but it is X. you are not special. we all feel that it doesn't work on us, but we all buy the brands....we all
Click to expand...
You are wrong and I don't want you to force your generalization upon me.

I buy want I want. Not because of ads but because of a combination of price and quality and convenience. I get that many people are manipulated by ads and that it's a huge business. I'm just not part of it. Sorry to burst you bubble..
 
mhardy6647 said:
Oh.
I am amused (and, to some extent, bemused) by the current existential struggle in which Alphabet/Google/YT and AdBlocker seem to be locked. :facepalm:
Those folks need a hobby.
Click to expand...
It's not my hobby, but I'm generally more the tidy type. That has always been true for my screens as well. In my job, I've always prided myself on creating aesthetically pleasing user interfaces for technical applications and so on. It was my speciality.
I also paint pictures and do graphic work. In the end, it's always about aesthetics for me. The eye should not be offended.
 
Last edited:
computer-audiophile said:
It's not my hobby, but I'm generally more the tidy type. That has always been true for my screens as well. In my job, I've always prided myself on creating aesthetically pleasing user interfaces for technical applications and so on. It was my speciality.
I also paint pictures and do graphic work. In the end, it's always about aesthetics for me. The eye should not be offended.
Click to expand...
Oh, believe me, I totally agree, and I support your perspective. And I very much admire your sense of aesthetics. Mine is quite compromised, unfortunately. :(

I was referring to the poor folks at Alphabet and at AdBlock that are (probably literally) working overtime to outwit each other. :facepalm:
Actually, it is probably their management that could benefit from a relaxing hobby.
 
mhardy6647 said:
I was referring to the poor folks at Alphabet and at AdBlock that are (probably literally) working overtime to outwit each other. :facepalm:
Actually, it is probably their management that could benefit from a relaxing hobby.
Click to expand...
Yes, that is a very funny idea indeed! LOL :)
 
Other than adblockers there's also different frontends, like

Piped

An alternative privacy-friendly YouTube frontend which is efficient by design.
piped.video piped.video

which also supports automatically skipping the sponsor-segments in videos and stuff like that. Some times the main site can be a bit overloaded, but you can switch to different instances in the preferences.

Just for fun I loaded the same video with adblockers on youtube and on piped. The amount of data transferred before even starting the video was 17 vs 4 MB. Hightly noticeable when browsing with a less then stellar connection.
 
computer-audiophile said:
It's not my hobby, but I'm generally more the tidy type. That has always been true for my screens as well. In my job, I've always prided myself on creating aesthetically pleasing user interfaces for technical applications and so on. It was my speciality.
I also paint pictures and do graphic work. In the end, it's always about aesthetics for me. The eye should not be offended.
Click to expand...

You could investigate building your own pfSense firewall and installing pfBlockerNG so that this stuff is blocked (via firewall rule) at the 'front door'....

1698937537237.png


I see very few, if any, ads or pop-ups on any device at home, although this won't block the video ads that play on Youtube.

Pi-Hole would be another option, although I would argue that blackholing DNS requests is not quite as effective as enforcing firewall rules (it can be circumvented by changing the client DNS settings) although there are ways around firewall rules as well, e.g. browser based VPN...

Guardian home page with VPN tunnel enabled...

1698938121222.png


Browser based VPN disabled, so pfBlockerNG removing ads...

1698938186020.png
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom