Ive been using adblockers, piped and other tools for so long that i dont even remember what the last time was when i saw a youtube ad.
Same… And if they ever successfully make it impossible to avoid, I’ll just stop watching YouTube
Hard to do if you watch directly from your TV using some dongle and don’t know or can’t modify your router to block ads.
I highly recommend creators to upload videos to another site as well.
what other sites are there to use?
true
Here is every single way I can think of to block YouTube ads:
uBlock Origin + Firefox
NewPipe on Android
Libretube on Android
uYou+ on iOS
FreeTube on *NIX and Windows
yt-dlp + mpv
YouTube Revanced
Invidious self hosting
Piped self hosting
And finally, last and definitely least
YouTube Premium
Donate to the creators who make content. Google does not deserve a penny of your hard earned money.
I read that Google is rolling out some ads on premium so that might need to get removed from your list.
Amazon Premium started this trend. They’re shameless.
I believe you’re thinking of premium lite, or whatever they call it.
Correct. If they ever roll out ads on premium, I’m not sure what we’ll do. Maybe figure out a new platform or a new way to watch.
SmartTube for Android TV devices
Then stop using youtube. It sucks ever since googol bought it. Haven’t used it since.
That is right thinking. I admire that.
You should add Brave on iOS to the list. Never seen any ad with Brave.
I second Freetube. Not a perfect app (think it’s Chromium based), but it gets the job done and they’re pretty good about updating it pretty quickly whenever YT successfully breaks it.
There’s also Pipeline for *nix (and possibly Windows, but I didn’t bother to check.)
Occasionally I try the YouTube watch together thing on discord with my SO, and it really shows just how completely unusable YouTube is without an ad blocker.
The only ads I see are on a local sports podcast. The advertisers are all local businesses. From restaurants to local credit unions. And those I’m fine with.
uBlock Origin intensifies
They’re blocking it actively now. For me, it requires a tampermonkey script to bypass the blocker check in Firefox.
I have no issues on Firefox or Brave. I never see ads.
Whenever that happens, the heroes in the ublock team does push a new fix in a few hours.
WHY DONT WE HAVE A MAINSTREAM ALTERNATIVE YET
By operating youtube at a loss for many years Google acted anticompetitively to kill competition or stop competition arising. Now that they’ve achieved that they can do what they like. Don’t feel bad using ad blockers against this anti-capitalist company.
Final stage of enshittification, now they are allowing more right wing propaganda than normal on the channel
And suppression of comments, for all sorts of reasons. Words and phrases will constantly flag AI autoremoval.
I am in no way defending YouTube here, but how did it act anticompetitively?
FYI, this is currently happening with Uber.
I never felt bad abt that for a second. Like the thought never crossed my kind XD FUCK YOUTUBE!
Hosting and storage costs, few can afford to be an alternative to an absolutely gigantic video storage platform that costs obscene money to maintain.
I am causing a netloss to googs. I don’t pay for Google plus or whatever, and j don’t view their fucking ads. Win win if you ask me.
It was fun to thumb my nose at Google while it lasted I guess, maybe if they were less amoral then I’d be less belligerent toward them.
you found your way to lemmy but you don’t know about https://peertube.tv/ ;)
Sure, a service that manages an infinitely smaller amount of content and complexity. It is a situational tool, hardly a YouTube killer… the banner presented on the homepage professes that it’s expensive to run and please donate.
https://fediverse.party/en/peertube/ << before you complain understand the technology behind. Everyone can basically provide a instance and it’s decentral. As more people participate / as more instances are provide as better for all and as cheaper. If you really want to step away from services like youtube and want to have it sustainable (aka not depending on business) than it’s your best choice. If you just want someone else to have the saying and replace one company with another good luck.
I’m complaining, I’m stating.
We do, but you probably don’t like it (TikTok).
You’re right :)
I meant idk something like Oddysse (but a website with actual moderation)
Do you know of PeerTube? It’s not mainstream at all either, but it seems more known to me.
It’s also in the fediverse, and isn’t accused of the same moderation issues (though idk if PeerTube is really better than Odyssee at moderation, I suppose it’s just a difference in policy).
Edit: I read a bit about it, and I can see I was wrong about Odyssee being less known than PeerTube. It’s strange, I never heard of it, but anyway. Odyssee also includes some crypto bullshit, so yeah…
OK, so a bittorrent tracker site with a video player built in with comments underneath and you can get perks from content creators for seeding. Then of course some kind of voting system and etc. Then a creator can just get a seed box to start hosting their own videos.
It’s a very difficult business model to make profitable without an already massive userbase. In fact, I think YT was actually losing money for Google for a while after they bought it. I could be misremembering though.
Yes but not everything needs to make a profit, just not make a loss. Also it could be community supported with donations and stuff:)
YouTube was operating at a loss under Google for years. The only reason it is able to exist is because a massive entity like Google was able to absorb that without folding, and keep providing a free service until it becomes profitable (is it even yet? I’m not sure).
I mean fuck Google, and yes a big enough non-profit (or even government) could do it (probably better), but unfortunately that’s not the world we live in right now.
Ublock Origin on Firefox With Sponsorblock is the answer.
Edit: Mispelling, fuck autocorrection
And ReVanced on Android, SmartTubeNext on Android TV.
I think it’s back to just SmartTube. SmartTubeNext was a temporary thing to get SmartTube back on track iirc.
I am fairly certain SmartTubeNext was a rebrand by the same dev.
I like Tubular and/or Seal(a yt-dlp wrapper) on Android and don’t use a TV, but yeah, anything but the actual YouTube app is probably better.
How do you unlock origin? I have been blocking it thinking it caused the ads
It’s a typo, they mean the ad blocking software uBlock Origin.
I guess I need someone to explain it to me, because they even fixed their typo.
The RandomVideos is joking, not z3rOR0ne
I am already blocking origin, i was asking how i unlock it
Hmmm maybe I’ll just learn to read finally.
The neurolinks will patch that loophole soon.
“Please keep focused for this brief ad from our sponsor, your information handling session will resume shortly”
I’ve been meaning to check out this “nature” thing, or whatever it’s called. It’s basically like, just lakes and woods and the sky and all kinda weird shit like that. Supposed to be pretty cool I guess, idk
I heard the graphics are really good. And the framerates extremely high. But there are mosquitoes so it’s probably not worth it.
You mean like desktop backgrounds IRL? 🤯
Sorry, pardon?
Try it!
💪🤓
Dunno, why learn to read, everything is already on the internet
Youtube has ads?
Only for the paying customers, apparently. Crime pays, yarrr!
Blocking ads isn’t a crime .
Yet
That explains the adblocker crackdown and enshittification of paid. Funnily enough, this pattern got me to block ads.
I should just read a book at this point
I’m not worried. The minute the ad blockers stop working I’ll finally be able to do something else with my time.
Most of YouTube is already a waste of time anyways.
Just like lemmy, yet here we are. Sometimes we need to waste some time.
It’s all about doing it in moderation and choosing carefully what we waste our time on. I would rather “waste” time reading a stupid book than go on Instagram or TikTok, where my mind gets trapped in a circle of emotions and algorithms.
☝️ And it works, I can confirm.
FreeTube on desktop, NewPipe on droid!
Smarttube on Android TV OS
Firefox and ublock on desktop works just as well.
I would disagree, you’re still directly communicating with YouTube servers without a proxy in-between. Invidious or Piped are the proxies you need, they let you blend in with the other users of their services making data-collection on YouTube’s part difficult.
We need to make feeding the algorithm as difficult as possible.
SmartTube on streaming devices!
Grayjay on desktop
Grayjay on Android
Anyone not blocking ads on YouTube needs to start blocking ads and sponsored content on YouTube.
I used enhancer but it seems the dev has stopped updating it for Firefox and only updating it for chrome.
Moved to Tweaks for YouTube and am quite happy with it so far; seems to also have more options.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tweaks-for-youtube/
AdNauseum. Not only does it block ads but it also fucks with advertisers by sending false clicks that cost them money.
