this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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I'm sure many of you are already aware that YouTube has been rolling out anti-adblock detection for Chrome users for a few weeks now.

Today, as a long time Firefox user with the fantastic uBlock Origin extension installed, I got my first anti-adblock popup on the platform. Note that this may not happen to you personally for a while, but it is inevitably coming for everyone.

Thankfully, the fine folks at uBlock Origin have already advised a simple workaround (on Reddit, yuck!) which I will duplicate in a simplified form below for your convenience. I have tested it on Firefox and it is working fine for me (so far).

PLEASE READ AND FOLLOW ALL OF THE INSTRUCTIONS IN THIS POST.

  1. Update uBO to the latest version (1.52.0+) . <== The extension itself, for technical improvements. You do this in your browser.

  2. Remove your custom config / reset to defaults. <== This means removing your custom filters (or disabling My filters) and disabling ALL additional lists you've enabled. It might be quicker to make a backup of your config and restore to defaults instead.

  3. Force an update of your Filter Lists. <== This is within the extension. Lists are what determine what's blocked or not. How to update Filter lists: Click 🛡️ uBO's icon > the ⚙ Dashboard button > the Filter lists pane > the 🕘 Purge all caches button > the 🔃 Update now button.

  4. Disable all other extensions AND your browser's built-in blockers. <== No need to uninstall, just disable them. They might interfere with our solutions.

Make sure you follow all 4 points above. If you're seeing the message, it's likely due to your custom config (either additional lists or separate filters in My filters).

Restarting your browser afterwards may help too.

Once you've gotten rid of the issue on default settings, you can slowly start restoring your config (if you really need it). Do it gradually, to easier find out what was causing the issue in the first place. Once you find the culprit, simply skip it in your config.

If you want to use Enhancer for YouTube*, you have to* disable its adblocking*.*

May the ~~force~~ uBlock Origin be with you!

Update

Just wanted to mention a few things that have been pointed out in the comments:

  • There are quite a few projects that provide an alternative ad-free front end to YouTube. These include Invidious, FreeTube, LibreTube, Newpipe, Revanced, and I'm sure there are several more options I've missed. I don't have any particular preference really but I routinely use NewPipe on my cellphone just because I tried it once and couldn't be bothered trying all the others.
  • In step 4 listed above, to clarify, afaik you only need to remove adblocker extensions (if you have more than one installed) that might conflict with the uBlock Origin rules and trigger the anti-adblock, not all extensions.
  • If you hate non-stop ads but want to support your favorite content creators then be sure to give them some love on Patreon or whatever alternative options they provide. Creators typically make only a tiny, tiny fraction of what YouTube makes in ad revenue, assuming YouTube doesn't just outright steal the lot, and it's a shitty business model that's ruining the internet. Even if you watch the ads, you're only supporting YouTube most of the time, not the creators.
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[–] RandomPancake@lemmy.world 587 points 1 year ago (15 children)

I see a lot of people saying "but that's how creators get paid".

Listen: I didn't put ads on my video. YouTube did. I can't take them off and I don't see a cent from them. Block away.

[–] TwoGems@lemmy.world 240 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Except they don't. They get demonetization from literally breathing from Google who treats them like shit, so it's best to donate to their patreons anyway.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 120 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Their demonetization "policy" or lack thereof is a major reason why I block ads. I don't believe that Alphabet operates in good faith in this matter.

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[–] RagingNerdoholic@lemmy.ca 94 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Not even, though. Practically all the YouTube "creators" these days have [this part of the video is brought to you by scandanavian interwebz to keep out teh hax0rs] sponsored segments that are [Have you shaved your fuckin' nutsack lately bro? Check out this ball hair trimmer from clipyerjunk dot com] littered throughout [zzzzzzzzzip ... ^reecrootah ] their videos.

That being said, some of them at least put effort into finding and vetting content-relevant sponsors that can actually be helpful. I can kinda just barely tolerate those.

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[–] HughJanus@lemmy.ml 48 points 1 year ago (12 children)

I see a lot of people saying "but that's how creators get paid"

And they're not wrong. But they put themselves in this position when they uploaded their videos to servers owned by one of the worst corporations in the world, with massive privacy implications, and no alternatives.

I watch them on other platforms when they make it available.

[–] Corgana@startrek.website 58 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Creators are victims here too. For most of them YouTube was a very different place when they were beginning their careers on the platform.

Not that it changes your point, I just feel it's important to keep in mind that the process of "Enshittification" sucks for everyone (well, except shareholders).

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[–] merci3@lemmy.world 218 points 1 year ago (13 children)

Alternatively, some folks can also try Freetube for an ad free youtube experience as a desktop app

[–] sylverstream@lemmy.nz 55 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Not sure what site that is you've linked, but the official site seems to be this one: https://freetubeapp.io/

It works perfectly with Libredirect. Thank you!

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[–] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 202 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I was worried we'd be seeing waves of this kind of anti-user aggression from large websites. My hypothesis is that twitter is running an active experiment to see just how user-unfriendly you can make something with an established userbase / what level of profitability corresponds with what level of fuckiness.

YouTube n' friends have been watching from the sidelines and picking their own jaw up off the floor after seeing just how much the average user will bend over and take.

...which all makes me absolutely LOVE to see communities like this. Yo ho, motherfuckers!

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 92 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's all about boiling the frog slowly. People will put up with almost anything if it creeps up on them slowly enough, and these companies know it, as do authoritarian governments. We always say we'll kick up a stink if the next step happens, but then hardly anyone else does, so we stay quiet too. And this happens again and again.

[–] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 62 points 1 year ago (14 children)

That's the scary part about Twitter.

Most companies turn the burn up slowly. Musk took one look at the frogs, then turned the stove up to max, hired a technician to hold a welding torch up to the base of the pot, hired a chemist find an additive for the water to increase its boiling point and heat retention, pissed in the pot, and is actively pouring gasoline all over the kitchen with one hand while flipping the frogs off with the other.

And the frogs are just taking it.

What message does that send to YouTube?

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[–] WarmApplePieShrek@lemmy.dbzer0.com 54 points 1 year ago (1 children)

twitter's not meant to be an experiment. Musk is just really stupid. But other platforms are learning from it anyway

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[–] jsdz@lemmy.ml 149 points 1 year ago (24 children)

I've just noticed that this is in c/piracy. I suppose there's lots of interest in the story here and everywhere else, but I'd just like to remind you all that ad-blocking is not piracy.

[–] zaknenou@lemmy.dbzer0.com 40 points 1 year ago

c/piracy is just c/useful, the only community on lemmy where you are actually getting something useful.

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[–] CosmicTurtle@lemmy.world 135 points 1 year ago (17 children)

Anyone else remember the first ad-pocalypse?

Like when OG AdBlock was created and there was an all-out race between individual websites and AdBlock?

Then OG AdBlock sold out and allowed "approved" ads to still show.

We are seeing history repeat. The only reason ads survived was due to increasing number of users who weren't using adblock.

Now, with market saturation, Google is starting to fight back.

I would absolutely love to see a revitalization on proxy software specifically designed to eliminate ads and tracking. I haven't looked into this in quite some time but I think we're crossing into this territory now.

The pessimist in me says to look out for a bill authored by Google to make adblocking illegal.

But the optimist in me says "the Internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it."

[–] IzzyData@lemmy.ml 46 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

If adblocking becomes illegal I'm done using the internet.

[–] Draconic_NEO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 44 points 1 year ago (4 children)

If adblocking becomes illegal people will still do it (and you should too), some really stupid article tried to claim circumventing Anti-Adblock was illegal under DMCA a while back (interestingly they took it down when people continued to block their ads) and the filter providers did it anyway. Piracy still happens in countries where it's criminalized, ad blocking will continue, though the Quorans (used them as an example because they're the biggest snobs about the law and ethics) and people like them will likely use it less, though it's not like they don't already think it's wrong (some also think it's already illegal).

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[–] nicetriangle@kbin.social 117 points 1 year ago (16 children)

So annoyed at how all these services keep degrading for users. I was happy to pay for premium light. I don't need download/music/etc I just wanted no ads. Simple as that. The price was fairly reasonable and I would have kept paying it. Now they got rid of the premium light and I have to pay at least 50% more for additional things I don't and will not use.

Alright then, well you lost a customer and I'll just use AdBlock. And if you somehow figure out how to disable that, I'm just going to find content somewhere else. I'm fucking sick of ads. I'll pay a reasonable amount to remove them. But I will not be continually wrung out for more and more money. Just leave me alone.

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[–] yote_zip@pawb.social 104 points 1 year ago (13 children)

Emphasis on #4 here - the anti-adblock will trigger if it detects any subpar adblocker, including e.g. Brave Browser's "Shields" thing (even if you also use uBlock Origin). Helped a friend figure this out lately and found out they were running 3 adblockers and Brave Browser. Some people are truly special.

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[–] trustnoone@lemmy.sdf.org 97 points 1 year ago

Lol That's awesome, less of a workaround and more of a "we fixed it already, but whatever you're using probably hasn't caught up yet".

[–] khorovodoved@lemm.ee 90 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Alternative solution: Since YouTube disabled all ads in Russia, you can just use russian vpn/proxy for the most effective YouTube adblocking possible.

[–] Golther@infosec.pub 51 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Wow! What a great idea! What could be better than routing all your traffic through a Russian VPN provider and probably bypassing sanctions? What could possibly go wrong?

[–] RuthlessCriticism@hexbear.net 51 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Just for the sake of clarity, what exactly do you think will happen?

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[–] smooth_tea@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Please do tell what could go wrong. Is the internet sheriff going to turn up?

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[–] Administrator@lemm.ee 42 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for a solution that nobody will ever use

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[–] yournamehere@lemm.ee 68 points 1 year ago (15 children)

I just replace youtube.com with piped.video all the time

Nobody should ever share data with american corpos - there is no example where corporations harvested data and anyone but the shareholders benefited. So for me it feels like a win whenever they fail.

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[–] Nommer@sh.itjust.works 59 points 1 year ago (20 children)

Hey Google, maybe you assholes should realize that if people are willing to jump through this many hoops to not watch ads then maybe you should realize that ads are the problem, not users. Nobody wants ads shoved down their throat so kindly go fuck yourselves. Advertising is a cancer. I've been trying to convince people how dangerous attention grabbing billboards are but nobody seems to care.

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[–] exocortex@discuss.tchncs.de 55 points 1 year ago (25 children)

Maybe it is time that we start to write our favourite youtubers to start developing alternative means of distributing their videos. Patreon and so on.

I feel there will be a lot less people watching YouTube in the future and as a whole many youtubers will see their revenue drop significantly. Watching YouTube as a whole will become less and less bearable. I watch videos without ads on my pc, but on mobile i use the app and endure the videos (for now) as the app is just nicer to use compared to the browser.

But if I have to see ads all the time (also these unskippable 20s ads) I think I'll simply stop using YouTube all together. about 90% ofy YouTube use isn't neccessary at all. I'll just watch it, because I'm too lazy to do anything else.

I could be should read a book instead. Maybe others will do that too in the future?

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[–] anonono@lemmy.world 54 points 1 year ago (13 children)

PSA: skirting their attempts to block ad blockers if you have a Google account you would rather keep may be unwise.

Google has been known for banning people for stupid crap, and this checks all the boxes.

While they were silent on this topic there was a gentlemen's agreement that you could block ads. But now that they have voiced their opinion the jig is up.

I'd recommend people to use an alternative account if they are going to block anyway and they want to keep their gmail.

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[–] sculd@beehaw.org 54 points 1 year ago (25 children)

Thank god we have people working tirelessly to prevent Google’s greed

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[–] HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 51 points 1 year ago (3 children)

"What just happened?"

"War were declared."

Going to be following these threads closely as I'll be damned if my students are going to put up with adverts from a file hosting service.

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[–] hal_5700X@lemmy.world 51 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Adblock Wars continues...

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[–] tiita@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (14 children)

I wouldn't even mind giving some money to youtube if it was asking for donations or keep the the prices low and accessible, like $4 max per month to support the up keep)

YouTube could be one of the wonders of the world of we are looking at it at a content perspective.

It should be almost protected by UNESCO, if you ask me.. yes even the stupid stuff as it is a record of mankind.

But google instead of recognising the value, they got greedy.

humankin created a massive information library which google at some point decided to monetize.

We all know what happened to unity right, just as a recent example ? it doesn't take much to turn the users away, and I truly believe, even youtube can fail

[–] nicetriangle@kbin.social 42 points 1 year ago (6 children)

They even had a semi reasonable premium tier that was just "no ads, that's all" for something like $7. Now they're kicking everyone off that plan and removing it and your next option is to pay 50+% more and you get a bunch of additional crap that I didn't ask for. I just wanted no ads.

These people seem to adamantly not want me as a customer.

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[–] helmet91@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year ago (4 children)

That's way too much hassle. I guess, when the anti-adblock kicks in on my devices, I'll just stop watching YouTube. I have tons of better stuff to do anyway.

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[–] aceshigh@lemmy.world 47 points 1 year ago (3 children)

you excluded an important piece - YT has been updating their script (idk terminology) several times a day. so the instructions may not work. see the below -

I followed the 4 steps, but I'm still experiencing issues The latest fix for anti-adblock was made on Oct 12, 2023 and currently corresponds to ID cc87ee3e *.

  • The ID mentioned above refers to YouTube's latest anti-adblock script. You can monitor it via this link: https://pastefy.app/G1Txv5su/raw (top to bottom = oldest to newest). This means that the current fix is matched with the script with corresponding ID.

For example, in https://www.youtube.com/s/desktop/c97476a7/jsbin/desktop_polymer_enable_wil_icons.vflset/desktop_polymer_enable_wil_icons.js, the c97476a7 part is the ID.

If the latest ID (the last line) does NOT match the current one written above, it means YT has updated it recently and you may encounter anti-adblock again. PLEASE DO NOT REPORT IN THIS CASE.

If the ID does match and you still get anti-adblock, kindly repeat the 4 steps above. Thank you.

Uninstalling + reinstalling uBO, then force updating all your filter lists like in step #3 may also help.

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[–] JustCopyingOthers@lemmy.ml 46 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I wonder what made youTube decide to fix this loophole? These days the vast majority of people use phone apps or smart TVs to watch. The number of people using Firefox plus ad blockers must be quite small and it'll be a constant effort to keep updating their anti ad block algorithms.

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[–] A_Asselin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 42 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I started using freetube for linux a month or so ago. This is so much better than native youtube. The entire interface is smoother, I get less "loading" moments (none really) and it does not try and constantly reduce my resolution by "auto adjusting". No ads, no BS. Just better all around.

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[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 39 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They're just being dicks considering how tiny the Firefox userbase is

I fully expect to have to be fingeprinted, DNA tested and retinal scanned to access cOnTenT in a year or two

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[–] lobodon@lemmy.zip 37 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Decided to start using Freetube on desktop, Newpipe on mobile. It works!

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 35 points 1 year ago (9 children)

So, Youtube's dying.

Maybe not right now. Maybe not next year. But they've decided to make everybody miserable, for a "business" that still won't cause enough misery to turn a profit.

Meanwhile creators are censored worse than broadcast TV. Nevermind the effective ban on swearing - they can't even reference concepts without a surveillance program declaring that their latest video doesn't count, even though they'll still slap ads all over that bitch.

Those people have things they want to share with an audience that wants to see. Any middleman can either help, or become irrelevant. Bandwidth is cheap. Some creators are just in it for the money... but the money is bad, on Youtube, and it's getting worse. Patreon is more direct and far less stupid. As with all these lumbering ruins of 2010s internet media, the network effect of being the default will keep them relevant for a while, no matter what they do. Twitter's on fire and it's still not dead. But its prospects sure aren't getting better... and not because people changed.

People are sadly predictable. These idiot robots exploit that masterfully, to a point, and then act bewildered when more pressure stops making more money. Like they forgot we can just leave.

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[–] Dmian@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago (17 children)

For those using Safari, a simple custom browser stylesheet with a few styles is all you need, and is undetectable, as anti-adblock works with javascript, so no pesky “Why you blocking the ads? Mimimimimi…”

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