this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2025
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 hours ago

I highly recommend creators to upload videos to another site as well.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

Same... And if they ever successfully make it impossible to avoid, I'll just stop watching YouTube

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

SmartTube is on AndroidTV

Kodi can be installed through the play store, you can transfer files over smb and ftp and move the apk using it.

You're welcome.

Excuses:

I use a Roku or Roku TV

Don't, buy a $25 Android TV box from walmart.

I use AppleTV

Don't, buy a $25 Android TV box from walmart.

FTP? SMB? Apk? What are these, words?!

These terms can be searched for and learned about.

Why not just use Kodi?

You're ahead of the game, find a plugin pack and enjoy

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 hours ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I was using uYouPlus+ sideloaded on my phone until it broke recently, now I’ve found using Brave browser for just YouTube is the solution

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

GrayJay, Vanced, or Pipewire is the way

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

Did you mean NewPipe? Pipewire is the Linux audio/video framework.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 hours ago

I meant iPhone :(

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 hours ago

Laughs in Ad Blocker. Still going strong.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 hours ago

Oh please no, it's the reason why I switched from Chrome to Firefox when watching YouTube

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 hours ago

what's a youtube ad?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

daily motion has way better video quality and a lot less censorship.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago

I forgot about that site. I knew it just as the host for TV series streams back in the day

[–] [email protected] 12 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I will continue to download all my videos to avoid ads. When they break the tools in such a way that this is no longer possible, I will stop watching videos from YouTube and seek entertainment elsewhere.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

yt-dlp is the goat

[–] [email protected] 8 points 14 hours ago

Stop using it. I did and now I only use unofficial ways of watching the videos I want. And I download the ones I wanna watch again.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (10 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

SmartTube for Android TV devices

[–] [email protected] 1 points 51 minutes ago

Absolutely. And they update pretty quickly when YouTube breaks something.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

You should add Brave on iOS to the list. Never seen any ad with Brave.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

When ads get in the way I simply don't watch the videos. It's not like anybody ever really needs to watch any particular video.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Educational content is hard to come by outside of YouTube, so it would suck to have to avoid watching those videos because of ads.

But I'll do what I have to do in order to avoid ads for as long as possible. And I'll archive important content in the meantime.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I pay for nebula, they have a lot of educational content and the price is low enough that I don't mind it

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

Sounds good, but if I search "microwave repair" or "improve vo2max" , it comes up with zero results.

That's the sort of stuff we'd lose if creators don't move away from YouTube. 😟

[–] [email protected] 22 points 19 hours ago (8 children)

WHY DONT WE HAVE A MAINSTREAM ALTERNATIVE YET

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Yes but not everything needs to make a profit, just not make a loss. Also it could be community supported with donations and stuff:)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

People get proccupied with emulating YT, which is indeed cost prohibitive. But that response assumes one is emulating all of it. What about only pursuing sections of it to cater to particular audiences? Serving 100% of YT's video might be too much even for Amazon (for example) but what about 1%?

Why couldn't Amazon host Booktube? And the manga/anime enthusiasts and other varietes of weebs to go along with them? They already own ebook retail. A VOD service to chip off some of YT's viewership would be a more productive investment than The Rings of Power...

A YT competitor needs a bit of scale, sure, but not as much as YT itself. A fraction will do.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 18 hours ago (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago

I never felt bad abt that for a second. Like the thought never crossed my kind XD FUCK YOUTUBE!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours ago

FYI, this is currently happening with Uber.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Final stage of enshittification, now they are allowing more right wing propaganda than normal on the channel

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (5 children)

Hosting and storage costs, few can afford to be an alternative to an absolutely gigantic video storage platform that costs obscene money to maintain.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 17 hours ago

Yall I got yt premium as a perk from my carrier and tried it out, it’s fucking AWFUL. Mostly the yt app. I get better speeds, quality and less interruptions just using brave

[–] [email protected] 13 points 18 hours ago

Jokes on you, YouTube, my Chinese phone rolls their ads over yours!

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