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!

  • @mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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    271 year ago

    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.

    • @ExLisper@linux.community
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      1 year ago

      WTF are you talking about? 99% of users watch YT with adds. It will not die because the other 1% stops watching.

      • Paradoxvoid
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        1 year ago

        Like legit, some of these comments are utterly deranged. YouTube has ZERO competition in the mass market consumer space, everyone else is a niche player, and it’s debatable whether YouTube even turns a profit despite that.

        • @ExLisper@linux.community
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          -11 year ago

          What do you mean it’s debatable if YT turns a profit? They make billions a year in ads according to their reports. You think they are lying?

          • Paradoxvoid
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            31 year ago

            Revenue, sure - I don’t believe Google shares profit numbers for Youtube separately to the rest of the portfolio. I could be misinformed though.

              • Paradoxvoid
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                41 year ago

                Again, revenue. They report revenue because it’s a nice big number, but it’s different to profit (which is why a lot of people suspect they don’t make much actual money, if any).

                • @ExLisper@linux.community
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                  11 year ago

                  You’re right. Interesting. I guess the huge amount of data they get form it helps them with the rest of their ad business.

      • @mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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        21 year ago

        99% of former Facebook users didn’t block ads - but they still left. They found other shit to do. People who’ve somehow never blocked ads still complain about ads. They still recognize how advertising shapes the things they like, and they hate it.

        Nobody enjoys being interrupted with repetitive corporate bullshit. Nobody’s thrilled when three-minute videos get dragged out to ten minutes and one second, or when punchy edited conversations sprawl into rambling podcasts, or when recipes start with the chef’s life story. They don’t need to know why these things happen, to know they don’t care.

        Even if, god help us, Youtube remains the video-hosting site - spacing out to hours of passive content does not have to be how people spend their time.

    • @Epicurus0319@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      And they don’t even censor the right people. They have these algorithms that keep on recommending videos designed to teach preteens that it’s “based” to:

      • be cartoonishly homophobic to the point that gays live in your head rent free
      • support the war in Ukraine because it hates gays slightly less than Russia does
      • feel entitled to sex, getting mad when a guy of another ethnicity successfully hits on their crush because they never made a move

      Which then ends with them joining and donating family funds that aren’t theirs to Andrew Tate’s little incel cult, blasting the soviet anthem on the bus and then getting mad when nobody laughs and/or with gay kids bullied to the point of suicide.

  • @jsdz@lemmy.ml
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    251 year ago

    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.

    • @Contend6248@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      I do think it is piracy, for me piracy is taking what you want exactly how you want it and don’t ask for it, absolute freedom.

      We small people don’t have the possibilities as the rich to save much money with tax tricks or anything similar, so this is how we’re compensating.

      I rather have piracy seen more positively than distant certain areas from it. Just my opinion.

      • @Olgratin_Magmatoe@startrek.website
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        1 year ago

        Because ad blocking is a security and privacy feature. We have the right to choose what HTML and scripts are loaded into our browser. Without that right, we have no web security or privacy.

        We also have the right to not listen to ads, turning off the radio the moment they come on. Internet ad blocking is effectively the same thing, just automated. Piracy is completely different, because it is the unlawful copying of digital data.

        • @projectilecomet@lemmy.zip
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          01 year ago

          While that may be the case, when by terms of service the “fee” you pay to consume YouTube content is adverts, by blocking those adverts you are not paying the “fee” therefore it kinda is piracy. The argument about adverts with malicious intent or ones that are specifically designed to be deceptive is a different argument, though relevent for why said piracy occurs.

          YouTube is free to you because you watch adverts. Otherwise you pay for YouTube premium. By using ad-blockers you circumvent these agreements.

          I wholly support ad-blocking for the record, literally used ad-blockers my entire life and have absolutely no qualms with usage.

  • Andy Carolan :prami:
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    201 year ago

    @Flatworm7591 Many people will refuse to pay the high price of YouTube Premium or suffer through multiple pre and midroll adverts. It could lead to many abandoning the platform entirely.

    I think the way forward is self or federated hosting. The time of YouTube may finally be coming to a close. @neil

    • @Sanrasxz@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      51 year ago

      The time of YouTube may finally be coming to a close.

      Yes, and Reddit is dead. This is delusional, simply not happening. YouTube is huge and a self hosted or federated solution won’t come even close. Lemmy instances had issues with user overload, and this is a Reddit clone. What do you think will happen with videos?

    • @artaxadepressedhorse@lemmyngs.social
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      31 year ago

      I can’t justify a subscription bc my activity is very inconsistent. Sometimes I watch several vids on YT, sometimes I go long periods without going there, so I’m not gonna pay for something I don’t use half the time. If YT had a system where you could buy credits or something that don’t expire, then, depending on their cost, I could see myself actually paying to use their platform.

    • @jinarched@lemm.ee
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      21 year ago

      If it comes to a point it’s very hard to avoid ads, I’m genuinely contemplating podcasts as an alternative.

  • @JustCopyingOthers@lemmy.ml
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    191 year ago

    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.

    • @artaxadepressedhorse@lemmyngs.social
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      81 year ago

      They’re probably just trying to prevent any user momentum away from Chrome from gaining traction. Ensure there remains no better options for the people who don’t care about privacy or ethics (which sadly is the bulk of ppl)

    • @jherazob@beehaw.org
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      61 year ago

      A LOT of companies have pushed hard on the enshittification pedal lately, apparently it has to do with interest rates or something like that, i guess it also affects Google

    • @ExLisper@linux.community
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      41 year ago

      Maybe they want to start pushing ads harder and are afraid that more people will discover ad blockers? Once people switch it may be harder to bring them back. So you first close all the exists and than start increasing ads per minute. Because where will everyone go? There’s no where else. Ad blockers are the only option really.

    • Schadrach
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      41 year ago

      The number of people using Firefox plus ad blockers must be quite small

      Hmm, apparently either it’s not fully spread to all users yet, or AdGuard + MalwareBytes gets around it automatically. Of course, I also run Anti-Adblock Blocker, Bypass Paywalls Clean and Sponsorblock so it could be one of those stopping it from bothering me either.

    • Boozilla
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      21 year ago

      Pure speculation on my part, but large corporations like Google always have endless meetings full of people just looking for any kind of shit to justify their jobs. I figured it was inevitable before some goons there put their sites on ad blockers and am surprised it took this long. After all, those of us that use them (including me) are using their resources without giving them any revenue in return. (Well, that’s not entirely true, I was a Premium subscriber until they hiked the price again).

  • @Nommer@sh.itjust.works
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    151 year ago

    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.

    • @stewie3128@lemmy.ml
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      41 year ago

      I pay for streaming services where I don’t want to see the ads - which is to say, every streaming service I use at any given moment. I hate ads.

      If I can’t get media ad-free, to the high seas it is.

      Website ads, though, can go to hell in my opinion. There’s no good way to let a tasteful amount through with negligible impact on pageload speed. I subscribe to a few newspapers, but for everything else there’s uBO.

      I consider myself lucky to be able to pay my way out of the problem right now. Until I was in my early 30s, I never paid for a single piece of software or media, simply because I couldn’t afford it. I did FOSS where I could, but, still…

      Now that I can afford to pay for the things I use (and frequently write the expense off to my business), I haven’t ventured into international waters for years. Hopefully, “voting with my wallet” and financially supporting the software and media I use can go some distance to preventing more draconian DRM from being imposed.

      Although everyone needs to get paid for their work, I’ll never begrudge anyone pirating something because they can’t afford it. I’ve been there, and wouldn’t have been able to advance in my field without doing so.

    • Carl
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      11 year ago

      Google won’t be coming on lemmy to read your rant. They just want more money.

    • Kühe sind toll
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      11 year ago

      There’s no fucking way I gonna watch a 20 seconds ad for a 10 seconds video.

  • @RandomPancake@lemmy.world
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    141 year ago

    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
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      61 year ago

      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
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        31 year ago

        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.

        • @iforgotmyinstance@lemmy.world
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          01 year ago

          The RIAA and MPAA are the driving force behind the copystrike behavior. I do think Alphabet has the resources and standing to resist and battle it in court, but that’s clearly not their business model. Alphabet is not invested in protecting content generators, only in what metrics they can sell to ad agencies.

          • AggressivelyPassive
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            11 year ago

            It’s not a copyright problem. You get demonitized for saying “suicide” for example. They want an artificial happy place where no bad things happen and we can all have fun watching ads forever.

            • @aceshigh@lemmy.world
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              21 year ago

              … and rape and sexual assault and pedophile… some videos (like on cults) are really weird to watch cus so many words are bleeped out.

          • conciselyverbose
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            11 year ago

            Alphabet doesn’t have to battle it.

            If they just had copyright owners use the DMCA process, creators could counterclaim illegitimate takedowns and Google would have no liability for leaving the content up as proscribed by the claim process.

            They choose to do their far more aggressive alternate system instead. It’s not out of any obligation or legal exposure.

      • Karyoplasma
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        01 year ago

        Next step from Google will be to make creators that have Patreon set up be ineligible for ad revenue or ban linking/mentioning Patreon outright.

    • @RagingNerdoholic@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • @LemmyIsFantastic@lemmy.world
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      01 year ago

      Blah blah blah blah.

      I don’t care who does and who doesn’t get paid, and I’ll come up with every excuse to ignore that pesky creator income.

      The mental hoops you all go through is insane. It’s on par with Trumpers, just less damaging.

    • @HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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      01 year ago

      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
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        11 year ago

        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).

        • @lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org
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          01 year ago

          Creators are victims here too.

          Eeeeh that’s wildly arguable. It costs marginally $0 for a creator to upload their content to some other platform besides (not instead of) Youtube. If they don’t, and then they complain that people don’t Monetize Them, to me it feels like they are trying to, in ethical terms, make bystanders feel guilty that they (creators) are whoring out in public.

          • XiELEd
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            01 year ago

            Their content has better reach on Youtube, though. And has a better comment section which would be relevant to the video (which Oddysee has a problem with)

  • Whatever...
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    111 year ago

    I fucking hate that pop up so much! Youtube is so pushy about premium, dear god! I honestly wish a rival could rise up to Youtube because I’m absolutely sick of their bullshit.

    • @atyaz@reddthat.com
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      21 year ago

      I still use yt but most of the good content is also on nebula so you can try that. But yeah there’s just stuff that people on post on youtube so you might be stuck with it for a while.

      • Queen HawlSera
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        -11 year ago

        The fact that nebula is paywalled is the reason why it’s going to fall

    • @Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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      11 year ago

      First I only saw screenshots of others getting it. Then I got it once, cleared the catche, updated and hoped for the best. The next day I got it again. Today I’ve gotten it 4 or 5 times. I wonder what’s up tomorrow.

  • nicetriangle
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    111 year ago

    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.

    • Skull giver
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      1 year ago

      [This comment has been deleted by an automated system]

      • Ser Salty
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        11 year ago

        I didn’t mind the ads back in the day, like 10+ years ago. They were ads for cars, cleaning products, food and drink, movies, games, theme parks, shit like that. Regular products, wasn’t really any super scummy stuff there. Now half the ads are scummy mobile games designed to cause a gambling addiction, impersonation frauds and scams, crypto doubling scams like it’s fucking Runescape, and a whole bunch of other shit that is actively harmful or brainrotting. I don’t mind seeing a funny little fox selling me laundry detergent, but the fart-piss-and-shit mobile ads are just genuinely revolting. If YouTube wants to make me watch ads, they should have some standards and vetting processes for those ads. Like, I still listen to the radio. I hardly notice the ads there because they aren’t actively making me feel worse physically for having listened to them. Very rarely I’ll watch regular TV and, again, don’t really mind the ads there 90% of the time.

        And that’s not even touching on what the creators actually get from the hours of my life I would end up watching ads. If you donate 2 bucks to your favorite creator or sub to their patreon or whatever, you’ve probably given them more money than they would get from your ad views in a year. It’s not the loss of adblock revenue that’s making so many creators take sponsorships, it’s the lack of revenue in the first place.

      • TheSaneWriter
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        01 year ago

        I would be inclined to agree with you if they didn’t get rid of Premium Light. I think charging users for avoiding ads is completely reasonable, we live in a Capitalist country and video hosting isn’t cheap. Even still, axing Premium Light shows a desire to screw over users in order to achieve more profit, which in my mind makes YouTube scummy.

        • Skull giver
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          1 year ago

          [This comment has been deleted by an automated system]

  • @khorovodoved@lemm.ee
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    101 year ago

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

    • Golther
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      21 year ago

      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?

        • redfellow
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          11 year ago

          And you don’t think they are paying money to have those servers in Russia? It’s all more tax money for Putin.

        • redfellow
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          -11 year ago

          Having all your data routed through Russia. What could gp wrong indeed. On top of that the VPN purchase giving more money for Russia.

          • @smooth_tea@lemmy.world
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            11 year ago

            Nothing is going to happen when your traffic moves through Russia. In fact, you have more chance that something will happen to you if you don’t.

            • @EuroNutellaMan@lemmy.world
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              -11 year ago

              must be why the Ruzzians are axing all non-state approved VPNs. I wonder why they want to have control over VPNs, almost like they want to ensure only certain content gets through or the ability to monitor traffic. Oh but that would be so silly.

              • @smooth_tea@lemmy.world
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                11 year ago

                What is silly is the idea that that is in any way relevant to what we were discussing here. And I use the word discussing lightly. There’s a big difference between the insinuation that a foreigner is at risk for tunneling into the Russia and the Russian government eavesdropping on its population.

                • @EuroNutellaMan@lemmy.world
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                  -11 year ago

                  It is very relevant actually.

                  For starters tunneling there will mean having sites blocked, and secondly a foreogn government having my data, particularly an enemy authoritarian state, is no better than a corporation or my own state (where at least I have some say to what happens to my data)

    • @potemkinhr@lemmy.ml
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      11 year ago

      This one’s hilarious, but that one’s not gonna work for long as they will axe almost all non-government approved VPNs

      • @khorovodoved@lemm.ee
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        21 year ago

        Ukraine use ads for anti-putin propaganda. So the russian goverment told Google to moderate ads, or all Google services will be banned. Google decided to just disable ads in Russia completely.

  • @Yerbouti@lemmy.ml
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    91 year ago

    Firefox, Ublock on macOS and no adds so far. We’ll see about my Linux PC when I get home. I will leave YouTube before they force mw to watch add.

  • VodkaSolution
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    81 year ago

    It’s said no one said users could move to other platforms like dailymotion - I know it’s irrilevant nowadays compared to youtube, but from time to time I find good videos there

    • @Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      91 year ago

      I think any popular video platform will do the same shit. It’s just expensive to host on a large scale.

      Realistically, we need a good P2P solution for this so everyone “pays” for the videos they watch with a bit of their own outgoing bandwidth.

      Having the viewing platform paying the content creators is a bad idea. It’s mostly led to the video equivalent of spam, and looking around YouTube, it doesn’t stop them filling their own videos with ads for godawful exploitative mobile games anyway.

      You could even have a Tubarr torrent thing that automatically downloads stuff to your Jellyfin server from your subscribed content creators.

    • @oyenyaaow@lemmy.zip
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      31 year ago

      Louis Rossman said in one of his video that at his views level it would cost him ~10k a year to host outside of youtube.

    • @ChuckEffingNorris@lemmy.ml
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      11 year ago

      That’s what they want. Consume ads, pay or stop using bandwidth.

      I am unsure how much they care about views when so many have adblockers. It will be a useful metric when the huge majority can not block ads.

  • A_Asselin
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    61 year ago

    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.

        • @noodlejetski@lemm.ee
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          21 year ago

          ah right, I forgot there are only two ways of creating a software - making the user install a separate Chrome browser that eats 10 times as much resources as it should for what it does, and a command line tool. there are no options in-between.

  • @Eudaimonia@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    For me in Europe with Linux its thankfully still working with uBlock

    I always try to use alternatives, but at least on desktop, it unfortunatelly often doesnt work right (freetube, piped)

    But theres of also youtube-dl, hope at least this stays an option!