Youtube let the other shoe drop in their end-stage enshittification this week. Last month, they required you to turn on Youtube History to view the feed of youtube videos recommendations. That seems reasonable, so I did it. But I delete my history every 1 week instead of every 3 months. So they don’t get much from my choices. It still did a pretty good job of showing me stuff I was interested in watching.
Then on Oct 1, they threw up a “You’re using an Ad Blocker” overlay on videos. I’d use my trusty Overlay Remover plugin to remove the annoying javascript graphic and watch what I wanted. I didn’t have to click the X to dismiss the obnoxious page.
Last week, they started placing a timer with the X so you had to wait 5 seconds for the X to appear so you could dismiss blocking graphic.
Today, there was a new graphic. It allowed you to view three videos before you had to turn off your Ad Blocker. I viewed a video 3 times just to see what happens.
Now all I see is this.
Google has out and out made it a violation of their ToS to have an ad blocker to view Youtube. Or you can pay them $$$.
I ban such sites from my systems by replacing their DNS name in my hosts file routed to 127.0.0.1 which means I can’t view the site. I have quite a few banned sites now.
Silly question if you don’t mind me asking, when you got the pop up:
- Which browser/adblocker where you using (also did you use any custom filters)?
- What device are you watching youtube on when you saw the block (windows, macos, ios, android, linux)?
- Where are you located? (like which country)
I never saw these popups just curious.
Also my setups using a web browser (no issues):
- (Mac OS Soma) Firefox Stable with ublock origen stock filters
- (iPadOS 17) with adguard safari content blocker stock filters
Setups with third part clients (no issues):
- Revanced android
- Smarttube (Fire TV)
- YTLitePlus (iPadOS)
Odd, I have uBlock Origin and it’s blocking the ads without any pop ups or angry messages
They are doing it randomly for now. Not all users are getting the message.
I get blocked with ublock origin but not with ublock lite
Use an alternative front end like https://piped.video
You may want to try various instances (in preferences) as the main one has been under a lot of load
But I delete my history every 1 week instead of every 3 months. So they don’t get much from my choices.
Implying that deleting them from your view actually deleted them.
My man thought he was permanently erasing it from history.
“You can go ad free with YouTube premium!”
Buys premium
youtube shows ad for paramount plus under my video
Cancels YouTube premium.
So anywho there’s a thing called freetube. Just saying. Idk that it’s a perfect alternative, but it’s at least one step further from googles prying eyes and grubby hands.
Dang. You actually bought premium instead of installing an adblocker?
I didn’t wanna maintain an ad blocker, especially since I use youtube on a bunch of diff devices. Desktop/laptop/Ps4/Tv/Ipad/Phone like, everywhere. Premium just meant no ads on any of them with no fuss or maintenance.
Also the bonus of downloads/music/background play etc was very nice.
Honestly for someone like me who uses youtube as much as I do, it was 100% worth the money. I just ethically can’t bring myself to pay for it now that they straight up lied and took my money without even trying to be subtle about it.
You don’t have to maintain an adblocker.
How does one quit YouTube?
There is just so much stuff on there and no alternative.
Many channels I watch are on Nebula as well - that one is paid but it’s yearly 15$ or so. You can get it bundled with curiosity stream. Some channels upload to rumble, but I am not familiar with that platform. Then there is odysee… it’s kinda all over the place. There are channels that upload on odysee, but I don’t like the crypto bullshit that is associated with that platform. The other thing not only with odysee but all new smaller platforms - they are a good place for all the scummy outcast that gets filtered on YT. I try not to read comments otherwise I would have to puke.
Also a happy customer of Nebula here. I’ve come across some pretty interesting content on there.
YEs and some YT creators even add bonus videos.
Do something else with your life.
You won’t be able to watch the content you want on other sites until people start uploading there.
i disabled my history, so now youtube doesn’t suggest me anything, I have a blank page. I still have my subs but blank page by default, but the good thing is I do have have to engage and if I don’t know what to look for, I close the page.
ublock still work, btw.
Wait, what’s Youtube History?
As in, the history of all the videos you’ve watched on the site
That’s a thing that exists and can be turned on and off? :P
I just got this for the first time today. I was able to dismiss it and go on to watch ad blocked YouTube on Firefox, but I wonder how much longer this will be an option. Nebula and Curiosity Stream are looking really good right now.
So, stop using Chrome ffs, ublock and Firefox have zero issues
I’m using Firefox and uBlock Origin and the same block message.
You need to use default ublock settings and disable other plug-ins as they are causing the message. Ublock works fine on Firefox
Something I don’t think anyone is talking about is that, if this is now considered a ToS violation, Google will probably decide at some point to start banning accounts over it. Oh, you use adblock? Now your email, Drive documents, and photos are gone.
This is great, I’m sure I"m not the only one that now no longer thinks of Google as a safe place for my email and photos. And their search sucks now, there’s not much reason to have Google in my life at all anymore. The era of Google is over (I hope!).
You weren’t on Piped or Invidious already? /hj
SOLUTION:
- just right click on the message and ‘block element’ :D
or paste this to your filters: www.youtube.com##tp-yt-paper-dialog.ytd-popup-container.style-scope www.youtube.com##.opened
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
www.piped.video##tp-yt-paper-dialog.ytd-popup-container.style-scope
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
You moron…
It should be “So long YouTube and thanks for all the fish.” Goddammit!
If you’re going to borrow from Douglas Adams, at least get it right.
If only peertube had the same culture as Lemmy and Mastodon.
But it feels like, imo, Peertube has fallen to the same pitfalls as other YouTube alternatives. 99% of vids I see on Peertube instances are far-right conspiracy theory videos among other obviously abhorrent content that would otherwise be banned on youtube.
Nebula.tv has lots of excellent videos, a healthy community of creators, a sustainable business model, a lot of good communication between subscribers and management, and I believe is not in financial trouble so far. It’s not free, but it’s affordable.
PC: Install Firefox. Then install these extensions: Sponsorblock for YouTube, Enhancer for YouTube, uBlock Origins with all the filters turned on except the language filters (you can use them if you wish) and Return YouTube Dislike. Keep uBlock Filters updated by checking for filter updates once a day.
Android: There’s Revanced. I use pre-built apks along with Vanced MicroG from RVX Lite in Telegram.
Android TV: Install SmartTubeNext.
Enjoy.
