UPDATE 2 It seems that starting today, uBlock Origin is working to combat this Youtube Block. Mine started working again! Lets all thank the devs of UBO for fighting this fight!

UPDATE So as new info comes out, I’ll be posting it here. It seems as if this Rollout Has Several Parts.

Part 1

You get a popup message over top of your video, blocking the screen:

  • This is the first sign. If you see this popup AND are logged into a YouTube account, your account has been selected.
  • At this stage you can likely close or block these messages with an adblocker.

Part 2

This message will change, indicating that you have 3 remaining videos to watch without ads.

Will insert photo once one has been found

  • At this stage your adblocker will imminently stop working in 3 videos time.
  • Personally using Firefox + uBlock Origin and tweaking filters and updates does not even fix it.

Part 3

None of the video loads now, everything looks blank.

  • At this stage you must tred new ground to avoid ads. I have posted methods in the comments. If you want to bypass this end page, read down there.

End of Update


YouTube has started rolling out anti-adblock to users inside the United States, which means that they are preparing to roll this out to the entire country. Personally, I have been blocked already. I want to gauge how common this occurrence is.

  • Honse@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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    1 year ago

    I’m going to start a discussion in the comments here about methods to bypass the message. I will add suggestions here, so leave comments if you find a method!

    Methods to bypass Youtube Anti-Adblock:

    • The easiest method is simply to comply and turn off your adblock extension.

    My Method

    • My method, and the one that will likely work universally is as follows:

    Install Extension Enhancer for YouTube™

    Go to the extensions settings and ensure that under the Ads Management section, “Block Ads” is turned OFF

    Now find the Custom Script box at the very bottom and enter the following script. I did not write this code, it comes from egaudette on GitHub

    (function() {
        'use strict';
        var clickInterval = setInterval(skipAds, 5);
        var ytpAdModule;
        var miniAdd;
        var skipButton;
        var currentVideo;
    
        function skipAds() {
            ytpAdModule = document.querySelector('.ytp-ad-module');
            skipButton = document.querySelector('button[class*="ad-skip"]');
            miniAdd = document.querySelector('.ytp-ad-overlay-container');
    
            if (ytpAdModule !== null && ytpAdModule.innerHTML !== '') {
                ytpAdModule.style.display = 'none';
            }
    
            if (skipButton !== null) {
                skipButton.click();
                return;
            }
    
            currentVideo = document.querySelector('video[class*="main-video"]')
            if (currentVideo !== null && currentVideo.duration <= 5) {
                currentVideo.muted = true;
                currentVideo.play();
                currentVideo.currentTime = currentVideo.duration;
            }
        }
    })();
    

    Lastly, ensure the “Automatically execute the script when YouTube is loaded in a tab” box is checked, and press Save


    I’ll add more methods as they are discovered!

    • Neato@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Why would this work when others get blocked? Is it a novel way to block YT ads that’s not popular? Because I think YT isn’t looking for specific extensions but looking for certain kinds of behavior.

      • Honse@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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        1 year ago

        This method lets ads load for half a second but then get skipped instantly. i have not personally found a way to 100% block ads once ive gotten their block page.

        • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          I use greasemonkey to do a similar trick with the skip and dismiss buttons. But added random delays up to 2 seconds in an attempt to mimic a human clicking the button.

          Also instead of an interval running, you can use MutationObserver and a callback to only run the code when the DOM changes and adds the button.

    • Farent@lemmy.scam-mail.me
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      1 year ago

      Please note that posting the script has html-encoded && <> and similar characters so you’ll have to replace those with the correct ones (or just get the script from GitHub)

  • speq@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    For those who don’t know: VLC also takes a YouTube video address as input (in the menu: Media | Open Network Stream…).

  • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    This is such a better use of their time and dollars versus improving their service to make it more attractive to customers.

    If this is the change that really sets them financially straight, then I would say they have a failing business model.

    • splendoruranium@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      This is such a better use of their time and dollars versus improving their service to make it more attractive to customers.

      Making their service more attractive to customers is precicesly what they’re trying to do.

      It’s just that an advertising agency’s customers are not the folk who watch, read or hear the ads, it’s the folk who pay for the ads.

      • tryptaminev 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🇪🇺@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        I am not sure if it will work out like this though. The amount of ads they are forcing down peoples throat is isane. Eventually it will make people consume less videos and with that less ads overall.

        • splendoruranium@infosec.pub
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          1 year ago

          I am not sure if it will work out like this though. The amount of ads they are forcing down peoples throat is isane. Eventually it will make people consume less videos and with that less ads overall.

          Sure, could be - but keep in mind that they have all the relevant usage data at hand. Any decrease in service popularity among users (or indeed any kind of user behavior) is immediately visible to them. They have the means to know exactly what annoyances the market will bear.

          And considering that YouTube still holds a de-facto monopoly on video discoverability within the entire anglophone internet I feel like it’s safe to say that the market will likely bear a lot more annoyances :P

    • Landrin201@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      If premium cost $5per month I’d pay for it, u use YouTube all the time

      No way in hell it’s worth $15 a month though, their pricing is completely brwindead

      • IIIIII@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I agree. It’s around $22 NZD and that is just too steep. They have a slightly cheaper one but you can’t background play with it. I’m sick of being nickel and dimed at every possible opportunity and then hearing about how these companies are making record profits.

      • Petter1@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Just make a (digital) trip to India and get family of 5 accounts for about 1$ a month per account. This the way I did it.

      • charles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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        It’s $25/mo for family. I hate that I pay for it, but I use music, and I mostly watch YouTube on a streaming device, so I’ve never been able to use ad blockers. $15 for the fam felt worth it, but $25 has me rethinking. Maybe I can configure YT-DL to get the shows I care about on my Plex

        • TwoCubed@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          Any android based streaming device can run SmartTube (formerly SmartTube next). On an Android phone you can patch the YouTube apk with revanced, which also gives you full access to yt music.

  • LoafyLemon@kbin.social
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    Remember when some people said we’re nuts thinking Google will try to ban ad blockers with manifest v3? Yeah.

    • HerrLewakaas@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Google will try everything in their power to stop us from blocking their ads. It’s their main source of revenue, you don’t have to be a genius to see why they don’t like ad blockers

    • jarfil@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Wouldn’t this show that they failed, if they have to recur to site-based adblocker blocking? Clearly v3 hasn’t stopped people from using Firefox, yt-dl, or whatever.

        • jarfil@beehaw.org
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          (according to latest statistics, Firefox would have an even lower share)

          My point is: if v3 were effective at neutralizing ad blockers in 75% of the user base, or even 95% since Safari is supposed to get on board too, why are they developing additional countermeasures?

          Or has Safari decided to do like Firefox, and still allow full ad blockers?

          • LoafyLemon@kbin.social
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            I reckon that blocking ad blockers isn’t some extra countermeasure here. It’s actually right in line with what Manifest V3 and that new environment attestation system are all about. They’re basically making sure that if you tinker with crucial bits of the JavaScript – stuff they see as essential (like anti-adblock) – you won’t make it through the attestation and you’ll get blocked.

            They don’t want to block all modifications because that would be a hindrance to many users, for example the visually impaired. However, anything affecting their bottom line will probably be blocked.

            How that will affect Firefox? I don’t know, maybe nothing will change for us, or perhaps Google will block Firefox altogether. We certainly know they’re capable.

            • jarfil@beehaw.org
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              Yes, attestation is in line with V3 changes, just that it makes them irrelevant: YouTube’s website could some day ask for environment attestation of “no extension using the intercept hooks”, or “only the approved ones”, and still have the same effect. The fact that they’re implementing a server-side anti-adblock now, while postponing V2 deprecation over and over, makes me think the V3 changes are a flop.

              Firefox… would likely require Mozilla to play ball and implement similar attestation in an official binary attestable by the OS. Edge too, just so MS doesn’t mess with Chrome’s binary attestation on Windows.

              Safari already has attestation, without extra parameters, but it could be extended:

              https://httptoolkit.com/blog/apple-private-access-tokens-attestation/

  • Landrin201@lemmy.ml
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    I genuinely think that advertising should be illegal at this point. It’s a ridiculous concept.

    • OminousOrange@lemmy.ca
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      It is a great example of how an industry can survive with only self-reported effectiveness. I remember a freakonomics episode where it was shown that very infrequently do companies get a positive return on marketing spending. It will be very interesting if that industry ever collapses.

        • OminousOrange@lemmy.ca
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          Oh definitely. Its essentially a massive case of ‘it’s difficult to get someone to understand something when their salary depends on not understanding it.’

        • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Same shit with Facebook claiming videos were the bestest content possible, using numbers sourced from the vicinity of their pelvis. Now every goddamn news site has autoplaying video for no damn reason.

      • jarfil@beehaw.org
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        Advertising is about creating trends, and catching some impulse buyers. Effectiveness is likely overstated, but on the other hand it’s difficult to quantify the effectiveness of a trend. I don’t think it’s likely to ever collapse, people will always want to believe they can influence others more than they actually can.

    • mayo@lemmy.today
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      I’m ready for that. When being a youtuber started looking like a job I think the site lost something.

      • tryptaminev 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🇪🇺@feddit.de
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        That is something you just cannot avoid with a new medium. Eventually there will always be professionalization. It just sucks that youtube now just gives us the same shit over and over instead of making it easy to find new creators, like it used to be.

        • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Hell I think you could make a massive improvement to the site if it could realize “Hey, I’ve been suggesting the same exact video to this user 500 times in a row, and he’s never clicked it. Maybe this user likes this creator/series, but not this specific video.”

        • mayo@lemmy.today
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          1 year ago

          I’d say just smaller, less scripted content. Maybe that’s what tiktok is.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I remember one of the early Youtube sensations was this teen chick’s vlog that turned out to be a fictional soap opera basically. Because it hadn’t occurred to anyone to do that yet.

        This was BACK IN THE DAY, around the same time Boxxy became a sensation, or that one chick who just sat still in front of the camera because the Japanese liked her huge eyes.

        • Laurentide@pawb.social
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          lonelygirl15? I remember a friend telling me about that series because she wanted to share a funny video reply (Remember those?) by somebody who managed to find the same animal plushies that the girl carries around; it was a parody episode where the plushies talk about the current situation in the story and suggest that maybe the girl should drop all the teen drama stuff so they can all focus on running for their lives instead.

          • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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            That’s the one, lonelygirl15. What a wild story. My internet destroyed brain immediately jumped to “Wow that was before the Youtube partner program, and it was presented as an authentic teen’s vlog at least at first…I wonder what the monetization strategy was?” And it turns out there kinda wasn’t one. They went into $50,000 worth of credit card debt to fund the series, according to Wikipedia. Like remember that episode of South Park (remember that show?) where they had the waiting room full of viral video people waiting to get their non-existent internet fame money?

    • 𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏@lemmy.one
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      Admiral is the worst kind of anti adblock there is.

      They buy thousands of domains at a time, with individually corresponding Google Cloud IPs to evade adblock lists. Real pain in the ass to block them, they also DMCA community blocklists containing their domains

  • Melody Fwygon@lemmy.one
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    Here’s a rule for uBlock Origin.

    Credit: https://lemmy.one/comment/597479 && original link: https://lemmy.nz/comment/446556

    ! Anti-Youtube Anti-Adblocker https://lemmy.one/comment/597479

    youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.openPopupConfig.supportedPopups.adBlockMessageViewModel, false)

    youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.adBlocksFound, 0)

    youtube.com##+js(set, ytplayer.config.args.raw_player_response.adPlacements, [])

    youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.hasAllowedInstreamAd, true)

  • hakase@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    The irony of this poll blocking access from users with a VPN.

  • Most Auspicious@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    I’ve started to just download videos with yt-dlp after grabbing links via Invidious. Using Invidious itself has become somewhat unreliable lately, and this way I don’t have to put up with buffering and can watch in good quality. Cut out the middle men

    • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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      I have to wonder if once the ad blocking gets fully rolled out if yt-dlp will also cease to work?

    • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
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      MPV can directly play yt videos (it uses a built-in copy of yt-dlp afaik), and it’s very configurable. I always watch yt videos with it.

      Sometimes it would be useful if it could use a proxy like piped or invidious, but those links don’t work

        • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
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          Consider upping the cache for youtube. By default it is 2 minutes, which is mostly fine, except that if you are speeding through a part with 2x or faster, you may quickly run out of that small cache, because it only loads with the speed of something between 1x and 2x.
          And then you may also set up saving the cache to disk instead of RAM, because it may be quite larger. Single config option.
          You can make these only apply for youtube videos only with conditional auto profiles. The doc has an example for an automatic youtube profile, it’s perfect.

          • Most Auspicious@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            I don’t use the main YouTube website at all anymore. A big reason for this is that I spend a lot of time using a really weak laptop that tends to struggle with the JavaScript-laden abomination that is modern corporate web design. Firefox itself struggles as well, so I primarily use Luakit with Invidious, which runs peachy. I also put together a local html page for my bookmarks that is generated from Yaml using a small C application (which is not optimal, I know, but I’ve been learning C and this was a good opportunity). Whenever something doesn’t work in Luakit, I evade to Palemoon. I also tried watching YouTube via mpv earlier, and it’s great! It runs infinitely better than any web player at max resolution and buffers the whole video. Never going back.

            • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              I meant too increase the cache for yt videos in mpv :)

              But you say it buffers the whole video, so maybe already changed something to do that

              But yeah, I agree on your other points. If youtube blocks yt-dlp, mpv and proxies, then I’m done with it.

  • Faceman🇦🇺@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    Just a tip for those of you that do cave to pressure and go with the paid premium option. or already have one but dont want to pay for more accounts or a family account.

    You can set up channels or brand accounts as sub-accounts on a premium subscription and they will act like separate accounts with the advantages of premium, so if you have a large family and don’t want to pay for the full family subscription (which only has 5 slots anyway) you can set up a few sub-accounts that each get their own subscriptions, recommendations, settings and all have the premium features.

    So if you want to make a premium account for a parent or child, you can do that with one single subscription if you can take the caveat of them being brand accounts rather than fully their own thing.

    This works on things like Android TV or Google TV, but you need to log into the main account then switch to a sub account in the app, however, there is no authentication to switch between channel accounts this way, so it’s really only useable for families only. I use this at home to run 4 separate nvidia shield youtube apps with their own subscriptions and recommendations on one single premium payment.

    I expect they will change how that works in the future to remove the loophole, probably by charging for channel accounts or having it locked behind some kind of overpriced professional usage tier, but for now, it might be a good option for some.

    • Thorny_Thicket@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      Many people have also said if you set your location to for example India when signing up for premium you’ll get it basically for free compared to what it’ll cost in europe and it’ll keep working even if your location is elsewhere from there on.