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Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

vancedapp.com

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Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#251

Asking this question in good faith and in the interest of a productive discussion: Can someone give me their reasoning for why to use this over just paying for YouTube premium? They're providing a service that you value and spend enough time on to warrant looking for a way to not have to view ads, and if everyone were to start using Vanced overnight, YouTube wouldn't be able to justify staying up indefinitely. It fee…

YT Premium is actually nice and lets me share with others who I consider "family". It strikes a nice balance at it's current price and policies. If those don't seem like a good deal anymore vanced (et. al.) here I come.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#252
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I personally find categorical imperative arguments to be ridiculous. almost anything could be bad if everyone did them all the time. Btw..... This is in good faith but...... If everyone started using electric cars at once, the traffic jam would be unimaginable!!!! To me, individuals aren't thinking of the negative externalities :(( (especially to private oil monopolies)

Traffic jam? What kind of autonomy do you think modern EVs have? If you're gonna make a good faith argument about why we couldn't switch to 100% EV over night, talking about grids' capacities would be more genuine.

I believe your parent poster was just poking fun at the "if everybody started to do X" construct. If all humans started to use EVs (or any other type of vehicles) at the same time, the traffic jams would indeed be horrific. At any given time perhaps <5% of people are on the roads, so how would you even fit 100% of people onto roads at the same time?

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem with ads is that you have to pay vastly more to remove them through a subscription (where it is even possible) than the revenue they would have brought.

That's because the demand for subscription content is magnitudes less than ad-subsidized free content. Even if you made a hybrid model, the content isn't that interchangeable. The type of customer who pays for a subscription is going to consume vastly different content than the freemium customer.

> the demand for subscription content is magnitudes less than ad-subsidized free content.

A lot of ad-subsidized content only "works" because by the time the user realizes that the content is subpar it's already too late and they've "paid" and can't take their money back.

This wouldn't work in a scenario where an explicit action needs to be taken (to agree to pay a fee) before consuming the content, and/or where due to laws/regulation the customer has the possibility to demand their money back if they've been misled.

The truth is that a lot of content on the internet isn't worth paying for.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#254
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. That’s why I pay $12 for YouTube premium. That’s like, what, 30 cents a day per month? Paying for things is not hard.

> paying for things is not hard Except when you don't have a money allocation for a premium service

The vast majority of people browsing hacker news are in the tech industry, not high school kids with no money.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#255

Funny how people want content but don’t want to support content creators via ads or paying for YouTube Premium. The internet in a nutshell. Ironically if people weren’t so avoidant of paying for digital content, ads, and the subsequent tracking, would’ve never emerged.

What I find more funny is that everyone expects to be paid for their content. 95% of the content out there is not worth paying for.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#256
post #78

This is nonfree, I've used it and found it a little ostentatious for my taste. NewPipe is open-source and the interface makes more sense to me. I think Vanced preserves Chromecast compatibility (correct me if I'm wrong) which NewPipe can't do.

Nah, no more casting in vance, which kind of killed its main use for me. It's not their fault, its the microG package maintainers that don't want to do it. I guess the new casting protocols aren't worth it.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#257
post #3

I love Vanced! The only downside is that it's not able to avoid ads when casting to Chromecast. SkyTube is a minimalistic Youtube Android client that can avoid ads when casting: https://github.com/SkyTubeTeam/SkyTube For those of you using Android TV, I highly recommend SmartTubeNext, a Youtube client with no ads, and includes SponsorBlock[1]: https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext [1] https://sponsor.ajay.app

I was just looking at this project, and I'm surprised by the lack of homebrew streaming boxes. I find it pretty amazing that the only way to block ads on a streaming box is to use a google product. There doesn't seem to be any attempts to root a Roku or create an open ecosystem for streaming apps.

Ive thought about this too but I think its just because it's so trivial with raspberry Pi's. When I think about it, I can't imagine what a homebrew box could offer to someone whose already decided they don't want a Chromecast or Roku. Maybe a remote?

I know there are some minimally sketchy kodi like distro images out there, I forgot their names at the moment..

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#258
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen it actually "break". The only times it's not working is because YouTube changed something and you need to download a new version which works pretty good with the appropriate repo in F-Droid.

Did they fix that you have to update it only through GitHub?

It tells me that there is a new version. It downloads it from somewhere and installs it. It could be GitHub but I don't know.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#259
post #4

> allows you to play videos in the background This feature is why I use Vanced

Me too. That’s why I pay $12 for YouTube premium. That’s like, what, 30 cents a day per month? Paying for things is not hard.

I have a problem with paying for something that has been a basic capability of every computer made in the last 20 years.

Not to mention, the obvious issue that paying for YT Premium requires you to provide valid personal details to Google (for payment processing) and remain logged in. That's way more tracking potential compared to Vanced/NewPipe/Invidious/etc.

Re: Vanced: YouTube adblocker for Android

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what to tell you other than I simply don't agree. at a high level, the YouTube website is a wrapper for endpoints that serve ads and endpoints that serve content. nowhere in the flow of clicking a video from the homepage and watching it does there appear any language saying that I need to hit both sets of endpoints to use the service at all. they merely make it inconvenient not to do so. this is essentia…

> this is essentially a rehash of the "what constitutes unauthorized access to unsecured resources?" debate Youtube's Terms of Service[0] specifically say: ``` The following restrictions apply to your use of the Service. You are not allowed to: ... 2. circumvent, disable, fraudulently engage with, or otherwise interfere with any part of the Service (or attempt to do any of these things), including security-related fe…

Since at no point in time am I forced to read nor agree to those terms, I don't think they can be used as an argument.
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