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Does uBlock Origin bypass the latest YouTube anti-adblock script?

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Re: Does uBlock Origin bypass the latest YouTube anti-adblock script?

#131

Post by throw0101b »

kibwen wrote: post #42
Gigachad wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would competition even work? How could any company succeed proving a product to a user base that doesn’t watch ads and doesn’t pay for the service? Would be like proving an alternative to cater to shoplifters.

Let's permanently dispense with this weird notion that blocking ads is theft. When you're listening to the radio, it's not theft to change the station when ads come up. When you're watching TV, it's not theft to mute the TV and get a drink when ads come up. Youtube has zero moral expectation that people will actually watch the ads it serves. They're giving a product away for free, and people are consuming it for free…

> Let's permanently dispense with this weird notion that blocking ads is theft.

So what is a better term for unauthorized use of compute and bandwidth?

The terms of service for YT are: watch ads or pay for premium. This is so that YT can pay their bills (hosting, salaries, cheques to creators).

> They're giving a product away for free, and people are consuming it for free; end of story.

No they are not. They are providing a service according to certain terms of service. If you don't like the terms feel free not to use the service.

Re: Does uBlock Origin bypass the latest YouTube anti-adblock script?

#132

Post by ath3nd »

autoexec wrote: post #113
endisneigh wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree. Those people who care about that shouldn’t use YouTube or any Google services at all. It’s easy to degoogle. Kagi search is a good start.

> Those people who care about that shouldn’t use YouTube or any Google services at all. While it'd be wise to avoid Google for privacy reasons, I see no problem with people making a choice to use YouTube if they want to. People can decide for themselves how much risk they're willing to take for the content hosted there. I totally respect people's choice to avoid Google to whatever limited extent that is possible, but…

[flagged]

Re: Does uBlock Origin bypass the latest YouTube anti-adblock script?

#133

Post by ath3nd »

globalnode wrote: post #99
autoexec wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine valuing yourself and your money so little that you'd pay a company who is actively harassing you with unwanted attempts at manipulation to pretty please leave you alone and let you see the free content you want without interruption.

some people just like to throw money at a problem, whereas i personally like to keep my money and use my brains or will power but thats just me.

[flagged]

Re: Does uBlock Origin bypass the latest YouTube anti-adblock script?

#134

Post by superfrank »

kibwen wrote: post #42
Gigachad wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would competition even work? How could any company succeed proving a product to a user base that doesn’t watch ads and doesn’t pay for the service? Would be like proving an alternative to cater to shoplifters.

Let's permanently dispense with this weird notion that blocking ads is theft. When you're listening to the radio, it's not theft to change the station when ads come up. When you're watching TV, it's not theft to mute the TV and get a drink when ads come up. Youtube has zero moral expectation that people will actually watch the ads it serves. They're giving a product away for free, and people are consuming it for free…

Just because it isn't theft doesn't mean they need to be okay with you doing it. If I went to a restaurant and decided I didn't like of the wine they have on their menu, so I went to the store next door and grabbed a bottle of wine, I'd likely be asked to pay a corkage fee. If I refused I'd likely be asked to leave.

Businesses get to define their own rules and if you don't abide by them they're allowed to choose not to do business with you. You either need to agree to their terms of service (no adblock) or you need to take your business else where. They don't owe you anything.

Re: Does uBlock Origin bypass the latest YouTube anti-adblock script?

#135

Post by RichEO »

macinjosh wrote: post #25

channel RSS + huginn + ytdl + jellyfin = your own private video feed an added benefit is there are no recommendations so you can't get sucked in to the algo, nor tracked by it if you come across a random video you want to watch you can have a bookmarklet to ytdl it to jellyfin

I’ve been thinking of setting up something like this for my kids. I don’t want them on YouTube, but there’s some content they might enjoy.

Is there documentation somewhere on how to do it well?

Re: Does uBlock Origin bypass the latest YouTube anti-adblock script?

#136

Post by jsnell »

gpm wrote: post #103
Analemma_ wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This goes both ways though. If it's not theft to not watch the ads, it's not "anticompetitive" to not serve you the video if they think you're blocking ads. What "competition" are they even blocking? The competitors who are just waiting to jump in and do exascale video hosting for free, forever, to users who bring in no revenue? Either accept the cat-and-mouse game, pay for YT premium, or stop using YouTube. Complain…

The competition they are blocking are all the competitors they drove out of business by running youtube at a loss for ages. They're only now putting ads in videos, charging for not-doing-that, blocking ad blockers, and so on, now that they've driven all the competitors after business. Predatory pricing of this nature is a well know old anti-competitive tactic. The only slightly new wrinkle is that they're letting use…

You're pretty badly off on the timelines there.

> They're only now putting ads in videos,

They've been showing ads on videos since 2007, before Google even bought YouTube.

> charging for not-doing-that,

They've been offering that for 8 years, about half the lifetime of YouTube.

Re: Does uBlock Origin bypass the latest YouTube anti-adblock script?

#137

Post by autoexec »

tredre3 wrote: post #121
autoexec wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vincent and Clara's videos are offered for free and there is zero obligation for anyone to pay either of them anything whether it be money, time, attention, or engagement. If someone who spends less of their time watching Clara's videos chooses to support Clara because they value her content more than Vincent's, or because they feel like Clara needs the money more than Vincent does, or for any other reason that's ent…

And, likewise, Youtube is free to send the bytes to only the people they want. If they don't want to serve video data to people who use adblocks, it's their right. You are then free to try to work around it, the same way Youtube is trying to work around your adblocker.

I'd agree with that, although that doesn't make both activities equivalent either.

Google is being increasingly obnoxious and user-hostile in an effort to get people to pay Google money to stop harassing them and wasting their time by delaying and interrupting the free content they requested with repeated attempts at manipulation, while the people who block ads are just trying to avoid Google's unwanted (and at times harmful) behavior.

Re: Does uBlock Origin bypass the latest YouTube anti-adblock script?

#138

Post by miki123211 »

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #57

Youtube seems to me to be a bullshit test platform. They will work around ad blockers and continue to pile on repetitive and banal adverts that have nothing to do with the user until they reach breaking point (where people flee and seek alternatives), and then they will relax their system to show marginally less bullshit. The confusing part of this battle is the app users, who do not agree with the avalanche of adver…

Video hosting is expensive and needs to be paid for somehow. Any competitor will have the same problems as Youtube does.

You can go the Nebula route and require users to pay (which means far fewer users) or require creators to pay (which means far fewer creators). You could also require creators to host the videos themselves, but that also requires money, expertise and causes downtime when a video goes viral.

There's also P2P, but far too many users are on mobile and behind NATs these days for that to make sense. Even if this wasn't the case, P2P is a privacy and legal nightmare, it's trivial for companies to track what IP addresses watch what videos, and seeding of copyright-infringing content usually has far worse legal consequences than merely watching.

Re: Does uBlock Origin bypass the latest YouTube anti-adblock script?

#139

Post by CapstanRoller »

BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #115
ranting-moth wrote: post #20

Yes, but YT seems to be doing a lot of A/B testing so what works for others doesn't mean it works for you. If I see an ad I just close YT for the rest of the day.

I should generate some incompressible 4K 60 FPS videos that consist of three hours of randomly generated static and upload them out of spite.

Someone already beat you to it

https://hackaday.com/2023/02/21/youtube-as-infinite-file-sto...

Re: Does uBlock Origin bypass the latest YouTube anti-adblock script?

#140

Post by adahn »

kazinator wrote: post #7

Forget browsers; I could use an ad-free Youtube app for Android TV that has voice search.

SmartTube is good for this. It needs to be installed by the APK and updated manually but that’s the only friction I’ve encountered. Been using for around a year I’d say.

It even has SponsorBlock built in, so it can be configured to skip things like intros, recaps, or sponsor segments.

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