YouTube Begins Blocking Users Who Use Adblock

I feel like I need a hotkey for "Purge all caches && Update now" for uBlock Origin to keep up with this game of cat and mouse. YouTube has definitely already given me the "Use will be blocked after 3/2/1 videos" warning but it still keeps working time to time with ad-blocking.

Re: YouTube Begins Blocking Users Who Use Adblock

#5

Post by lofaszvanitt » Fri, Oct 27, 2023, 9:00 PM UTC

Extensions crippling 3...2...1

Re: YouTube Begins Blocking Users Who Use Adblock

#6

Post by nuancebydefault » Fri, Oct 27, 2023, 9:00 PM UTC

I don't understand how adblock on a service like youtube work, without cooperation of youtube itself. I get it that you could easily blank the output when there is an add, and/or auto-close an add after the countdown, but how do you convince the service to continue streaming before the minimal advertisement time has past ?

Re: YouTube Begins Blocking Users Who Use Adblock

#7

Post by SoftTalker » Fri, Oct 27, 2023, 9:01 PM UTC

brucethemoose2 wrote: post #2

I saw the popup in FF, but interestingly YouTube doesn't seem to recognize Cromite's adblocker

From their perspective, they don't care if they are blocking all the adblockers, blocking the major ones on the major platforms is still a big win.

Re: YouTube Begins Blocking Users Who Use Adblock

#8

Post by izzydata » Fri, Oct 27, 2023, 9:03 PM UTC

nuancebydefault wrote: post #6

I don't understand how adblock on a service like youtube work, without cooperation of youtube itself. I get it that you could easily blank the output when there is an add, and/or auto-close an add after the countdown, but how do you convince the service to continue streaming before the minimal advertisement time has past ?

I don't know how it is done for certain, but with absolute control of the client you could send any information back to Youtube that you wanted. So if all Youtube was requesting was that the minimal amount of time of ads be watched before playing the video you just tell them that you have. I'm sure it is getting far more complicated than this, but I suspect this is the basic idea of this back and forth arms race of ad blocking and adblock blocking and so forth.

Re: YouTube Begins Blocking Users Who Use Adblock

#9

Post by SoftTalker » Fri, Oct 27, 2023, 9:03 PM UTC

nuancebydefault wrote: post #6

I don't understand how adblock on a service like youtube work, without cooperation of youtube itself. I get it that you could easily blank the output when there is an add, and/or auto-close an add after the countdown, but how do you convince the service to continue streaming before the minimal advertisement time has past ?

As I understand it, the streams are served on their own. All the control is in the client. That's how downloaders can just download the streams if they can pass as a legitimate client.

Re: YouTube Begins Blocking Users Who Use Adblock

#10

Post by Aken » Fri, Oct 27, 2023, 9:03 PM UTC

I feel like I'm in the minority that has zero problem paying for an ad-free experience. I get tremendous value out of YouTube in both professional and personal ways. I have a daughter who watches it often. Suppressing ads while supporting the service my family enjoys regularly seems like a no-brainer to me. And I never have to worry about them circumventing my ad blocker.