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Tell HN: YouTube beat uBlock Origin on Firefox

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Re: Tell HN: YouTube beat uBlock Origin on Firefox

#24

Post by hendersoon »

Yes, it's become an arms race. However it seems like it's one YouTube can't win, due to some limitation in their process flow. You'd think it would be trivial, just don't send the video if the user hadn't first watched the ad, but for some unknown reason YouTube is unable to do this.

Since YouTube ultimately can't win with their current strategy, it's difficult to understand why they're bothering. Everybody running uBlock Origin clearly wants to block their ads, it's trivial to update filter lists to block them again, and those people (like me) will never, ever, pay YouTube so long as we can get the content without doing so. All they're doing is annoying people to no particular benefit.

Instead they should work out some way to do what I said earlier. But they haven't. Because they can't? Sure seems that way.

Re: Tell HN: YouTube beat uBlock Origin on Firefox

#25

Post by colanderman »

hendersoon wrote: post #24

Yes, it's become an arms race. However it seems like it's one YouTube can't win, due to some limitation in their process flow. You'd think it would be trivial, just don't send the video if the user hadn't first watched the ad, but for some unknown reason YouTube is unable to do this. Since YouTube ultimately can't win with their current strategy, it's difficult to understand why they're bothering. Everybody running u…

I'm surprised media companies haven't developed something akin to HDCP for attestation that a display has shown an ad to a user. Once you have private keys in display devices it seems like the obvious next step.

Re: Tell HN: YouTube beat uBlock Origin on Firefox

#26

Post by mariusor »

thefurdrake wrote: post #23

Working on this end. Maybe A/B testing? Never forget you can fall back to yt-dlp and mpv/vlc locally if the website stops working. Stealing from Google is ethical. Keep it up.

> Stealing from Google is ethical. Keep it up.

Just keep in mind that you also steal from the content creator... which might be a bit lower on the ethical scale.

Re: Tell HN: YouTube beat uBlock Origin on Firefox

#27

Post by thefurdrake »

mariusor wrote: post #26
thefurdrake wrote: post #23

Working on this end. Maybe A/B testing? Never forget you can fall back to yt-dlp and mpv/vlc locally if the website stops working. Stealing from Google is ethical. Keep it up.

> Stealing from Google is ethical. Keep it up. Just keep in mind that you also steal from the content creator... which might be a bit lower on the ethical scale.

I've been collecting Patreons, yeah, and my finances are getting to a place where I can actually sub to all of them, because that is 100% the appropriate course of action to take. It's unfortunate that the employees of an unethical company have to suffer when that unethical company experiences consequences, but that's never been a reason to not oppose an unethical organization.

Re: Tell HN: YouTube beat uBlock Origin on Firefox

#28

Post by pimlottc »

Master discussion thread on reddit /r/uBlockOrigin is here:

https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/163cy47/youtu...

I had this issue and updating filter lists worked for me:

> Make sure uBO is running at latest versions (1.51.0+), then force update all your filter lists (click uBO icon > Dashboard button > Filter lists pane > Purge all caches > Update now)

Re: Tell HN: YouTube beat uBlock Origin on Firefox

#29

Post by felurx »

mariusor wrote: post #26
thefurdrake wrote: post #23

Working on this end. Maybe A/B testing? Never forget you can fall back to yt-dlp and mpv/vlc locally if the website stops working. Stealing from Google is ethical. Keep it up.

> Stealing from Google is ethical. Keep it up. Just keep in mind that you also steal from the content creator... which might be a bit lower on the ethical scale.

I pay for Nebula, which has many of the creators I care about. When I have enough money, I'll pay for Patreon or similar stuff. I refuse giving Google revenue/money, even if they somewhat take creators hostage.
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