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Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

ericdraken.com

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Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#51

Post by chii »

userbinator wrote: post #39
omnicognate wrote: post #29

The only alternatives to a service like youtube showing people ads are for its users to pay for it, for it to be funded through donations, for it to be run by the government and paid for through taxation or for it not to exist. I prefer the first or second approaches and Youtube is unusual among social media sites in actually giving me the first option. So I happily pay for premium and while I'd rather that were the…

I dislike the attitude of those who reject ads but also refuse to pay. How is this any different from changing the channel, leaving the room, or just hitting the mute button and closing your eyes in the scenario of "regular" TV when adverts or any other content you don't want to see appears? Compelled consumption should be illegal.

The assumption is that not many people would leave the room, close their eyes or mute the ads.

If you created a painless, super easy way to remove all ads, i'm sure that TV channels will also find it hard to sell to advertisers, and thus, their revenue would decrease.

Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#52

Post by mattigames »

omnicognate wrote: post #29

The only alternatives to a service like youtube showing people ads are for its users to pay for it, for it to be funded through donations, for it to be run by the government and paid for through taxation or for it not to exist. I prefer the first or second approaches and Youtube is unusual among social media sites in actually giving me the first option. So I happily pay for premium and while I'd rather that were the…

By that logic we shouldn't be even a allowed to look away or mute our sound when the ads are playing, after all if enough people did it it would be just as "damaging" as people with ad blockers.

Also, YouTube is a video streaming monopoly, if it didn't exist there would be a significant chance of new streaming platforms to succeed, but given that it captured the marked such chance is unlikely to exist, monopoly that they achieved hosting videos free of ads (or very light on these) and now that they have the control want to force people to pay or watch a ridiculous amount of ads.

Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#53

Post by SnorkelTan »

omnicognate wrote: post #29

The only alternatives to a service like youtube showing people ads are for its users to pay for it, for it to be funded through donations, for it to be run by the government and paid for through taxation or for it not to exist. I prefer the first or second approaches and Youtube is unusual among social media sites in actually giving me the first option. So I happily pay for premium and while I'd rather that were the…

People paid for cable and they still forced ads on people.

Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#54

Post by chii »

FireInsight wrote: post #38
omnicognate wrote: post #29

The only alternatives to a service like youtube showing people ads are for its users to pay for it, for it to be funded through donations, for it to be run by the government and paid for through taxation or for it not to exist. I prefer the first or second approaches and Youtube is unusual among social media sites in actually giving me the first option. So I happily pay for premium and while I'd rather that were the…

I use Youtube through Piped ( https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped ) to preserve privacy, block ads, and prevent getting sucked in by the algorithm. The only part of Youtube that I find valuable is the content. Not the UI, not the comments, algorithm. Free content hosting is nice, but it's not the only platform hosting videos for free. If I wanted to pay for a streaming service, it'd be Nebula ( https://nebula.tv/ ), b…

> it's not the only platform hosting videos for free.

You're only looking at this from your own point of view. The content producers are looking for monetization options, and youtube is the only game. Nebula might be sufficient for some small amount of content producers, but it's unlikely to hit mainstream, and not enough people want to pay.

It's unfortunate, but ads are the only game in town on the internet atm.

Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#55

Post by BLKNSLVR »

omnicognate wrote: post #29

The only alternatives to a service like youtube showing people ads are for its users to pay for it, for it to be funded through donations, for it to be run by the government and paid for through taxation or for it not to exist. I prefer the first or second approaches and Youtube is unusual among social media sites in actually giving me the first option. So I happily pay for premium and while I'd rather that were the…

I can be a petty individual at times, and the thing that convinced me to never pay a cent to youtube was their removing the ability for the app to continue to play the clip in the background when switching to another app or locking the phone.

I listen to news and podcast-esque things in the car going to work or school drop-off / pick-up, on the way to sport etc. I'd begrudgingly tolerate the ads if the app background-played but it doesn't without paying for premium. I'm somewhere on an "entitlement" scale here, but background-play being a premium feature really feels like it's stretching the friendship.

So... alternative front-end it is. Great experience and no ads to boot.

Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#57

Post by nerbert »

dijit wrote: post #35
omnicognate wrote: post #29

The only alternatives to a service like youtube showing people ads are for its users to pay for it, for it to be funded through donations, for it to be run by the government and paid for through taxation or for it not to exist. I prefer the first or second approaches and Youtube is unusual among social media sites in actually giving me the first option. So I happily pay for premium and while I'd rather that were the…

I’m in the exact same mindset as you; youtube allows you to pay to rid yourself of ads (which is ironic because the more free you are with money the more attractive you must be to advertisers)- so I think they are better than most. but if I must take an alternative position: the last time I used youtube without premium (which happens sometimes because its not so smooth to log in if its a temporary session); the numbe…

There are extensions that mark these "premium" ads and let you skip them.

Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#58

Post by mafuyu »

taspeotis wrote: post #5

The real tragedy: > In fact, the YouTube app is zippier because fewer connections are made to ad URLs in the first place. I swear on LG TV that webOS runs at a smooth 60 FPS when it's not connected to Wi-Fi and slows down as soon as it phones home for whatever telemetry and ads LG intend to serve me...

You're not imagining it! The ads slow down webOS a lot, and blocking them with pi-hole made my TV much more usable. I highly recommend setting up pi-hole or similar, and blocking all the LG domains it tries to hit.

I commented about it a while back here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34374725

Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#59

Post by SergeAx »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #55
omnicognate wrote: post #29

The only alternatives to a service like youtube showing people ads are for its users to pay for it, for it to be funded through donations, for it to be run by the government and paid for through taxation or for it not to exist. I prefer the first or second approaches and Youtube is unusual among social media sites in actually giving me the first option. So I happily pay for premium and while I'd rather that were the…

I can be a petty individual at times, and the thing that convinced me to never pay a cent to youtube was their removing the ability for the app to continue to play the clip in the background when switching to another app or locking the phone. I listen to news and podcast-esque things in the car going to work or school drop-off / pick-up, on the way to sport etc. I'd begrudgingly tolerate the ads if the app background…

The said ability also exists in a premium subscription. So what you effectively saying is that YouTube offers you a valuable feature, but you refuse to pay for it.

Re: Block YouTube ads on AppleTV by decrypting and stripping ads from Profobuf

#60

Post by commoner »

FireInsight wrote: post #38
omnicognate wrote: post #29

The only alternatives to a service like youtube showing people ads are for its users to pay for it, for it to be funded through donations, for it to be run by the government and paid for through taxation or for it not to exist. I prefer the first or second approaches and Youtube is unusual among social media sites in actually giving me the first option. So I happily pay for premium and while I'd rather that were the…

I use Youtube through Piped ( https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped ) to preserve privacy, block ads, and prevent getting sucked in by the algorithm. The only part of Youtube that I find valuable is the content. Not the UI, not the comments, algorithm. Free content hosting is nice, but it's not the only platform hosting videos for free. If I wanted to pay for a streaming service, it'd be Nebula ( https://nebula.tv/ ), b…

Piped is a great web-based service, but since tvOS does not support web browsers on the Apple TV, to block YouTube ads, you either have to stream Piped videos to the Apple TV from another Apple device using AirPlay screen mirroring or use a workaround like the one described in TFA.

I'm using NewPipe (https://newpipe.net) on Android TV which provides an ad-free YouTube experience just like the Android phone version of NewPipe. Piped would also work on an Android TV browser like TV Bro (https://github.com/truefedex/tv-bro).

The legitimacy of ad blocking is well-established. People have been using DVRs, VHS players, and tape recorders to capture and consume ad-free broadcasts for decades.

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