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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

#501

Post by eertami »

Salgat wrote: post #486
skinner927 wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an unfair critique of the PiHole and I believe you’re throwing the baby out with the bath water. The PiHole blocks DNS and that’s all it’s designed to do, and it does it well. There’s a grandiose amount of telemetry, marketing, and general unsavory traffic flying through your network that didn’t originate from a browser. The PiHole is not exactly a turnkey solution and does take some adjusting to your…

The problem is that unless you're willing to do surgery on a regular basis as you come across blocked sites, PiHole is going to cause more problems than it solves when you have your entire family using it. Even google stops working correctly because results for products on the front page start leading to blocked links. I like PiHole, but I had to stop using it because it was so aggravating for my wife.

I used a PiHole for a while but after a corrupted SD card I said screw it and started using NextDNS. I have very few subscriptions, in fact nothing else except Spotify, but this one was worth the time saved and hasn't required any maintenance on my end.

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

#502

Post by nwellinghoff »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #481
slacka wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Network level ad-blocking like Privoxy and pi-hole have so many downsides like they can't handle inline adverts. My pi4 pi-hole is unplugged right now because it just didn't work well. After hours wasted trying to make it work with all the services, I've thrown in the towel. The time involved is just not worth it for a home network. What works are browser based ad-blockers and app patchers like ReVanced. As my saving…

Fair enough, but I've been super happy with the ability to do network level blocking; if you're willing to decrypt your own traffic, you can even do things like strip advertisements from getting embedded in Smart TVs and whatever else you have connected to your insecure network partition. I like it that I can hook up some random Roku and I won't get ads. Or my kid can connect his school laptop to our network and it w…

Does this just apply to the roku menu or are you saying you are stripping ads from the video streams themselves?

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

#503

Post by k4rli »

tbbfjotllf wrote: post #388
ttctciyf wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(With thanks to your grandchild) https://github.com/barre/privaxy seems definitely worth a look - thanks!

How does this compare to adguard home??? https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdguardHome

One acts as a proxy while the other one is a DNS server. Different tools

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

#504

Post by uluyol »

notjoemama wrote: post #488
kentonv wrote: post #480

Cool hack overall, but some of the statements about protobuf strike me as odd. > Exploit a Protobuf Flaw to Easily Remove All Ads by Changing One Byte He's intentionally corrupting the tag on one field of the protobuf. The "flaw" is apparently that Protobuf ignores tag numbers it doesn't recognize. But that's not a flaw, it's a core design feature of Protobuf, designed to allow extensibility. > Notice how the Protobu…

Brilliant response and observations. I’m not sure I’d agree with this one tiny assertion though: “1.87MB is not that big“ I have lived in rural communities most of my life and unless I’m on my own Wi-Fi, this actually is a big file to download. Maybe they have a workaround for mobile? Mostly I just want to add that rural Wi-Fi still struggles with Web 2.0 architecture. More often we’re operating on 2-4G speeds. Altho…

I believe 1.87 MB was in the context of CPU processing time, not network.

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

#505

Post by mardifoufs »

jjallen wrote: post #122

I just subscribe to YouTube premium to support my favorite application out there. I learn so much from the people who spend hours and hours making videos every month that I am more than happy to pay a measly $13 or whatever it is every month to YouTube.

Paying for YouTube premium does not remove the sponsors, in video ad breaks and all. Actually the only way to do that on mobile is with ReVanced, not matter how much you want to pay YouTube.

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

#506

Post by arkadiyt »

kentonv wrote: post #480

Cool hack overall, but some of the statements about protobuf strike me as odd. > Exploit a Protobuf Flaw to Easily Remove All Ads by Changing One Byte He's intentionally corrupting the tag on one field of the protobuf. The "flaw" is apparently that Protobuf ignores tag numbers it doesn't recognize. But that's not a flaw, it's a core design feature of Protobuf, designed to allow extensibility. > Notice how the Protobu…

> without the C++ source proto files

Shameless plug: I wrote a project to generate source proto files from binaries called protodump [1] - it regenerates all the message/field definitions (including the original names). It would just require pulling the binary off the AppleTV box

[1]: https://github.com/arkadiyt/protodump

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

#507

Post by mardifoufs »

pwython wrote: post #465
ojagodzinski wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't want ads on youtube, just pay the $10 premium fee. YT premium doesn't actually block the ads that creators put in their videos, SponsorBlock+AdBlock does. Give me the same functionality for 10$ in YT Premium and I will pay.

So how would you monetize YouTube with its huge infrastructure & payroll? And if everyone used something to block in-video sponsored ads, how would you monetize your hard work as a creator?

YouTube could offer a way to block sponsor segments too. If a small open source project run by one guy (super nice guy!) can do it, they can figure it out too.

The sponsor segments can be longer than any native YouTube ad so it makes YouTube premium a bit useless.

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

#509

Post by nwellinghoff »

homarp wrote: post #390
rollcat wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We consider an HTTPS connection to be intercepted when there is a mismatch between the expected client request signature corresponding to the browser identified by the User Agent, and the actual client request fingerprint of the request. Sounds like something that would be "trivial" to defeat, by means of "emulating" other TLS implementations more closely?

which is what https://github.com/lwthiker/curl-impersonate does: it's a special build of curl that can impersonate Chrome & Firefox

Can this be used as a proxy to your real browser? Can you paint the whole picture/setup for a noob?

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

#510

Post by ddalex »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #430
ddalex wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theft? Of course it's theft, if I reduce to what is happening - you're using their services for free with no compensation. That is the definition of theft. I would agree with you it's ok if there was no way to _otherwise_ pay for the service. If they push a only ads-supported version, and I have no choice but see ads, and I don't consent to the impact of ads on my brain, it makes a case for blocking ads being ethical…

No. Theft would mean they no longer have the service once I've taken it. Me taking a copy of Shrek 2 at the local store and not paying for it is theft: the store can no longer benefit from Shrek 2. Google can re-send the exact same bytes to someone else. All I've costed them is what it costs to send those bytes over. But then, would you consider going into a store, loitering for two hours, taking the sellers attentio…

Would you go into a restaurant, occupy a table, spend server's time to bring you only tap water, loiter for a couple of hours, and leaving without paying anything OK? if that's what you want, go to a public library.

I think the sooner we move from ads-supported models to pay-per-use like Netflix, the better we are - those that can afford will consume the best content, and the rest will stick to public domain.

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