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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

#591

Post by xyst »

There is always a new way to block ads on YT or any platform. But then a few months later it gets changed rendering these methods useless.

Instead, why don’t we attack the advertisers? YT/Google only appear to track “clicks”, but does it actually track purchases as well?

In theory, if there are enough fake (bots) and real users clicking through ads but not buying anything. Then that should burn through the advertising budgets. Over time the marketing departments should see that clicks are at an all time high on X platform but conversions are a small percentage of those “clicks” or impressions. Thus pulling out from the platform all together.

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

#592

Post by detuur »

boesboes wrote: post #111
glitchcrab wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you get your TV to trust the self signed cert?

It would not surprise me if most TVs don't check. I remember LG or Samsung using unencrypted FTP to upload viewing data a few years back, so unverified TLS would be an improvement >_<

I'm pretty sure they don't check certs. If they did, there would be many corporate networks and even entire countries where they wouldn't work, because they use DPI on all inbound/outbound connections with SSL stripping.

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

#593

Post by michaelmrose »

baq wrote: post #575
Osiris wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents’ cap is 10GB with $1/GB overage charge. They are on line of sight microwave connection.

I’ve downloaded forza horizon 5 yesterday, all 120 GB of it. 1) what. is. in. that. game. 2) what do you do if you’re charged $1/gb and want to play forza? Sit in a Starbucks for a whole day?

The characteristics of the systems we use control the usage that we make of them. Not having fast internet means you don't do the kinds of things people do with fast internet.

It's more likely that people play console games they can buy on disk at walmart. Another alternative would be to use a pirated version that is highly compressed with extra crap removed. For instance fitgirls has a version of forza that is only 67GB. There are times when it might actually make sense even to buy a game to support the dev AND still pirate it.

So what can we do about the situation. Obviously we can continue to expand faster internet but as developers maybe we should offer our own compressed version if we can't bring ourselves to economize in general. For instance some games that top 100GB have 10s of GB of uncompressed audio that could profitably be reduced. We can ensure that locale specific content like languages can be disabled. We could break levels into content packs that can be downloaded AS the game is used. Maybe that 120GB can be reduced to 60GB of which 20GB needs to be downloaded immediately to start playing? How many users play some of a game and move on? My bet would be a LOT.

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

#594

Post by Larrikin »

xyst wrote: post #591

There is always a new way to block ads on YT or any platform. But then a few months later it gets changed rendering these methods useless. Instead, why don’t we attack the advertisers? YT/Google only appear to track “clicks”, but does it actually track purchases as well? In theory, if there are enough fake (bots) and real users clicking through ads but not buying anything. Then that should burn through the advertisin…

As Nauseum was banned in the Chrome store, so it seems to be fairly effective

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

#595

Post by lolinder »

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 have our PiHole set up with just ad lists, not trackers or privacy. I follow that up on my own devices with uBO with more thorough lists, but this way my whole family gets ad protection rather than nothing.

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

#596

Post by mh- »

baq wrote: post #575
Osiris wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents’ cap is 10GB with $1/GB overage charge. They are on line of sight microwave connection.

I’ve downloaded forza horizon 5 yesterday, all 120 GB of it. 1) what. is. in. that. game. 2) what do you do if you’re charged $1/gb and want to play forza? Sit in a Starbucks for a whole day?

Wait until the first time it has a >10gb update.

I preinstalled it on my Xbox just before release, and it had a >20gb day one patch, as I recall.

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

#597

Post by smolyeet »

ryaneager wrote: post #474
KerrAvon wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What services are you having trouble with? My RPi PiHole has been working great for whole-house blocking for a half-decade now.

Likewise. My biggest tip is set your secondary DNS to something outside your networks so if your pi-hole goes down your entire network doesn’t go down you just get ads.

There’s also nextdns which I was planning on switching to anyways

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

#598

Post by SnowingXIV »

darkstar999 wrote: post #445
SnowingXIV wrote: post #409

This is interesting, I’ve been trying to figure out the best solution for handling blackout rules for sports apps. You pay full price but they specifically block anything in your market which is absolutely ridiculous. Yes, you can slap an antenna on the back and view low resolution local stations assuming you’re picking up a decent signal. Haven’t found the most elegant way. Probably the path of least resistance is g…

One of the few good reasons to pay for a VPN service that lets you choose a location.

Any recommendations for this particular use case?

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

#599

Post by ukuina »

eertami wrote: post #501
Salgat wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why not AdGuard DNS? It's free.

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

#600

Post by TheHappyOddish »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #512
notjoemama wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's a little weird on HN to see someone refer to "rural wifi". Unless you're talking about a relatively rare form of mesh networking, there's not really any such thing as rural wifi, at least not in the sense that its different from any other kind of wifi - a very local RF network designed to share an access point. I assume you're using wifi as a stand-in for "internet" or "broadband". 4G speeds are completely fine…

In Australia, NBNCo (our national wholesaler) provides a 'fixed wireless' solution for pretty much everyone rural. "Rural wifi" would be a valid synonym, just as "wifi" is a valid synonym to "Wi-Fi" to you. This is different to 4GLTE etc.
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