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YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

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Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#91

Post by om2 »

viktorcode wrote: post #44

There's some misconceptions being put forth in the article which I, as a developer of a Safari ad blocker, would like to address. Content blockers are limited by design to ensure privacy and speed, but they may work together with other kinds of Safari extension. So, when AdGuard guys say that the only debugging tool you can use is Console, know that this isn’t true. There’s SFSafariExtensionHandler API which you can…

Note that the rules limit has now been increased from 50k to 150k. Sorry if we failed to publicize this sufficiently.

Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#92

Post by _Algernon_ »

defaultname wrote: post #85
shawnz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is basically the exact fear which was being expressed by users when Google announced that they would require Chrome extensions to only use declarative content blocking starting with Manifest v3 (which anecdotally convinced me to switch to Firefox).

If we go down that road, however, sites can make ads completely indistinguishable from desired content. Same domain, same stream, no easily marked container. All of the imperative adblocking tech in the world, short of queuing everything through a neural engine post render, can block what is possible. So there has always been a detente between adblockers and publishers, presuming the former hit a small enough set of…

That would require delivering ads from first-party servers, right? So third-party ad and tracking networks would die a painful death.

Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#93

Post by twobitshifter »

heavyset_go wrote: post #9
twobitshifter wrote: post #2

The battle between ad platforms and users is going to be never ending. For YouTube, the _right_ thing to do is to pay for the premium option which removes ads. Otherwise as difficult as it is to say, you are getting something for nothing and people do make a living from YouTube videos. Ok, maybe you can contribute to a patreon outside of YouTube, but you’re not going to do that for everyone and those videos are not s…

> For YouTube, the _right_ thing to do is to pay for the premium option which removes ads. Even if you pay for premium, you'll still get sponsored ads in the content.

There are some programs/videos that are only available on premium and do not include sponsored content.

Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#95

Post by matheusmoreira »

sofixa wrote: post #59
csunbird wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Google is going to use my data for advertising, with or without premium. An adblocker gives me the luxury of not seeing ads while keeping my data private.

Maybe it's only for the EU, but on adsettings.google.com you cab tell it not to use personalised data for ads.

Google still has the data though.

Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#96

Post by bozzcl »

Dah00n wrote: post #71
ascagnel_ wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run a Pi-Hole on my local network, and I still see YouTube ads -- they're served from the same CDN as the videos. The way in which YT delivers ads (pre-, mid-, and post-roll videos on the same CDN/domain as the content) seems, on the surface, to thwart any type of static ad detection.

This is more of a rant on Pi-hole than related to Youtube ads but... Pi-hole can be fine but it isn't effective if you want it to block not only the lowest hanging fruits which a browser adblocker could easily block too but also stuff that doesn't follow the rules and might use hardcoded DNS IPs if they can't get the reply they want from the DNS server. With some Windows PC's, Apple devices, Chromecasts and Androids…

Last year, I added firewall rules to my router to block:

* Any outbound DNS and DNS-over-TLS requests coming from anything other than my Pi-Hole * Any outbound HTTPS requests to DNS-over-HTTPS providers that I know of

It's surprising how many hits I got to those block rules. Makes me very worried about the adoption of DoH: all its privacy and anti-tampering advantages also apply to devices that violate privacy, like smartphones and smart TVs. I want to keep those under control.

I'm curious about your setup: how many devices do you have in your network that you need a load-balanced Pi-Hole setup!? My RPi4 has been rock-solid, but it sounds it doesn't have to handle nearly as much load as yours. Makes me wonder if my next hardware purchase should be a small server to host a hypervisor instead of a single RPi.

Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#97

Post by qlm »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #92
defaultname wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we go down that road, however, sites can make ads completely indistinguishable from desired content. Same domain, same stream, no easily marked container. All of the imperative adblocking tech in the world, short of queuing everything through a neural engine post render, can block what is possible. So there has always been a detente between adblockers and publishers, presuming the former hit a small enough set of…

That would require delivering ads from first-party servers, right? So third-party ad and tracking networks would die a painful death.

Couldn't they just be proxied through a first party server?

Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#98

Post by mullingitover »

topicseed wrote: post #67
decasteve wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serving videos without ads was how YouTube's monopoly was built. It became an ad platform later. That created an expectation that YouTube was a library in the public interest. Pre-2010 Google marketing had that public interest and internet stewardship angle to it. Serving content over the web assumes that the content will be downloaded by a browser for rendering. Control over what and how that content gets rendered i…

You're mentioning the end user's learned expectation to get videos for free. But what about the creator's expectation to get paid for their hard-earned views, to then pay for the gear purchased and the production of the entire video, including team members? If you're really anti ads, don't take the content for free, find another piece of content that answers your ad-free philosophy.

> If you're really anti ads, don't take the content for free, find another piece of content that answers your ad-free philosophy.

Google is in the process of breaking this deal themselves - they're now adding ads to videos which users did not opt to monetize, and they're keeping 100% of the revenue. Taking the content for free, if you will.

Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#99

Post by bozzcl »

tambeb wrote: post #65
tyingq wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If, at some point, all we have is hostnames and url lists to block with, the ad folks will figure out how to unblock themselves.

I run my own little ad blocking DNS service and the thing I'm probably most concerned about is websites/publishers/etc. deciding to serve their ad and user tracking assets from their own domains. Though most would probably need—or choose—to use subdomains and be easily blockable all over again.

Same here, I can think of a million ways to circumvent DNS blocking. The good thing is, most sites are not gonna adopt them very quickly. Besides, DNS blocking would have value even if all sites started doing that: there's plenty of malware/phishing domains to be blocked and I don't think those have better alternatives!

Re: YouTube ads in Safari: you see them now, will you see them in the future?

#100

Post by _Algernon_ »

twobitshifter wrote: post #2

The battle between ad platforms and users is going to be never ending. For YouTube, the _right_ thing to do is to pay for the premium option which removes ads. Otherwise as difficult as it is to say, you are getting something for nothing and people do make a living from YouTube videos. Ok, maybe you can contribute to a patreon outside of YouTube, but you’re not going to do that for everyone and those videos are not s…

YouTube has the right to send or not send the file to my computer. My browser has the right to process the video on my behalf, including not showing it to me if it is an ad.

My right to decide what my purchased computer does trumps YouTube's right to make a few cents by showing me ads.

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