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AdSkipper – free and open source tool that you love

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AdSkipper – free and open source tool that you love

#1
Let me start this by saying that I don't sell anything, I am not seeking any money or fame. I am just trying to help the community. Everything here is fully free and open source.

TLDR; Extension that bypasses YouTube ads, and is fully undetectable by their system. Works on every browser out there, with Safari support on the way. All links are at the bottom of the post

Hi everyone. I am web dev with over 6 years of experience in the field.

About 7-8 months ago I created https://adskipper.me, a browser extension that will skip YouTube ads automatically. After seeing that it works without an issue, and since I saw that uBlock is failing steadily (I am not hating, I am just stating the fact that more and more users have issues with it, including me), I decided to put it up on Chrome and Firefox web stores, and make it open source on GitHub (link below)

It is not working as regular ad blocker, but it rather skips them fully. Logic is really really simple. If ad is playing, just set current time to full ad length and click the Skip Ad button automatically.

This means that YouTube will see the ad as loaded and watched, but you as a user won't see it, so in my opinion it is (almost) undetectable, and as long as ads work in certain ways, it will remain undetectable. Even if they somehow bypass it I already have few more different ways to make it work. It doesn't remove all ads from YouTube which makes it much less intrusive and suspicious.

Currently it supports skipping ads on YouTube and removing Shorts (I hate shorts). I am in the process of adding new websites and creating more features (blocking videos from certain channels, researching ways to make it work on YouTube for Android, adding local statistics (how many ads skipped, how much time saved) etc..). If you have any ideas or features you'd like to see, I am more than happy to hear them. If you want to see all available options Right Click on extension > Options. You'll find everything there.

If you decide to use it, and you like it, it would be really nice to rate it on extensions stores as that would help boost it so more users can see it.

WebSite: https://adskipper.me

GitHub: https://github.com/M1ck0/adskipper-extension

Chrome Web Store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ad-skipper/dinhbmppbaekibhlomcimjbhdhacoael

Firefox Add-Ons: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/automatic-adskipper/

Re: AdSkipper – free and open source tool that you love

#2
Clever, but what's stopping YouTube from knowing the ad time and waiting until that time has elapsed on their servers before serving the video? I guess you can take a break and do something else during that time, but with the latest uBlock Origin release, they update their filters automatically every 6 hours such that I have not seen a single ad since the debacle a couple of months ago.

Re: AdSkipper – free and open source tool that you love

#4

Clever, but what's stopping YouTube from knowing the ad time and waiting until that time has elapsed on their servers before serving the video? I guess you can take a break and do something else during that time, but with the latest uBlock Origin release, they update their filters automatically every 6 hours such that I have not seen a single ad since the debacle a couple of months ago.

This, the add-on seems great but selling it as "undetectable" seems disingenuous.

Re: AdSkipper – free and open source tool that you love

#5

Clever, but what's stopping YouTube from knowing the ad time and waiting until that time has elapsed on their servers before serving the video? I guess you can take a break and do something else during that time, but with the latest uBlock Origin release, they update their filters automatically every 6 hours such that I have not seen a single ad since the debacle a couple of months ago.

If YouTube decides to start the timer on how long the ad played before serving the video I already made solution for that.

I can mute the ad and play it in the background, while showing embeded video to user that doesn't have ads, and then seamlessly switch those two players when ad ends.

There are few other techniques I developed that already work without an issue and are just waiting to replace current one if anything happens

Re: AdSkipper – free and open source tool that you love

#7
> TLDR; Extension that bypasses YouTube ads, and is fully undetectable by their system. Works on every browser out there, with Safari support on the way. All links are at the bottom of the post

Undetectable is not true, "works on every browser out there" is also not true

> I am not seeking any money or fame

But you included both buymeacoffee and patreon links in the extension descriptions, repo readme and website, like it's fine but at least don't say that

> and since I saw that uBlock is failing steadily

Personally don't have any issues with it, I use it on YouTube without any issues

But if it works it works so that's cool.

Re: AdSkipper – free and open source tool that you love

#8

Clever, but what's stopping YouTube from knowing the ad time and waiting until that time has elapsed on their servers before serving the video? I guess you can take a break and do something else during that time, but with the latest uBlock Origin release, they update their filters automatically every 6 hours such that I have not seen a single ad since the debacle a couple of months ago.

If YouTube decides to start the timer on how long the ad played before serving the video I already made solution for that. I can mute the ad and play it in the background, while showing embeded video to user that doesn't have ads, and then seamlessly switch those two players when ad ends. There are few other techniques I developed that already work without an issue and are just waiting to replace current one if anyth…

Smart. Well good luck then, hope the project goes well.

Re: AdSkipper – free and open source tool that you love

#9
post #7

> TLDR; Extension that bypasses YouTube ads, and is fully undetectable by their system. Works on every browser out there, with Safari support on the way. All links are at the bottom of the post Undetectable is not true, "works on every browser out there" is also not true > I am not seeking any money or fame But you included both buymeacoffee and patreon links in the extension descriptions, repo readme and website, li…

Some people were reporting their google account being banned for using adblockers, is not happening or are you not logged in?

Re: AdSkipper – free and open source tool that you love

#10
post #7

> TLDR; Extension that bypasses YouTube ads, and is fully undetectable by their system. Works on every browser out there, with Safari support on the way. All links are at the bottom of the post Undetectable is not true, "works on every browser out there" is also not true > I am not seeking any money or fame But you included both buymeacoffee and patreon links in the extension descriptions, repo readme and website, li…

Some people were reporting their google account being banned for using adblockers, is not happening or are you not logged in?

I'm logged in, no bans
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