Ad block uninstalls surge following YouTube ban

[Shawn Knight]

In a nutshell: YouTube recently ratcheted up its fight against ad blockers, launching a global effort to stop users from sidestepping ads on its platform. Early reports indicate the campaign is having an impact although the overall effectiveness – at least at this stage – is negligible.

AdGuard, an ad-blocking provider with an install base of around 75 million users, told Wired that between October 9 and the end of the month, uninstalls topped around 11,000 per day and spiked at about 52,000 on October 18. Normally, the company sees around 6,000 uninstalls of its Chrome extension each day.

Krzysztof Modras, director of product and engineering at ad block developer Ghostery, said they experienced three to five times the typical daily number of uninstalls and installs across much of October, which worked out to roughly flat usage.

Modras said the overwhelming majority of users that completed a survey when uninstalling cited the tool's failure to block ads on YouTube as the reason for removing it. Even more interesting is the fact that Ghostery saw installations on Edge increase 30 percent in October compared to the previous month, suggesting users are desperate to find a workaround to YouTube's blocker ban.

At AdLock, another ad blocking provider, daily installs and uninstalls were about 30 percent higher than normal in October.

One thing is for certain – the battle has just begun. As YouTube bolsters its ad blocker blocking technology, engineers will work to find a way to circumvent it. It's no different than malware creators and the companies that strive to protect web users – a constant back-and-forth battle to have the upper hand.

YouTube currently has the advantage, in part because of its limited rollout. Since its blocker blockade hasn't rolled out to all users, it's actually slowing down efforts to thwart (if you can't trigger the block on your end, how can you even start to devise a workaround?).

YouTube's solution for those that don't want to see ads is to pay $13.99 per month for its ad-free service, YouTube Premium.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/100765-ad-block-uninstalls-surge-following-youtube-ban.html

 

[winjer]

I think UBlock Origin installs are up.

 

[m4a4]

I mean, yeah. If they weren't working on Youtube, why would you keep it? Is anyone actually surprised that people are adblock hopping?

uBlock Origin has done a fine job blocking YT's attempts. I have yet to see any prompt from them about my (selective) blocking of ads.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

The fact that ghostery, which has been suspect in its efficacy the last few months, is seeing a huge surge in uninstalls isnt surprising at all. Everyone downloaded it, saw it didnt work, and got rid of it.

 

[MasterMace]

This is why you multi-layer your adblocking. DNS, Firewall, and Addon.

 

[Dimitriid]

This is a battle that has been going on for literal decades so I'm not exactly sure why Google things they can win this time around: Let's say they do find an impenetrable way to still serve ads, even though it's just not going to happen. You know what I would do? I'd just go watch something on some of the streaming services I already pay for which would be Netflix, Prime video and things inside Prime like HBO and probably Mubi pretty soon and last but not least, Nebula for long form youtube-specific videos.

I'll just keep paying for those and lose my down time watching something else before I ever give youtube a single cent, out of principle: I refuse to be intimidated even if they think they can play a game with chicken with me, they're the ones that are way more vulnerable: even if I still wanted to tolerate ads inside my content I'd stick to stuff I already tolerate ads with like Spotify, Amazon Music or Twitch (For streamers I'm not subscribed to) before I just decided to also ad Youtube to my monthly bills: I'VE HAD ENOUGH of everyone trying to get into my wallet as it is and paying for something like HBO seems like a much better idea than paying Google for their algorithm to promote fascists anyway.

 

[wuz2blu]

I just use Brave browser to view YouTube. No ads in sight and no issues whatsoever so far.

 

[yRaz]

Google is attracting the attention of the EU because their adblock detection goes into Spyware territory

 

[digibluez]

I asked youtube to stop showing useless ad literally every time on my main page, content was only : if you watch this I give you 1000$, tye told me its fine and refused to remove it, updated my adblocker and now its gone, FU tube and their intent of not regulating any ads, its total garbage, same mobile game **** ad, and then they wonder why people use adblockers

 

[RandomWAN]

"YouTube currently has the advantage, in part because of its limited rollout. Since its blocker blockade hasn't rolled out to all users, it's actually slowing down efforts to thwart (if you can't trigger the block on your end, how can you even start to devise a workaround?)."

YouTube's only advantage is the normies lack of knowledge or capabilities. The efforts to thwart YouTube blocking aren't being slowed down. Between UBlock Origin or the appropriate custom filters, it's being blocked just fine. I don't even have to do anything special to not see ads or these popups on my mobile browser.

The only way YouTube ever wins this fight is by becoming a paywall model and they'll just end up losing anyway when their number of users tank if they go that route.

I just use Brave browser to view YouTube. No ads in sight and no issues whatsoever so far.

You likely haven't gotten hit by it yet if you don't have the blocking elements added to your Brave. I run Brave and I had to add the appropriate blocked elements to my custom filters to prevent the popups.

 

[return]

Ublock origin works fine here for many years.

 

[wuz2blu]

"YouTube currently has the advantage, in part because of its limited rollout. Since its blocker blockade hasn't rolled out to all users, it's actually slowing down efforts to thwart (if you can't trigger the block on your end, how can you even start to devise a workaround?)."

YouTube's only advantage is the normies lack of knowledge or capabilities. The efforts to thwart YouTube blocking aren't being slowed down. Between UBlock Origin or the appropriate custom filters, it's being blocked just fine. I don't even have to do anything special to not see ads or these popups on my mobile browser.

The only way YouTube ever wins this fight is by becoming a paywall model and they'll just end up losing anyway when their number of users tank if they go that route.



You likely haven't gotten hit by it yet if you don't have the blocking elements added to your Brave. I run Brave and I had to add the appropriate blocked elements to my custom filters to prevent the popups.

Thank you for the heads up. I will look into what I will need to add to my filters.

 

[Padge007]

I think this is a load of **** Adguard working like a charm if you know how to set it up

 

[brucek]

Re: YouTube, the optimal setup seems to be a single effective adblocker. Having additional adblockers installed actually hurts you, because YouTube's mechanisms might be triggered by their presence meaning they hurt more than they help. Thus the metric may have the opposite net meaning than you might first think - it may mean that more users are more successfully blocking ads on YouTube by reducing the number of ad blockers installed to just one effective one.

 

[kiwigraeme]

For people saying not hit in Brave - that may be - but don't think anyone gets hit if not logged in for subs etc and curated feed

You can always check your theory on another browser - same as incognito Chrome - not logged in - no adverts last time I checked a couple of weeks ago

They hit NZ fairly early on - I don't see any adverts for a long time - ad blocker , plus I blocked certain pop up elements - last one mentioned was a full screen black one

YT should try for a middleground - at 15 second advert - for a few dollars a month - maybe a few skippable after 5 seconds

The thing is not sure us older adblockers on YT are actually good targets for adverts , unless highly curated and a great deal - as we know what we want - and if we wanted it - probably would have brought it

Least on phones - someone playing a game - gets an advert for a game - kind of makes sense

 

[Marco Mint]

I don't get youtube ads and I wont be getting any youtube ads in future because if I ever did, I simply wouldn't watch the videos in the conventional manner. I do have a plan for if my current method of avoiding ads ever gets circumvented and it wouldn't be possible to stop it.
Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies!

 

[human7]

Where the pain will be potentially the greatest is if YT ties their adblocking detection technology to a logged in account, where they shut down your account after they suspect you are using a blocker, and then they force you to log in to watch their videos. That's kind of the nuclear option that YT has. Hopefully they don't go there, because I'm blocking ads and I'm not gonna stop.

 

[VaRmeNsI]

If they were smart they'd add a $3 up to 1080p no ads option.

 

[trparky]

I have a lifetime license of AdGuard and have yet to see any issues with YouTube. I have to keep my filter sets up to date but other than that, no issues.

If they didn't charge so d**m much for YouTube Premium, I'd sign up for it. However, what they're asking for is a complete ripoff.

 

[toooooot]

Where the pain will be potentially the greatest is if YT ties their adblocking detection technology to a logged in account, where they shut down your account after they suspect you are using a blocker, and then they force you to log in to watch their videos. That's kind of the nuclear option that YT has. Hopefully they don't go there, because I'm blocking ads and I'm not gonna stop.

I have already accepted that this at some point will happen. I intent to watch my channels not logged in.
But just like many other said, if they for serious find a way to make every viewer to watch their horrendous ads, then maybe my YT addiction will be healed. One thing I am firm on is I will not watch their ads.

 

[MaXtor]

I wouldn't watch Youtube without uBlock Origin, Sponsorblock, and BlockTube.

uBlock Origin blocks ads.

Sponsorblock autoskips in-video sponsorships.

BlockTube allows you to completely hide any video or entire channel altogether. I use BlockTube to block all corporate, political and big media channels which have taken over Youtube the last 5 or so years.

My Youtube feels a lot more like Youtube of 10+ years ago, it's great.

 

[Atmajaya2020]

The choice I have is "to use an many ad blockers" or "not to use an ad blocker and get YouTube Premium"..
it seems like the choice is clear to me..

 

[Mr Majestyk]

I'm having zero issues with blocking ads for last 10 days. I had the pop-ups for a few days 2 weeks or so ago and it appears my extensions have been updated to combat Google.

I wouldn't even pay $1.99 per month for YT Premium, let alone the $19.99 in Australia they want.

 

[Athlonite]

If you get hit while using uBlock Origin do these simple things to scr*w YT out of showing ads again
1: Close the YT tab
2: open uB's dashboard
3: Click on Filter Lists
4: Click Purge all Caches
5: Click Update All or Update Now when done close the dashboard tab
6: Open YT and ya ads should not be shown along with YT's stupid anti adblock popup

 

[gamerk2]

If you get hit while using uBlock Origin do these simple things to scr*w YT out of showing ads again
1: Close the YT tab
2: open uB's dashboard
3: Click on Filter Lists
4: Click Purge all Caches
5: Click Update All or Update Now when done close the dashboard tab
6: Open YT and ya ads should not be shown along with YT's stupid anti adblock popup

Exactly this. Had to manually update Ublock Origin twice the past week, but other then the 5 seconds to do that, no ads whatsoever.