YouTube shuts down ad-blocker loophole, tightens restrictions

[midian182]

A hot potato: YouTube is once again cracking down on those who use ad blockers. The Google-owned company has been implementing measures to combat third-party extensions for years, and it has just closed a loophole that allowed the likes of Firefox to circumvent these protections.

YouTube's fight against ad blockers began with an experiment in May 2023, when it started warning users that ad blockers were not allowed on the site. Since then, the campaign has evolved to the point where YouTube prevents ad-blocker users from playing videos.

Despite YouTube's efforts, there have been loopholes allowing apps such as Firefox and various extensions to continue bypassing ads without YouTube detecting the practice.

Unfortunately for those who had been exploiting these workarounds, YouTube now appears to have closed them down. 9to5Google reports that many users are once again seeing warnings stating that ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube, and that they are violating YouTube's terms of service.

According to the many Reddit posts discussing the latest change, not everyone is being affected – at least not yet. It appears those in Southeast Asia and Europe are still managing to avoid YouTube's ads using the same ad-blocking methods. It could be that YouTube is slowly rolling out the update globally.

This crackdown is just the latest one from YouTube. Expect a new way to avoid ads to appear in due course, at which point the company will find a way to stop it, continuing the unending game of whack-a-mole.

It was only in March that YouTube introduced a new anti-ad-blocker policy to push viewers back to watching ads. It affected those using Opera GX with the uBlock Origin extension. There were also some instances of Firefox users seeing the warnings at the time.

YouTube offers users two options in their warning banners: disable the ad-blocker or try YouTube Premium for an ad-free experience. The standard premium subscription is $14 per month. There's also Premium Lite, which offers ad-free viewing for most videos (though they are coming to Shorts), for $8 per month.

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YouTube shuts down ad-blocker loophole, tightens restrictions

 

[vicsrealms]

Hmm, all I did was empty mach cache and restarted the browser and it has worked fine.

 

[yRaz]

They also keep raising the price of YouTube Premium. IIRC, it was only like $5 when it came out which was perfectly acceptable. However, I can see they'd rather spend millions trying to play cat and mouse with Ad-Blockers than lower their prices to attract users to subscribe. Their biggest issue is that youtube has been free and ad-blocker friendly for so long that it has become expected that this is just the way things should be.

The worst part is that youtube doesn't "pay" for content. It's all user generated and pay-outs to content creators has been going DOWN for over a decade. Youtube has become so cheap with their payouts that creators have started to need sponsors and other platflorms like Patreon to make money.

Anyway, I'm in the US and I use Firefox with ublock origin and I haven't been impacted yet. Maybe it's something to do with using Linux?

 

[Vulcanproject]

Blockers still largely work after updates on Chrome. Change your browser to alternatives like Brave, and of course if you like your current browser a very easy way around ads is just use a VPN to a country that typically doesn't serve ads

 

[dangh]

Unfortunately there is no alternative for YT, they are total monopoly there. I got a premium as I can't have kids watching the ads all the time, it is already difficult to control what do they see there as parental control is obviously a joke there. It is pissing me off, especially with the price increases, but what could we do.

Btw, if you still use add blocker and stuff, google how to use the custom DNS to get rid of all ads at all no matter what browser do you use. And while you're on it, check the FUTO sovereign cloud...

 

[Kirby1]

Ublock on edge, still working just fine.

 

[magoid]

I even would think to watch the damn ads, if YT wasn't such ***holes, screwing content creators financially and changing their rules at random (at the same time keeping those rules ambiguous), to screw creators even more.

The way they are now, I would rather migrate to other platforms than watch their precious ads. I turn off my adblocker for sites I respect (including you Techspot), but for Google, they can go pound sand.

 

[RudyBob]

"YouTube is once again cracking down on those who use ad blockers." They cracked down on me, bugger.

The ads would not be so bad if they weren't bad and woke. What are ya gonna do?

 

[RudyBob]

Blockers still largely work after updates on Chrome. Change your browser to alternatives like Brave, and of course if you like your current browser a very easy way around ads is just use a VPN to a country that typically doesn't serve ads

Brave has been very good but it no longer works for me

 

[wiyosaya]

Not affecting Waterfox with uBlock.

 

[redgarl]

Brave has been very good but it no longer works for me

Mine was still working as yesterday.

The day I will be forced to watch ads for youtube videos, will be my last day on the platform. I will even delete my profile.

 

[Kirby1]

Brave has been very good but it no longer works for me

User error

The ads would not be so bad if they weren't bad and woke.

Another master class comment from the guy who always has such great things to say and is in no way the dumbest and intentionally most annoying person on this entire website.

Everyone should put this guy on ignore. He is literally a troll, but not a smart one.

 

[m4a4]

Last week I saw 1 warning, it closed by clicking off of it, and nothing since.

Youtube isn't winning this arms race (as long as they allow free access).

 

[opckieran]

More than happy to continue successfully blocking ads from WokeTube. Google has threatened crackdowns on ad-blockers for years and I have yet to experience it.

 

[letsgoiowa]

My preference would be that we migrate to something like Odysee but people won't actually follow through.
I don't know what people expect though: do they really think they can stream 4K/60 FPS videos for hours a day for free? Do they think uploading petabytes of data a minute doesn't cost anything? Paying for it is the most ethical option, but YT keeps changing arbitrary rules to punish on ideological basis.

 

[yRaz]

My preference would be that we migrate to something like Odysee but people won't actually follow through.
I don't know what people expect though: do they really think they can stream 4K/60 FPS videos for hours a day for free? Do they think uploading petabytes of data a minute doesn't cost anything? Paying for it is the most ethical option, but YT keeps changing arbitrary rules to punish on ideological basis.

With youtube compression their 4k60 hardly counts at 1080p

 

[HAZERD2]

Brave has been very good but it no longer works for me

I use brave and it definately works

Anyway, I'm in the US and I use Firefox with ublock origin and I haven't been impacted yet. Maybe it's something to do with using Linux?

Maybe, I'm on linux and it works fine