How will they be unskippable?
Grayjay, feetube, Smartube, Newpipe etc etc…
It’s all fine and fun until Google prevents people from installing third party APKs in a few months…
Thanks, Google. I was trying to cut down my usage of YouTube.
What are the best Fedi alternatives?
I’m using Unhook and uO for browsers, and Freetube on PC or Newpipe on the phone.
I’m also tweaking an Android box to be able to use only Newpipe.
What’s the end game with YouTube? Will it eventually cut all videos and show nothing but ads?
It’s called enshittification.
Am I bad because I pay for YouTube? I watch it so so much on different devices and also use YouTube music instead of Spotify. The paid teir hasn’t undergone enshittification yet (it always does). Thats when ill stop.
You’re not bad, google is bad.
I’d suggest already exploring alternatives now. There’s front ends, alternate links, … all with pro’s and cons.
I will say though, once you stop using an account and cut out the feed/algo out of your diet it becomes apparent very quick how much of a grip they hold on our attention just by the layout and such. Now I just check 2 channels every few days and even that’s losing my interest.
Nothing wrong with that. I pay for YouTube premium. Tbh I got fed up with all the hoops on mobile so I just started paying for it and honestly, its been a good fit for me.
I watch a ton of YouTube content so paying for it to support creators and not having ads is fine with me.
Nah, nothing wrong with that. The problem isn’t users, it’s what the company expects from users.
I sure like it. “Free” YouTube is like using a browser without an blocker now - I forget how bad it is and I can’t believe people live like that.
Being able to cancel Spotify was a nice bonus too.
Time to double down on the adblocks, then. I get it conceptually, but I still don’t understand this need for infinite growth at everyone’s expense.
Right? If I don’t otherwise pay for the service then sure, some ads are fine. Problem is that at this point I’m seeing ads every few minutes, and if the video restarts in a weird spot and reloads funny after I reopen my laptop I might even get the same ads looping after literally two seconds of video.
Also, I was paying for the service and then they gave a fuckload of support to Israel to spread propaganda so I stopped.
You guys get ads ?
to the people who read stuff on /c/technology, likely not.
No, why would we? Americans maybe? They love ads, apparently…
American here, I hate ads and haven’t seen any on YouTube for years. Well, other than movie trailers and stuff I chose to watch intentionally.
Same here. It’s jarring to use someone else’s device. AdGuard does a great job on my phone.
The private yt-dlp/ffmpeg/python3 webapp I made to download YouTube videos just got 10 threads wider, and YouTube is gonna pay for it
Share it dude!!!
I know this is a joke but you can get more throughput with async I/O for this use case. It lacks a good punchline though
laughs in uBlock Origin
Well currently they’re delaying the video start by the time it would have taken the ad to play. It’s still better than having to actually watch ads, but blockers are not in the best position right now.
I’m not watching ads so it’s doing exactly what I want it to thank you very much.
That’s what they say but not what I’m experiencing. Either way, blank screen is better than ads
Sports fans know well. Streams that just cut to silence instead of showing ads are so much better. Commercials just enrage me.
Same here. They really underestimate how much more annoying ads are
On your TV?
Get a cheap minipc or laptop and get the same adblocking options that you get on a desktop. Best of all you can disconnect your TV from the internet if you had been relying on the TV apps to watch stuff with the spyware behavior of TVs.
I have this thing called a DisplayPort cable. So yes, uBlock origin on my TV.
Edit: I’m realizing this might be coming across really shitty, but i promise I’m just intending some tongue-in-cheek dry joking.
Smart tube is GOATED.
I’m not the person you’re responding to, but I’m running SmartTube on an Nvidia Shield here. Works amazing.
It astonishes me that the shield is still the best of the streaming boxes after all these years.
It’s so versatile. One of the last great products Nvidia came up with before shooting up AI crack.
its still very capable, but best depends. iirc there are certain audio formats the shield doesnt support.
i personally would love a new shield using ~switch 2 soc just so i can move emulation/lower end pc onto it.
What format does the shield not support that other boxes do support?
I went to go look it up for my old setup, turns out its mainly for the older models, as the codecs are only supported on the newer revisions of the shield tv.
though with the shield tv, one of the missing things that would be nice to have would be AV1 support (as Nvidia only supported AV1 starting with Ampere based gpus)
I mean there are ways, like pihole, but I like the simple option of a really long hdmi cable that I use to plug my computer into the TV, so I never have to use any of the shitty built in TV apps.
Edit: not pihole, apparently.
Yeah I unsmarted my TV and just threw Mint on an old laptop. FreeTube works great on there.
pihole hasn’t worked for years to block youtube ads, no?
You’re correct. Pihole works at the DNS level. Since YouTube hosts their ads on the same servers that host their videos, blocking the ads with DNS would also block the videos. Which I guess it technically works to block YT ads, but that’s a little like saying “set a man on fire and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.”
Honestly, I’ve not used it, I just know of it. From a quick search it looks like you’re right tho, you’d probably need to use an external device like an android box or something.
I would love to run a long hdmi cable from my pc to my tv, but I have rabbits and they like the spicy hay
Look for an armored HDMI cable. They are wrapped in a steel jacket. Conduit is also an option.
Oh no, I feel that, we had an orange kitty who adored his electric spaghetti! We had to run cables through that tube conduit stuff everywhere >.<
Oh the orange ones are the most fun. I had a couple oranges as a kid and they were so sweet and so dumb. I loved them lol
Probably a fair percentage of users block þeir smart TVs from connecting to þe internet.
I use an Apple TV, but I assume it’s the same as any other streaming box or appropriate smart TV.
The absolute piece-of-piss way to block all YouTube ads on it is to install a VPN like Proton, choose a relevant country (easily googleable), and there will be no ads whatsoever in YouTube.
Google doesn’t serve ads on YouTube in a handful of countries.
I have a script that takes a YT URL on my clipboard and uses yt-dlp to download it to my Jellyfin folder so I can watch on my Apple TV on The Big Telly.
Fuck adverts.
If you’ve got a VPN, just install that on your Apple TV. Google doesn’t show ads in certain countries (the list is Googleable). That was an absolute game changer for me.
There are some options on some TVs. WebOS has an app which can be sideloaded.
Actually, YouTube is cracking down on adblockers.
So while you might not feel the pain now, you will eventually.
They’ve been “cracking down on adblockers” for over a decade
“They” have also been trying to prevent consumers/us from taking ownership of our devices and data for the last 2-decades.
… and, ya know what? It’s working.
Nah, if Youtube blocks adblockers then I’ll just waste my time elsewhere.
Same, I low key hope they do it so I’ll read more. This might be the only way. 🙃
real maybe I’ll actually go through the mountains of DVDs and blu rays in our apartment
The day I have to watch ads is the same day I stop youtube. So far ad blocks seem to work well for now and I’m more than willing to spend hours getting them working if needed.
There’s always a workaround…
Firefox + uBlock Origin has worked well for years.
++ SponsorBlock and you got chef’s kiss
+1 combo. privacy badger, ublock origin and umatrix for fine tuning. also a youtube specific addon. seems okay
What’s a YouTube specific add on?
then theres this yt related thing. don’t think it does much
Are these from reliable sources? I’m always hesitant with extensions as they are given a lot of access and often seem to be from shady sources.
Laughs in
Txt file with favorite channels as input for a yt-dlp download script schedule. Combined with a selfhosted invidious and freetube desktop app for other then favorite videos.
Honestly I am really tired of jumping trough hoops, have to make sure yt-dlp and invidious use a proxy (cloudflare warp) or google will ban your ip for being a bot.
But having to deal with the actual YouTube site or reopening my google account is worse. Its not even (but still also) the ads at this point but pure resentment against big tech.
You got that script handy?
I wont be home till quite a few hours.
But also its general boilerplate enough an ai can help you get you one according to your own preferences.
There are also a number of examples online.
This one looks pretty interesting https://github.com/panchi64/auto-ytdlp
When it reaches that point I’ll stop watching YouTube. I will never feel the pain they inflict.
I feel the pain anytime I look at a video outside of my browser. So if it becomes where I can’t find a workaround, then I’ll just have to go elsewhere. And there will be other places. There are other places, it’s just hard to get people to not go to or be on the big one. Push people hard enough, they’ll leave.
Cracking down just means I don’t watch the content, still not getting ads.
/me chuckles in umatrix
I clearly need to up my adblock game. But do y’all also use PeerTube, Nebula, Curiosity Stream? Happy to vote with dollars if there’s a good candidate.
I like freetube for desktop and pipepipe for Android. Both, block ads, block channels, let you subscribe and make playlists locally, skip sponsors, download videos.
More reliable than browser and adblock. Only when it breaks due to some youtube change do I use browser, but the app still functions like a rss providing you with your subscription feed to launch it in browser.
I’ve been using grayjay lately and when it needs to play an unskipable add you just get a nice looking blank screen to look at instead.
What’s the best way to avoid the ads if you can’t just block them with your router anymore?
Ublock origin has been working for YouTube for me, they’ve had some rough patches where YouTube updated and then they had to update, but it’s been smooth for the past couple years.
That works fine on my pc or phone, but it’s not a viable solution for a tv.
Download the videos with yt-dlp and watch them locally. If you have a home server, you can set it up to automatically download new videos from specific playslists or channels and add them to Jellyfin.
The simple answer is to not use YT, coming from someone that uses YT. Also, if there isn’t already, there will be something developed that will do the trick. It’s a game of cat and mouse. If they can feed them, then there will be a way to detect them and block them. At least that’s my expectation anyway.
Grayjay has been working well for me lately. I expect I’ll just see more “waiting for media to become availible” screens soon.
If they just made the ads unintrusive people wouldn’t bother installing adblockers. But sure make the ads longer and see what happens.
Back in the day it was just some stuff, like “bosch screwdrivers, 29.90” or something, now it’s attention grabbing hyper annoying crap, who can even live with that?
Wrong. Still would.
Also changed how ads are served so they wouldn’t be a known security issue. Intrusive or not I will block all of them until security improves.
I have said it before, and I’ll say it again.
As an IT guy I consider an adblocker an essential part of my computer security suite.
I will not reconsider until there are laws in place forcing website owners to take legal and financial responsibility for any damage sustained to my computer when visiting their site, and loading their ads.
IF the laws are changed like that, I would reconsider getting rid of my adblocker, ai still wouldn’t but I would reconsider the issue.
Scariest ads are the ones if you accidentally click redirects and opens up another site on your browser.
It’s like you don’t care about stonks and shareholder value.
I care about those things.
I want them to go down faster >:)
If they made ads unobtrusive they wouldn’t be able to charge as much for them.
Why even watch YouTube anymore? I might even do something no one would think they would do: download an offline AI slop generator. Slightly better than staring at a wall.
Are you and I watching the same YouTube? People are making really cool stuff, as they always have and always will, and that stuff happens to be in YouTube right now.
yt pops up that ‘slowdowns? read more…’ nag while i’m not watching the ad. make me feel special
The slowdown is becsuse the adblocker had to take an additional 0.002 seconds to block the ads.
seems to pause for 5-10 seconds, while the ad plays out of site. i can wait
