Ive been using adblockers, piped and other tools for so long that i dont even remember what the last time was when i saw a youtube ad.
Same… And if they ever successfully make it impossible to avoid, I’ll just stop watching YouTube
Hard to do if you watch directly from your TV using some dongle and don’t know or can’t modify your router to block ads.
SmartTube is on AndroidTV
Kodi can be installed through the play store, you can transfer files over smb and ftp and move the apk using it.
You’re welcome.
Excuses:
I use a Roku or Roku TV
Don’t, buy a $25 Android TV box from walmart.
I use AppleTV
Don’t, buy a $25 Android TV box from walmart.
FTP? SMB? Apk? What are these, words?!
These terms can be searched for and learned about.
Why not just use Kodi?
You’re ahead of the game, find a plugin pack and enjoy
I highly recommend creators to upload videos to another site as well.
what other sites are there to use?
true
Here is every single way I can think of to block YouTube ads:
uBlock Origin + Firefox
NewPipe on Android
Libretube on Android
uYou+ on iOS
FreeTube on *NIX and Windows
yt-dlp + mpv
YouTube Revanced
Invidious self hosting
Piped self hosting
And finally, last and definitely least
YouTube Premium
Donate to the creators who make content. Google does not deserve a penny of your hard earned money.
SmartTube for Android TV devices
Absolutely. And they update pretty quickly when YouTube breaks something.
I read that Google is rolling out some ads on premium so that might need to get removed from your list.
Amazon Premium started this trend. They’re shameless.
I believe you’re thinking of premium lite, or whatever they call it.
Correct. If they ever roll out ads on premium, I’m not sure what we’ll do. Maybe figure out a new platform or a new way to watch.
You should add Brave on iOS to the list. Never seen any ad with Brave.
There’s also Pipeline for *nix (and possibly Windows, but I didn’t bother to check.)
Then stop using youtube. It sucks ever since googol bought it. Haven’t used it since.
That is right thinking. I admire that.
I second Freetube. Not a perfect app (think it’s Chromium based), but it gets the job done and they’re pretty good about updating it pretty quickly whenever YT successfully breaks it.
Occasionally I try the YouTube watch together thing on discord with my SO, and it really shows just how completely unusable YouTube is without an ad blocker.
The only ads I see are on a local sports podcast. The advertisers are all local businesses. From restaurants to local credit unions. And those I’m fine with.
I haven’t seen an ad on Youtube in several years, thanks to uBlock Origin.
Same, also revanced on Android
Or newpipe… Or pipepipe.
Or Freetube on pc, a FOSS desktop client
Or Tubular
Ssshhh…
I was using libre tube for a while and that broke.
What’s the best link for revanced?
You have to patch it yourself, sorry.
Youtube APK: https://www.apkmirror.com/wp-content/themes/APKMirror/download.php?id=8859989&key=ed463ff40f33fca91601472e78686e6bd92bf430&forcebaseapk=true (Download this)
ReVanced Manager: https://github.com/ReVanced/revanced-manager/releases/download/v1.24.0/revanced-manager-1.24.0.apk (Patch the Youtube APK with this)
Best link is to look up the Reddit page to find their links in the info bar. We shouldn’t be posting links here, or we might very well lose the privilege once Google catches on…
Love libretube but it just wouldn’t play videos consistently. Ended up moving to grayjay
I find funny, that after watching YouTube for not over an hour, my ublock icon already says >1k
Yeah, close to probably 10 years for me.
I’ve been ad-free youtubing since it came out in '06 or whenever that was. It’s a shame that they disabled uBlock on Chrome, I used to really enjoy my chromebook before it became spam cancer
there is mv3 version of ubo here:
https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-homedunno how well it works on yt, though. i use dlp on a pc for the time or two a month i ‘need to’ look at a yt vid.
adguard’s free browser extension is also mv3 compliant (for chrome). i think the old adblockplus (disable ‘acceptable ads’ and ignore offer to ‘upgrade’ to a paid version) is, too.
“Not as well as uBlock Origin” is the answer to that.
I got warnings to disable my ad blocker on my Chromebook recently, but did not get the same on my Linux desktop using Firefox.
I really ought to get away from the default software on the Chromebook (Firefox via Crouton or Android or something), but it didn’t work well last time I tried.
Is there support for blocking individual elements of a page in v3 version of uBlock Origin? (I won’t be surprised if it lacked it). I usually block various other elements of page like useless headers/footers/comment sections on some sites I routinely visit on Firefox.
Yeah, I used ABP for a while and got occasional ads, didn’t discover uBO til later.
I have seen 2 ads on Youtube in several years because Youtube revanced ad blocking didnt work twice
Browsing YouTube like the good old dayz
uBlock Origin intensifies
They’re blocking it actively now. For me, it requires a tampermonkey script to bypass the blocker check in Firefox.
There’s some A/B testing going on, for sure. My ublock origin on Firefox has never had issues
Enjoy it!
I have no issues on Firefox or Brave. I never see ads.
Whenever that happens, the heroes in the ublock team does push a new fix in a few hours.
Ublock Origin on Firefox With Sponsorblock is the answer.
Edit: Mispelling, fuck autocorrection
And ReVanced on Android, SmartTubeNext on Android TV.
I think it’s back to just SmartTube. SmartTubeNext was a temporary thing to get SmartTube back on track iirc.
I am fairly certain SmartTubeNext was a rebrand by the same dev.
I like Tubular and/or Seal(a yt-dlp wrapper) on Android and don’t use a TV, but yeah, anything but the actual YouTube app is probably better.
How do you unlock origin? I have been blocking it thinking it caused the ads
It’s a typo, they mean the ad blocking software uBlock Origin.
I guess I need someone to explain it to me, because they even fixed their typo.
The RandomVideos is joking, not z3rOR0ne
I am already blocking origin, i was asking how i unlock it
Ask ChatGPT and get back to us with the answer.
ChatGPT will give me wrong information as always
WHY DONT WE HAVE A MAINSTREAM ALTERNATIVE YET
By operating youtube at a loss for many years Google acted anticompetitively to kill competition or stop competition arising. Now that they’ve achieved that they can do what they like. Don’t feel bad using ad blockers against this anti-capitalist company.
Final stage of enshittification, now they are allowing more right wing propaganda than normal on the channel
And suppression of comments, for all sorts of reasons. Words and phrases will constantly flag AI autoremoval.
I am in no way defending YouTube here, but how did it act anticompetitively?
FYI, this is currently happening with Uber.
I never felt bad abt that for a second. Like the thought never crossed my kind XD FUCK YOUTUBE!
Hosting and storage costs, few can afford to be an alternative to an absolutely gigantic video storage platform that costs obscene money to maintain.
I am causing a netloss to googs. I don’t pay for Google plus or whatever, and j don’t view their fucking ads. Win win if you ask me.
It was fun to thumb my nose at Google while it lasted I guess, maybe if they were less amoral then I’d be less belligerent toward them.
you found your way to lemmy but you don’t know about https://peertube.tv/ ;)
Sure, a service that manages an infinitely smaller amount of content and complexity. It is a situational tool, hardly a YouTube killer… the banner presented on the homepage professes that it’s expensive to run and please donate.
https://fediverse.party/en/peertube/ << before you complain understand the technology behind. Everyone can basically provide a instance and it’s decentral. As more people participate / as more instances are provide as better for all and as cheaper. If you really want to step away from services like youtube and want to have it sustainable (aka not depending on business) than it’s your best choice. If you just want someone else to have the saying and replace one company with another good luck.
I’m complaining, I’m stating.
People get proccupied with emulating YT, which is indeed cost prohibitive. But that response assumes one is emulating all of it. What about only pursuing sections of it to cater to particular audiences? Serving 100% of YT’s video might be too much even for Amazon (for example) but what about 1%?
Why couldn’t Amazon host Booktube? And the manga/anime enthusiasts and other varietes of weebs to go along with them? They already own ebook retail. A VOD service to chip off some of YT’s viewership would be a more productive investment than The Rings of Power…
A YT competitor needs a bit of scale, sure, but not as much as YT itself. A fraction will do.
I believe the main cost is in hosting all the videos. A lot of them are probably junk that were never meant to see the light of day. I certainly use it as an extra backup for many of my videos with no context and random UUID titles.
For everything else, a potential solution is to have everyone come in with their own videos hosted elsewhere and the platform just integrated with a bunch of APIs for fetching and serving those videos. For small time creators, the cost should be fairly low to none since a lot of platforms allow you to store a small number of files for free.
OK, so a bittorrent tracker site with a video player built in with comments underneath and you can get perks from content creators for seeding. Then of course some kind of voting system and etc. Then a creator can just get a seed box to start hosting their own videos.
We do, but you probably don’t like it (TikTok).
You’re right :)
I meant idk something like Oddysse (but a website with actual moderation)
Do you know of PeerTube? It’s not mainstream at all either, but it seems more known to me.
It’s also in the fediverse, and isn’t accused of the same moderation issues (though idk if PeerTube is really better than Odyssee at moderation, I suppose it’s just a difference in policy).
Edit: I read a bit about it, and I can see I was wrong about Odyssee being less known than PeerTube. It’s strange, I never heard of it, but anyway. Odyssee also includes some crypto bullshit, so yeah…
It’s a very difficult business model to make profitable without an already massive userbase. In fact, I think YT was actually losing money for Google for a while after they bought it. I could be misremembering though.
Yes but not everything needs to make a profit, just not make a loss. Also it could be community supported with donations and stuff:)
YouTube was operating at a loss under Google for years. The only reason it is able to exist is because a massive entity like Google was able to absorb that without folding, and keep providing a free service until it becomes profitable (is it even yet? I’m not sure).
I mean fuck Google, and yes a big enough non-profit (or even government) could do it (probably better), but unfortunately that’s not the world we live in right now.
Hmmm maybe I’ll just learn to read finally.
The neurolinks will patch that loophole soon.
“Please keep focused for this brief ad from our sponsor, your information handling session will resume shortly”
I’ve been meaning to check out this “nature” thing, or whatever it’s called. It’s basically like, just lakes and woods and the sky and all kinda weird shit like that. Supposed to be pretty cool I guess, idk
I heard the graphics are really good. And the framerates extremely high. But there are mosquitoes so it’s probably not worth it.
You mean like desktop backgrounds IRL? 🤯
Sorry, pardon?
Try it!
💪🤓
Dunno, why learn to read, everything is already on the internet
Youtube has ads?
Only for the paying customers, apparently. Crime pays, yarrr!
Blocking ads isn’t a crime .
Yet
That explains the adblocker crackdown and enshittification of paid. Funnily enough, this pattern got me to block ads.
You weren’t blocking ads before?
Ive been blocking youtube ads for like a year now. But when it was like one or two minutes every 10-20 I didn’t mind watching on an app that didn’t have ad block. It got worse and I got fed up.
Not the previous commenter but on mobile, a good few years ago I didnt block ads i didnt mind something skippable or a short interruption but they were just that very short and not in the way. I started going out of my way to block ads when they abused it
I’m not worried. The minute the ad blockers stop working I’ll finally be able to do something else with my time.
Most of YouTube is already a waste of time anyways.
Just like lemmy, yet here we are. Sometimes we need to waste some time.
It’s all about doing it in moderation and choosing carefully what we waste our time on. I would rather “waste” time reading a stupid book than go on Instagram or TikTok, where my mind gets trapped in a circle of emotions and algorithms.
☝️ And it works, I can confirm.
I should just read a book at this point
FreeTube on desktop, NewPipe on droid!
Smarttube on Android TV OS
Firefox and ublock on desktop works just as well.
I would disagree, you’re still directly communicating with YouTube servers without a proxy in-between. Invidious or Piped are the proxies you need, they let you blend in with the other users of their services making data-collection on YouTube’s part difficult.
We need to make feeding the algorithm as difficult as possible.
SmartTube on streaming devices!
Grayjay on desktop
Grayjay on Android
Anyone not blocking ads on YouTube needs to start blocking ads and sponsored content on YouTube.
I used enhancer but it seems the dev has stopped updating it for Firefox and only updating it for chrome.
Moved to Tweaks for YouTube and am quite happy with it so far; seems to also have more options.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tweaks-for-youtube/
