There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

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PSA To people watching YouTube with AdBlockers

You might have noticed that even on Firefox (depending on your lists) YouTube may detect uBlock Origin on Firefox now

There’s already a workaround (found, again, here), but I figured I would use this opportunity to tell people that projects like Piped and Invidious exist, which both allow you to watch YouTube without loading their ads, with improved Privacy and (in the case of Piped) even Geoblocking-Circumvention and SponsorBlock out of the box.

They’re both great tools, and using something like LibRedirect you can even automatically go to Piped or Invidious when clicking/opening a YouTube link (and more).

Both don’t load ads, but unless changed in the settings Individous may still make connections to Google/YouTube to load the video(s) themselves.

Bit of a shameless plug for these projects, but I figured this is a really good time to show these projects as I often see people asking what they are in threads on here

yoz ,

Thanks mate

kemsat ,

You know what also works? Paying for Premium… hate me if you want, but I end up watching like 10+ hours of YouTube a week, might as well pay for premium at that point.

chiliedogg ,

Yeah. Despite all the evil things Google does, saying “either pay for our product or watch ads” is kinda reasonable.

I pay for premium and it’s fine. I still run Vanced on my phone because I hate lots of other things about YouTube, but I’m okay with paying for a product I use every day.

kemsat ,

Thanks homie. People act like it’s soooo ridiculous to pay $16/month to more freely watch what you already watch…

Subverb ,

I pay for it too. Blocks ads really well.

wildn0x ,

I’ll take YouTube over any other streaming service. With how much I consume of Youtube, only felt right to pay. Practically my cable at this point.

Thorny_Insight ,

Watching youtube without ads is kind of like eating meat. I can’t morally justify my behavior, but I will keep doing it untill it becomes a real inconvenience. I can’t make a good faith argument about why youtube should serve me amazing video content for free.

killeronthecorner ,
@killeronthecorner@lemmy.world avatar

They had a $5 tier and removed it to force the people on it to watch ads.

People were literally paying and Google stopped them from doing so.

kemsat ,

Yeah, that’s true. I totally forgot about that

princessnorah ,
@princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

But don’t you know, they give you a whole streaming music service for free! /s

Psythik ,

That costs money, though.

ChiefSinner ,

Just always browse incognito/private. I haven’t gotten hit yet. I strive for a leave no cookies behind type browser.

Trail ,

That’s a setting in Firefox.

rush OP ,

Librewolf is Firefox configured with many privacy-related settings out of the box, uBlock Origin and it clears all data on exit by default.

Staiden ,

Thank you.

deweydecibel , (edited )

I will gladly accept my usual downvotes to remind people Sponsorblock is only hurting the content creators, not Google, and given there’s absolutely no threat of malware or tracking from a sponsored in-video ad, you have no need for it besides entitlement and a disrespect for the people that are already getting fucked over by Google in the first place.

librecat ,
@librecat@lemmy.basedcount.com avatar

I don’t know about you, but when I watch a video I’m not there to watch an ad.

Also don’t forget about the bad companies and scams (example: Established Titles).

xtremeownage ,

Sorry… watching a sponsored video for world of tanks for the 10th time, or simply safe, or whatever other garbage is there isn’t going to make me want to purchase it.

I value my time… If I didn’t use sponsor block, I’m still going to skip right past it… This, just does it for me.

macaroni1556 ,

Not being a youtuber I don’t know, but do sponsors even know that you’re using sponsorblock? How could they tell?

Morgikan ,
@Morgikan@lemm.ee avatar

I don’t think they can really. I don’t work in that stuff, but skipping isn’t included in YT analytics from what I’ve read. I would bet they rely on something like average view percentage to just make assumptions. For example, if a content creator places the sponsor bit in the first 10% of the video, and average view percentage for that video is 80%, then it is assumed the sponsor bit was watched. I wouldn’t be surprised if sponsors require some form of transparency in analytic reporting for content creators to get paid.

I also would figure that YouTube, as it has no bearing on their revenue, is probably not going to add in analytic features for Skip just for the sake of some third party.

SnipingNinja ,

Pretty sure you can see the parts people see more on average (otherwise I assume the viewer interest graph on the track bar wouldn’t be a thing)

DrVerlocher ,

And I still don’t give a damn! There are two scenarios in case of sponsors.

  1. The creator already got paid for the ad before the video. or
  2. The creator is payed by percentage of their affiliate link.

It doesn’t matter if I skip for number one, obviously. Number two could be an argument. But 99% of those sponsors are borderline scams anyway, so I really don’t care, because I will never buy something off a sponsorship like that. Not NordVPN (which still tracks you btw…), nor Raid, nor any other crap.

Additionally, SponsorBlock also gets rid of those annoying reminders to “like and subscribe” barely a second into the video, and other such annoyances like fillers or those dumb spoilers that show the best parts of the video right at the start.

SponsorBlock isn’t the issue. It is a symptom of Googles unfathomable greed and the creators/consumers collective Stockholm Syndrome. I value my time more, than hearing the same five sentences about World of Tanks, Raid or any other braindead “game” repeated 500 times.

The only sponsors I don’t skip are the ones from InternetHistorian. He at least puts effort in and makes it fun to watch.

seyrine ,

Agreed. If any content creator makes an effort in their ad spots (Jay Foreman, How to Drink, and the aforementioned Internet Historian) then that automatically gets whitelisted on sponsorblock.

And often the ads for stuff like Raid or similar stuff can be jarring, with the audio louder than the actual video or beginning with some random sound that “captures your attention”. Thank goodness for sponsorblock.

mayo ,
@mayo@lemmy.world avatar

Before I found sponsor block I would just lazily skip large sections of videos. The app is just more convenient.

CileTheSane ,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

YouTube: makes ads more and more intrusive.

People: block annoying intrusive ads.

This guy: “YoU’rE jUsT hUrTiNg ThE cReAtOr!”

Companies will keep making ads worse and worse until people stop putting up with it. I’m not going to put up with their bullshit so that the content creator can get 0.0001 cents from my view. If you want to support the creator that’s what Patreon is for.

Auli ,

I mean people don’t have to watch Youtube. Also all this shit about ads and then blocking them but still watching Youtube does nothing. People actually not using the platform might make a difference.

Psythik ,

SponsorBlock is useful for more than just skipping sponsored segments, you know.

I use it mostly to remove the “hey guys” and “like and subscribe” bullshit that is in literally every. single. video. It’s irritating and I’m tired of hearing it.

Also, the “skip to highlight” is useful for those of us with ADHD. It keeps the less interesting videos interesting. Not everything needs a 20 minute intro before they get to the subject of the video.

HonorIsDead ,

Sponsor block says it’s skipped about 18hrs since I started using it. No way I’m going to stop using it when I have a choice.

hottari ,

You are entitled to your own opinion but it’s because of Google’s content monetization strategies that user-generated videos now include native content ads. Content creators are following the money. I don’t have to agree with them, Google or your nonsense opinion.

Rukmer ,

It’s good to keep in mind, but I mean do you sit there through 1-3 minute ads not skipping forward? I don’t watch much television, I mostly watch YouTube. So I watch a lot of it. What good is watching an ad going to do if I’m never going to buy anything from them? Once or twice, I’ve needed or wanted a product or service I thought might be promoted on YouTube, I went and looked for a creator to get a link/code from. But I think I did that two times in the past 9 years of being an avid YouTube watcher, and those times I was not buying the product due to ads, just thought I’d support a creator since I was going to make a purchase. I don’t have sponsor block (I use NewPipe and I don’t feel like learning a new app), but I just skip all the ads by tapping the skip button a bunch. They’re often 2 full minutes.

rbits ,

I’m going to skip the sponsor anyway, SponsorBlock just makes it way easier. I don’t have it on auto skip though, because 1: Sometimes they mark segments as sponsored that still have interesting stuff, and sometimes they do good sponsor segments, and 2: Maybe sometimes I’ll be willing to watch it. For example, I always watch the end segment of Jet Lag.

So it ends up being not very different from skipping the sponsor. And besides, I never bought/used anything from a sponsor segment before SponsorBlock.

randint ,
@randint@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz avatar

Hello there fellow Jet Lag enjoyer.

Thorny_Insight ,

When the sponsor is baked into the video itself, there’s no way for the advertiser to know how many of the people who watched the video, skipped past the sponsor. The only way they know wether their ads are working or not, is by seeing how many people used the discount code from said channel. If you’re the kind of person going thru the effort to install additional software on top of adblocker to get rid of this sponsored content aswell, I think it’s quite safe to assume you weren’t going to buy their product anyways.

Also if you’re still feeling bad about it, just donate few bucks directly to the content creator. That’s way more than they’re ever going to profit from you watching ads anyways.

rush OP ,

I use sponsorblock not for sponsors, but for things like non-music parts of MVs or interaction reminders tbh

squid ,

Do away with YouTube and use software like freetube, no adds, sponsorblock, and google can’t track my habbits

OpenHammer6677 ,

I’ve started using Freetube since this adblock issue. The only feature I’m waiting for is the ability to open in new tabs. Other than that, it’s an improved YouTube user experience

AstridWipenaugh ,

What’s the most turnkey solution with good features? I’m an experienced developer and can self-host, but I’m not looking for another thing to maintain.

Morgikan , (edited )
@Morgikan@lemm.ee avatar

They all have pros and cons. For me, I wanted something that would be accessible from one central point across a zero tier network. This way I wasn’t having to maintain database copies of free tube via rclone or other tool and handle merges. That pretty much just meant Invidious. Someone had actually made a tool to automate docker container deployment and build out the PostgreSQL tables. It turned out to be the simplest solution for me.

Here is a link: github.com/tmiland/invidious-updater

MigratingtoLemmy ,

I really should install LibRedirect

Player2 ,

Revanced also works with no problems

EnderofGames ,

I stopped using Revanced for NewPipe when it was giving me trouble. But I have a friend that swears by Revanced.

They are Android only, iirc. Practically the mobile app version of the projects someone listed in another comment.

GenderNeutralBro ,

I’d also like to point out that mpv has youtube-dl built-in (and can also use the cooler fork, yt-dlp). You can open YouTube links directly in mpv and they will play with no bullshit. It can even pull 4K streams.

There are browser plugins that let you open links directly in external programs like mpv, although they are a bit of a hassle to set up (especially if you are on Ubuntu with their godforsaken Snaps).

Frellwit ,

Also for anyone wondering how to set the default quality for videos.

Edit your mpv.confand add ytdl-format=bestvideo[height<=720]+bestaudio/best[height<=720] to play all videos in 720p for example.

Morgikan ,
@Morgikan@lemm.ee avatar

If you really want to kick mpv up a notch you should check out the uosc UI for mpv: github.com/tomasklaen/uosc

GenderNeutralBro ,

Ooh, never heard of this before and it looks super cool. Thanks for the tip!

forensic_potato ,
@forensic_potato@lemmy.world avatar

I’d like to add to the sentiment of this post by saying that if you ever used any of those amazing websites, I’m sure the developers will highly appreciate it if those with the means could consider contributing to their projects.

We all know how greedy and shameless YouTube can be, and yet those developers give us incredible products for free. And if you ever saw the entitled requests of some users on their projects’ pages whenever YouTube implements some changes, and they have to rush to fix their code, I’m sure you would appreciate them even more. I’ve personally seen quite a few projects being abandoned because of the sometimes thankless job of being a developer, and I would hate it for any of these to suffer a similar fate.

So if you can and are willing, feel free to join me in contributing to:

porksoda ,

I was about to say add uBlock Origin to that list but apparently they don’t accept donations per the bottom of their homepage.

I will not accept donations or sponsorships of any kind.

That’s some fuck you energy right there.

ryannathans ,

Not uncommon, the project I am maintainer of doesn’t accept donations either

vlad76 ,
@vlad76@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

What a King.

forensic_potato ,
@forensic_potato@lemmy.world avatar

Lmao serious ‘fuck you’ energy.

Out of curiosity I went to the project’s page and saw more info on why they don’t take donations:

Free. Open-source. For users by users. No donations sought. If you ever want to contribute something, think about the people working hard to maintain the filter lists you are using, which are available to use by all for free.

deweydecibel ,

The irony of these smalltime maintainers asking for donations when their own software is purpose made to hurt the income of smalltime creators. Particularly if they include Sponsorblock.

Hominine ,
@Hominine@lemmy.world avatar

lemmy.ca/comment/3988439

WeLoveCastingSpellz ,

Its crazy all my piped server stopped working which sucks, if anyone is willing to share a server that works or a self hosted one they could let me in. Hit me up

rush OP ,

Late reply, but piped.adminforge.de is my server of choice, with piped.smnz.de and piped.lunar.icu as alternatives

WeLoveCastingSpellz ,

lunar.cu was one of those that went down at the time. I am now using freetube since it keeps my subscriptions locally I can switch instances without having to worry about transfering anything when my instance goes down

jlow ,

Is Libredirect working good for you? Every few month I turn it on for a couple of services (YT, Wikipedia, Reddit, Github, Twitchan) and turn it off after a few days because I can’t be bothered trying to find instances that work, it’s just a constant pain for me.

rush OP ,

It works well, services not working is more about websites trying to block these tools, and I try to be understanding of the issues.

jlow ,

Yeah, fair enough.

zeroshift11 ,

Ad Block Plus Chrome extension still works perfectly for me.

janbug ,

I’ve found for me, freetube works better than invidious and piped. Much better response time and freetube has subscriptions nd a good UI.

lemann ,

Freetube on desktop + newpipe/libretube on mobile is pretty much my combo. I very, very rarely visit youtube’s site directly anymore lol

moreeni ,

I haven’t visited the site intentionally from my devices in years

Sir_Kevin ,
@Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

FreeTube actually has Invidious support as well so you can use both if you like.

Morgikan ,
@Morgikan@lemm.ee avatar

I run my own Invidious instance on my local network and its not bad, but you really aren’t able to endlessly doom scroll Youtube recommendations with it. That sounds like a non-issue, but its more difficult to find new content you like without that algorithmic aspect. Technically, Invidious will load playlists, but the UI is designed to maximize the video presence without the other add-ons, so scrolling is a pain. Also, history is unnamed so its just a thumbnail with no other info.

You can change UI of Invidious with Stylus (ex. userstyles.world/…/invidious-all-instances-player…), but that won’t run in qutebrowser and I love my native vim bindings.

beta_tester ,

Ever since I disabled every recommendation in libretube I don’t watch anything on youtube anymore because I have no fucking clue that it even exists.

Morgikan ,
@Morgikan@lemm.ee avatar

I’ve been relying on yt-dlp and hint links to pipe video from Youtube to mpv. Its not a bad solution, but isn’t quite the doom scrolling I want. Here’s an example: files.catbox.moe/688xbo.png

averyminya ,

That’s one of the reasons I like Piped, the video you are currently on does have a small similar-to feed on the side

doublepepperoni , (edited )
@doublepepperoni@hexbear.net avatar

Yeah, as good as Youtube’s algorithms are at pushing hardcore right-wing content on completely fresh accounts in like 3 clicks, my accounts have been around for so long that my recommends tend to be on the money most of the time.

I discover multiple new channels each month from my recommends whereas 10 years ago I’d occasionally check a channel that a friend recommended or was embedded on a forum post

Morgikan ,
@Morgikan@lemm.ee avatar

Hah, it still tries with the right-wing conspiracy garbage though every so often though. Its like “Hey…you wanna watch some hate crimes? No? Uh… uh… ok, here’s the 37min of LOTR facts you asked for…”

doublepepperoni ,
@doublepepperoni@hexbear.net avatar

Oh, definitely but it’s shockingly bad when using YT without logging in

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