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YouTube's server-side ads resulted in a black screen for ad blocker users

Mashable reports that users ran into a black screen on YouTube, and that it stayed for about 6 seconds before the video began playing. The reports indicate it affected several browsers including Firefox, Edge, Vivaldi.

Some users joked that they would rather see a black screen than an ad. While that’s certainly a better experience, it does waste precious seconds of our time. A simple workaround for the black screen on YouTube is to just refresh the page, hit F5 as soon as the page starts loading. uBlock Origin’s filters were updated with a patch to resolve the problem, the add-on updates its filters automatically. If you are still experiencing the black screen issue, just open the extension’s dashboard and manually update the filters. This tug-of-war is getting annoying, but it appears to me that Google’s efforts are actively promoting the use of ad blockers, instead of attracting new subscribers.

p5yk0t1km1r4ge ,
@p5yk0t1km1r4ge@lemmy.world avatar

If I’m watching YouTube I’m not too worried about my time. The black screen is worth it as long as it directly spites their greedy asses.

AcesFullOfKings , (edited )

relevant - “YouTube server-side ad injection faq” from Ajayyy, the developer of SponsorBlock

gist.github.com/…/f7b1807e13731c25cef4c2c057d022b…

lemann ,

Thanks for sharing, provided some insight into how YT is doing this.

Seems very easy to bypass if they’re just swapping in new TS HLS/DASH segments, the harder part will be identifying what segments are part of the video and what segments are ads sliced in

hal_5700X , (edited )

I’m seeing a lot of comments about Youtube frontends. Don’t get me wrong. They’re nice and all, but we need some alternatives. At this point in time. We have two of them Odysee & Rumble. If you’re tried of Youtube’s bullshit. Alternatives are the way to go.

StarlightDust ,

I think its important to highlight that Odysee and Rumble are both “free speech” platforms that neo-nazis love to use to platform their calls for violence.

rami ,

Here’s a few more in a reddit thread.

I thought Odyssey was just gun nuts? When did the shitters get there?

hal_5700X ,

What does neo-nazi mean to you?

The reason I ask. I see that word get thrown around on social media (twitter) all the time. The way I see that used 99% of the time. Some Left Winger sees a Right Winger say something they don’t like. The Left Winger can’t counter it or they just don’t like that Right Winger said. So the Left Winger calls the Right Winger the worst thing they can think of.

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

No black screens in GrayJay…

BradleyUffner ,

6 seconds?! GASP

ICastFist ,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

I’m actually annoyed that NewPipe stopped working again and Invidious’ download speeds are glacial

x00z ,
@x00z@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve been enjoying Odysee a lot. It doesn’t have much content but it works great. Hopefully content creators start uploading there as well.

_Sprite ,
@_Sprite@lemmy.world avatar

the moment I see a damn grammarly ad on freetube I’m dropping $100 on real debrid

doomi ,

A few years ago I‘ve been traveling in Morocco. And as long as I was there, YouTube didn’t show me any ads! Neither in the web player nor in the app (on iOS). Does anybody have a VPN with a server in Morocco to test if this is still working?

MonkderVierte ,

I thought the whole point of server side ads was that they are embedded in the video, not blockable?

Fiivemacs ,

Just because a company makes lots of money, doesn’t mean they know wtf they are doing or are smart.

Xeroxchasechase ,

Sure they know! Every level of middle managers knows exactly what the status of the graphs of goals and progress of their team!

tabular ,
@tabular@lemmy.world avatar

Presumably the implementation is not as seamless as that, and 3rd party clients do not handle it like 1st party ones.

Pika , (edited )
@Pika@sh.itjust.works avatar

this is true if the client itself has no knowledge of what is ads and what isn’t, so like if they have no skip to time feature, no clickable links etc. Otherwise the plugin could just search for those elements and mute or skip if they are present.

with YouTube it just adds another layer of complexity for ad blockers

SlopppyEngineer ,

Those that make peaceful ad-blocking impossible make violent rage quiting inevitable.

recapitated ,

Hulu used to work this way with ad blockers back in the day

cultsuperstar ,

I wonder how this affects people that setup Pi Hole and VPN and all that.

poopsmith ,
@poopsmith@lemmy.world avatar

I’m a scrub that pays for YouTube Premium and I’ve also been running into songs and videos that just don’t play recently because I’m using uBlock Origin.

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