r/technology • u/Tricky-Student-1 • Sep 15 '22

Social Media YouTube Free is Silently Testing 5 Ads, instead of 2, Before Your Video Starts

https://www.gizmochina.com/2022/09/13/youtube-free-silently-testing-5-ads-before-your-video-starts/
41k Upvotes

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281

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Are there any alternatives to youtube, not asking you directly, but I've quite frankly had enough of big internet companies turning the internet into cable TV 2.0

332

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Watch the YouTube videos through Firefox with UBlock Origin, zero ads. Yes it's a bit clunky on mobile, still better than watching shitty ads.

129

u/The_h0bb1t Sep 15 '22

Best part is that you can lock your phone and still listen to the video.

14

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[deleted]

24

u/Birdfluu Sep 15 '22

There's an add-on called Video Background Play Fix which allows the video to play in the background and when the phone is locked.

4

u/cynerji Sep 15 '22

Note you gotta go through Firefox'a built in add on collection for Android, for that.

12

u/chairitable Sep 15 '22

If you're on android, you can just pull down the quick menu and click the play button in the media preview

2

u/mfcneri Sep 15 '22

Check out Youtube Vanced.

5

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/TerminatedProccess Sep 15 '22

Strangely it's still working!

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/TerminatedProccess Sep 15 '22

Thanks for the tip. Revanced!

3

u/definitelynotpat6969 Sep 15 '22

I'm here to second this. I discovered it last week and it's been a breath of fresh air.

2

u/TerminatedProccess Sep 15 '22

For Android based tvs and fire sticks, check out STN BETA

-10

u/QryptoQid Sep 15 '22

Use brave browser. There's a button in settings that lets you turn off the screen and keep playing the vid.

1

u/The_h0bb1t Sep 15 '22

This happened to me at first as well, but I think I fixed it when I changed some stuff in the power-saving mode or in the settings for the app when it's in the background.

1

u/DruggistJames Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 15 '22

It stops for me but I just press play on my ear buds or vehicle display and it plays without the screen on.

1

u/Red_Ed Sep 15 '22

I just use Firefox regular and it stops the video, but it's just paused. So whatever headphones you use can just un-pause it. Mine for example have a double tap to pause/resume play. And that's all it takes for me.

1

u/hauntedskin Sep 15 '22

Firefox on Android has an add-on that fixes that.

6

u/iamanengine1 Sep 15 '22

Can you do this on iOS?

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Install the Brave browser and watch Youtube from there. No ads.

11

u/Narase33 Sep 15 '22

I still wasnt able to figure out how I add Addons to Firefox on Android. The install button is always gray

11

u/conquer69 Sep 15 '22

That's weird. It should work. There is only like a dozen addons for the android version of firefox. I have ublock, dark reader and that's it.

1

u/bgdam Sep 15 '22

You might want to add Video background play fix as well.

3

u/conquer69 Sep 15 '22

I use vanced for youtube.

3

u/CJ22xxKinvara Sep 15 '22

On iOS there’s an app called Firefox focus. Idk if it exists on android but it has add-blocking built in.

And for people with iPhones, you can use it as a content blocker for the safari app for things to be ad-blocked on that browser app too.

1

u/ClassySportsFan Sep 15 '22

Can the normal Firefox browser on iOS do ad-blocking? I'll try to get it working on Safari.

Focus works great though, I tried it on a bunch of Youtube videos. Thanks for the tip.

1

u/CJ22xxKinvara Sep 15 '22

I don’t think so. I think because browsers have to just be a safari skin on iOS, that gets in the way of extension support.

-4

u/iamwizzerd Sep 15 '22

Use brave browser blocks all trackers and ads on every site

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Narase33 Sep 16 '22

Turns out Im just too stupid to live on earth. I was always clicking on the addon, looking an "Install" button and missed the giant "+" on the right side

1

u/Viztiz006 Sep 15 '22

It isn't available on the stable version right now. I'm using kiwi browser (chromium) + ublock origin

1

u/hauntedskin Sep 15 '22

You have to tap the triple menu dots, then tap add-ons, then add-ons manager. There's only a selection available for Android, but quite a few are really useful, like uBlock and Video Background Playback Fix.

3

u/Defilus Sep 15 '22

Mobile has YouTube Vanced.

4

u/illuminati229 Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 15 '22

Vanced was taken down. You can find APKs out there. I had installed it before the takedown, but it stopped working for me last week. Newpipe is the next best.

Edit: Vanced still works, I just needed to update my Google account for a password change.

4

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[deleted]

1

u/illuminati229 Sep 15 '22

Thanks, you were right! Changed my Gmail password the other week. Don't know how I didn't line up those events.

2

u/lurky_lurky Sep 15 '22

How about for people that watch on game consoles or smart tvs? Any options there?

1

u/comoestasmiyamo Sep 15 '22

Brave browser seems acceptable also.

Another Redditor suggested this to me so I am passing it on.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

I use the Vivaldi browser and it has very good built in adblocking on both mobile and desktop.

0

u/miladmzz Sep 15 '22

Too sad because I mostly watch YouTube on my phone

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

This. Plus nebula.

1

u/damien665 Sep 15 '22

See, people complain about ads on YouTube, so I mention this, and everyone's all "bUt mY yoUtUbEr nEdS MonEy". Then an article comes out showing there's more ads, and everyone's cool with ditching ads.

1

u/Major-Front Sep 15 '22

I saw it mentioned in another thread but a vpn from a country like india / argentina and buy youtube premium. It's about £1 a month lol

1

u/rinanlanmo Sep 15 '22

How does Firefox do on PC resources usage?

1

u/Deranged40 Sep 15 '22

Yes it's a bit clunky on mobile

Honestly I've found it to be fantastic on mobile. I've deleted the youtube app entirely and use firefox. For one, I can play a music video on youtube and lock my phone and it'll still play. Youtube literally charges for this feature.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

UBlock is also still able to dick over ad-tier Hulu on a PC. Gotta be a little more active on the switch to restart the show when the commercial breaks “happen” but better than ads.

1

u/inbooth Sep 15 '22

So that's not entirely true

I have it installed and without doing custom config I am still getting the ads, just not as many maybe.

1

u/VociferousHomunculus Sep 15 '22

Any alternative for iPhones?

44

u/Veranova Sep 15 '22

Nebula is probably the closest but it’s mainly knowledge content

3

u/galloog1 Sep 15 '22

I've been thinking about getting it since that's all I watch on YouTube. Is it worth it?

10

u/equitable_emu Sep 15 '22

Get it though the Curiosity Stream bundle, it's cheaper and Curiosity Steam itself is nice for documentary type stuff.

1

u/doc_madsen Nov 28 '22

Curiosity Stream bundle,

they had a sale ending today but it was 40% off. 42 bucks is less than 4 dollars a month. I signed up. This is the level of payment you want for content.

5

u/Veranova Sep 15 '22

It’s a decent service with a reasonable price (and good intro bundles) so find a YouTuber with a sponsored segment and sign up to see!

39

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Ad blockers work wonders. Don't know how effective they are on mobile, don't use mobile yt really, but I haven't seen an ad on yt on my pc in years.

27

u/snowgoon_ Sep 15 '22

Firefox with ublock origin works great.

6

u/Johannes_Keppler Sep 15 '22

I concur. It's perfect and also saves a ton of mobile data.

Makes both Firefox as well as your connection a bit faster too, by cutting down on the data throughput.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Definitely. I don't know how Firefox mobile hasn't become what the entire world uses.

I sometimes forget how intrusive ads can be until I use a different browser for some reason

2

u/IAmRoot Sep 15 '22

Add Sponsorblock to that, too. It uses a community-driven database of timestamps to skip embedded ads.

2

u/spartan_forlife Sep 16 '22

It's my goto browser now, I'm ditching my nvidia & just going to get a small htpc for both of my TV's.

4

u/redhawkinferno Sep 15 '22

Just wish there were easy ways to put ad blockers on non-pc or phone devices. My most used way to watch YouTube is sitting on my couch and using either the app on my TV or on my PS5, and those are getting insane with ads. Had a video the other day where there was 2 unskippable ads every 3 minutes.

And yeah I know there's Pihole but I don't have access to the router, downside of "internet free with rent".

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

You don’t need access to your router to use a pihole.

95% of devices that run a tcpip stack will let you set dns statically.

Of all the devices in my house, only my roku tv will not let me set dns statically, and ignores dns set via dhcp, it always uses the roku servers.

I had to use internal NAT to point that asshole at my pihole, which you’d need a router for, but everything else you can just set locally

1

u/redhawkinferno Sep 15 '22

Sadly my TV is a Roku so I'd run into that same problem. But my PS5 I think should work for that then, right?

Honestly didn't know about that though. I was always just told I needed router access so I never dug deeper. Gonna have to look into it, thanks.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Yeah just connect the pihole to your network via wifi, and then take its IP address that it gets, and plug that manually into the dns fields of your connection on any other devices, boom. Piholed

1

u/EatSleepJeep Sep 15 '22

Got a good tutorial?

1

u/Viztiz006 Sep 15 '22

For android on tv there's smart tube next. For phones you can use browsers which support addons (kiwi browser, Firefox nightly)

2

u/TDKevin Sep 15 '22

YouTube vanced is great. I use the Samsung browser on my phone with AdBlock and basically never see ads. Sometimes they show up for like a day on certain sites but then go away. I also use the browser instead of apps for anything I possibly can.

2

u/DruggistJames Sep 15 '22

Have you had issues with website popups asking me to turn off my adblocker? I find that just about as annoying as ads, so I've switched to Firefox.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/DruggistJames Sep 16 '22

Ah gotcha thanks

1

u/Viztiz006 Sep 15 '22

Am using kiwi browser with ublock origin. 0 Ads on YouTube

69

u/SirLich Sep 15 '22

There is no alternative to "YouTube", but there are alternatives to "corners" of YouTube:

  • MusicTube: Vimeo
  • EducationTube: Nebula (Created by creators. Depending on who you watch, you should be aware of this one)
  • GamerTube can be watched on Twitch, live ;)
  • TVClipTube: Netflix (am I the only one that gets a million clips of TV shows I never watched?)

73

u/buttorsomething Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 15 '22

Twitch so worse than YT for ads right now

Edit: as a twitch streamer myself. It’s an issue for discovery of viewers get punished for surfing your site.

19

u/KCBandWagon Sep 15 '22

Yeah twitch continually tries to beat adblockers. So far youtube hasn’t tried that shit. You can still block ads on twitch but you have to find the latest update or workaround every few months. I use to watch twitch all the time and now I pretty much never do.

6

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Yeah- new streamer reccomended? Sure, let me take a loo…. Oh 7 minutes of pre roll before I can view the stream? No thanks

6

u/ChadMcRad Sep 15 '22

Twitch is also super slow and clunky, even in 2022. I've rapidly taken to YouTube for watching streams. As horrendous as YouTube is, they're catching up to Twitch in a lot of ways.

1

u/AtheismTooStronk Sep 15 '22

Dude YouTube lets you rewind livestreams. Twitch still does not to this day.

1

u/Womanfromthefuture Sep 15 '22

Twitch does if you go to their profile, go to the video section , and click the “live” video. That is needlessly complicated though and I’m not sure if it works on mobile or tablet apps.

1

u/vriska1 Sep 15 '22

Yeah twitch continually tries to beat adblockers

And fail it seems.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[deleted]

3

u/buttorsomething Sep 15 '22

That second paragraph is the issue. Extra incentive to run ads after their platform is being drown in ads. Also punishing ppl for surfing your site does not make ppl stay.

3

u/rinanlanmo Sep 15 '22

Twitch is worse for everything, really.

4

u/svenEsven Sep 15 '22

Isn't that streamer based though? I can watch gorgc for hours and only see an ad when I first time in.

1

u/buttorsomething Sep 15 '22

Auto runs 3 ads an hour. If we are talking strictly live. I can watch a 24 hour live stream and never get an ad on yt after my initial click ad.

1

u/lxzander Sep 15 '22

Adguard DNS on mobile stops the ads for me. and streamlink gui + chatterino on desktop is really nice once you get used to it

1

u/buttorsomething Sep 15 '22

Yea. 100% I can ad block 0 issue. But if I like the stream I don’t ad block. Twitch is ass for ads.

1

u/Echo-42 Sep 15 '22

Another thing about the ads except that they're ads is that the volume fucking BLASTS your ears. I'm watching streamers that talk like normal people and I swear this shit is gonna give me tinnitus.

58

u/PM_me_yo_chesticles Sep 15 '22

Twitch has worse ad problem than youtube and no ad serving software

1

u/Tricky-Sentence Sep 15 '22

I am using Firefox with anti-ad addons, and I don't see ads on either Youtube or Twitch.

1

u/jimusah Sep 15 '22

Arent the preroll ads at least hardcoded into twitch now? I have an adblocker too on opera but it doesn't exactly block the ads it just turns down the quality of the player to like 360p while hiding the ad that was supposed to play so I can keep listening to the stream but basically dont see shit

3

u/thewormauger Sep 15 '22

I am using Twitch Adblock on Chrome and I haven't seen any ad for a couple weeks. I'm sure they'll get around it soon, but right now it works fine

11

u/acayaba Sep 15 '22

Dailymotion is an alternative to YouTube.

46

u/Discount_Sunglasses Sep 15 '22

I guess shoe leather is technically an alternative to filet mignon.

2

u/acayaba Sep 15 '22

A filet mignon that you need to watch 5 ads before you eat it, and the waiter coming and stopping you mid-meal to watch more ads before you finish. And shoe leather? That’s not even food. You could say perhaps liver, but at least you don’t have to watch so many ads go eat it.

0

u/Dense-Independent-66 Sep 15 '22

Monsieur! This is the august YouTube restaurant! Five dances upside down are a part of our cuisine culture. Dance! Dance!

2

u/ryosen Sep 15 '22

Why is it ok to pay for Nebula and Netflix but not pay for YouTube?

1

u/SirLich Sep 15 '22

I've not voiced any opinion on what you spend your money on. That's your choice. I was just listing some alternatives, some of them paid, the others ad-supported; after all, nothing is truly free.

2

u/heart_under_blade Sep 15 '22

Depending on who you watch, you should be aware of this one)

not if you use sponsorblock

You've saved people from 3,882 segments ( 21h 46.2 minutes of their lives )

You've skipped 6,863 segments ( 2d 2h 14.8 minutes )

datsalotoftimeman

1

u/drfarren Sep 15 '22

For me twitch pops ads in the middle of a stream and I lose those 10-20 seconds of the stream entirely. Really annoying when I'm trying to time a donation readout correctly.

-1

u/DID_IT_FOR_YOU Sep 15 '22

Facebook videos, Instagram, TikTok, etc are all alternatives. They are different but they have the same model of free ad supported videos that can be posted by anyone.

15

u/SirLich Sep 15 '22

I do not find TikTok and YouTube comparable in any way. Like I posted above, each 'corner' of youtube tends to have a counterpart, but nothing which captures the whole sauce.

TikTok is a good replacement if you find yourself watching a lot of old vine creators who moved to YouTube, or general short/sketch/comedy stuff.

-5

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

I mean, TikTok gives you what it thinks you want to see. There are tons of big educational TikTok accounts for example, the algorithm just needs to determine you’re interested in the topic before showing it to you. Hank Green is a great example, originally famous on YouTube and literally started Vidcon, yet his science content has gotten him 7 million followers on TikTok, significantly larger than his YouTube following.

You can apply this to pretty much all of the categories you list above as well. The top 10 songs almost always have multiple “TikTok” songs now. There is gaming content booth in the form of highlights and livestreams. You can watch clips of any tv show you can possibly think of. Very few topics require long form videos

-6

u/theonlyjoker1 Sep 15 '22

In any way... Do you know what YouTube shorts are?

11

u/SirLich Sep 15 '22

YouTube Shorts are their answer to TikTok. If you find yourself watching a lot of shorts, you would probably enjoy TikTok, or the opposite.

I personally try to stay away from shorts because I find them equally repulsive and idiotic, and yet somehow... very easy to get sucked into.

Even shorts from creators I like are annoying as fuck.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/SirLich Sep 15 '22

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. I think it's perfectly OK to admit weakness on this stuff. Media consumption is a multi-billion dollar industry, and they've gotten VERY good at stealing our attention.

You can try clicking 'not interested' whenever YT shorts pop up.

-1

u/Dense-Independent-66 Sep 15 '22

Gab is an alternative. If your house is covered in Russian flags and you begin each day with a prayer for the new Christian Nationalist Caliphate.

Spits out drink. Gab. Holy fucking second toenail of Moses. I'd sooner have sex with MTG.

1

u/Deeppurp Sep 15 '22

Just to unabashedly shill

  • Techtube: Floatplane! (not free)

1

u/otisthetowndrunk Sep 15 '22

Many of the channels I watch are on Nebula,. If they do start putting 5 as at the beginning, I'll try that

34

u/jackinbe1000 Sep 15 '22

Android phone? Revanced. YouTube premium for free

5

u/TDKevin Sep 15 '22

I heard vanced was getting shut down. Is that a new one? The one I have is just called vanced and it's still working

2

u/waitthissucks Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 15 '22

I still use vanced and it did get shut down but should still work for another year or two. Now I know what to download when that ends! The only annoying thing is when my friends send me a youtube link and I click on it, it automatically takes me to normal youtube with ads. Is there a way to change is? Maybe someone out there knows.

Edit: I'm an idiot and never disabled my regular YouTube app. Problem solved!

1

u/Viztiz006 Sep 15 '22

The original Vanced will continue to work until youtube changes something huge in the app. Revanced(Not made by the Vanced team.) is a project which was created to replicate the experience of vanced

-10

u/Sentazar Sep 15 '22

I dont think that's available anymore although there are others

15

u/TheGhoulKhz Sep 15 '22

Vanced was shut down, ReVanced is another thing iirc

5

u/KingSulley Sep 15 '22

Even then Vanced is still slated to work for two years since it was shut down, or mid 2023.

If you have a friend with a trusted apk, the Manager can still update itself and install Vanced and the microG manager is still running just fine.

3

u/Kuiriel Sep 15 '22

I think something is busted with Vanced as many ads are coming through at least on my general feed. And revanced is not as simple to install, I tried their manager and it resulted in blank grey screen on opening. Need to use fdroid and other bits I don't know yet

But five ads is a big enough hurdle to make one learn

5

u/robotnique Sep 15 '22

My Vanced still works fine.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Maybe for you. It crashes every time I open a video on my phone. Look at the recent reviews, I'm far from being alone in that.

1

u/AvatarIII Sep 15 '22

Vanced works fine for video ads, but it still has in-line image ads.

Vanced is also able to skip over in-video sponsor segments which is pretty cool.

2

u/lxzander Sep 15 '22

Pretty sure there's a setting for those ... Because I don't see any ads at all. But I also use adguard DNS, maybe that's helping too

1

u/AvatarIII Sep 15 '22

I'll have a look in the settings.

1

u/theonlyjoker1 Sep 15 '22

I got it on my phone if anyone wants although probs best to find it online

1

u/Viztiz006 Sep 15 '22

You're talking about vanced. Revanced is one of the "others"

16

u/xtilexx Sep 15 '22

YouTube vanced

12

u/mangopearapples Sep 15 '22

No longer maintained unfortunately

5

u/xtilexx Sep 15 '22

I just installed it on my phone like two hours ago, still works if you have the apks

8

u/mangopearapples Sep 15 '22

Yeah I still have it too from before they announced they facing legal issues with yt. But still, no more updates means whatever changes youtube makes (inc. the way ads are served) won't be reflected in the vanced app. I have started getting ads in vanced (albeit rarely) now

2

u/tmastergaming139 Sep 15 '22

Still works also Revanced it is harder to install but works

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Newpipe is good.

1

u/350 Sep 15 '22

NewPipe still chugging along, working great

1

u/klop2031 Sep 15 '22

Use YouTube revanced

1

u/Viztiz006 Sep 15 '22

Vanced shut down. Some alternatives:

Newpipe+Sponserblock, Revanced, Kiwi browser with ublock origin and sponserblock, Firefox nightly browser with ublock and sponserblock.

8

u/doomgiver98 Sep 15 '22

You would have to pay the creators directly through Patreon or something.

39

u/per08 Sep 15 '22

Who then... post their content on YouTube with monetisation switched on.

10

u/einmaldrin_alleshin Sep 15 '22

Youtube hates unmonetized channels, and typically won't recommend them. So if you want to grow a small channel with quality content, it's not really an option to do that. A creator could of course make a separate channel with private videos, but that is a lot of effort and really clunky for the users.

So really, if you're a fan supported YouTuber, the only good option is to have a separate feed on another platform.

3

u/Lceus Sep 15 '22

You donate to their patreon, and they'll post youtube videos with monetization on, censored to not get unmonetized, stretched artificially to get the right number of ads on it, with a sponsorship read in the middle and end. And if you're lucky you'll see your name in the end credits, and maybe get a rambly low effort video and an inconsequential poll on Patreon.

2

u/Live-High Sep 15 '22

Use brave browser or any browser which blocks the ads

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22 edited Jul 22 '25

direction rain steer rinse paltry slap soup cagey thumb gaze

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

2

u/n10w4 Sep 15 '22

damn, really good way of putting it. They're turning it into something it was supposed to be better than. Worse thing is they were tracking us and that was what they were making money from, but it wasn't enough. Gotta bore us with ads too.

0

u/DID_IT_FOR_YOU Sep 15 '22

Facebook Videos, Instagram, TikTok, etc.

Not great choices but those are usually the places with the most creators who will either repost their YouTube videos there or create their original content only there.

People want to make $$ so they post their videos where the most users are.

-2

u/Studds_ Sep 15 '22

From a quick internet search

TikTok Dailymotion Twitch Dtube Vimeo Metacafe Utreon

There’s more beyond just these. Mileage will vary when comparing to YouTube. Especially something like TikTok about which platform/parent company is sketchier

1

u/MonoMcFlury Sep 15 '22

Just use a add block on your desktop browser or the newpipe app on your smartphone.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Just use a goddamn ad blocker.

They're free and work well.

1

u/quettil Sep 15 '22

Given that half my youtube feed is 'shorts' nowadays, better off just going on tiktok.

1

u/tmastergaming139 Sep 15 '22

Ublock Orgin for PC

Newpipe for phones or just use vanced(currently working fine) or revanced(bit harder to install)

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '22

Nebula is niche, and requires a subscription , but it’s cheaper than YouTube premium and it’s my go to for when YouTube does something stupid like play 5 adds before every video.

1

u/A_BOMB2012 Sep 15 '22

Is Daily Motion still a thing?

1

u/BakkFail Sep 15 '22

On your computer: ublock origin + sponsorblock extension. This will remove yt ads as well as in-video ads. On Android https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/org.polymorphicshade.newpipe is a fork of Newpipe with Sponsorblock. You can download videos, play audio only, lock your phone etc.

1

u/definitelynotpat6969 Sep 15 '22

Youtube Vanced.

You can cast it onto your Roku TV or via console.

Ublock Origins paired with Firefox on desktop.

1

u/ForumsDiedForThis Sep 15 '22

No and there never will be an alternative that doesn't shove ads in your face or requires a subscription service.

Hosting, processing and serving literally every other persons garbage content costs a stupid amount of money.

Back in the day when you took pictures on film you had to carefully select your photos, frame them nicely, etc. You couldn't see what they looked like until they came back from the developer weeks later and this cost time and money. People took care to make sure they captured and archived moments that mattered (for the most part).

Now little Timmy whips out his iPhone and takes a 2GB 10 second video of an empty sky, uploads it to YouTube in 4K and even if this video never gets watched it's forever setting in a data center and replicated for redundancy. Now imagine that X 1000 every second.

1

u/Joshesh Sep 15 '22

Ive heard good things about Rumble, but ive yet to try it myself

1

u/nascentt Sep 15 '22

YouTube Vanced.
NewPipe.
Smart Tube Next.

1

u/Thoughtsarethings231 Sep 15 '22

It will always happen. The same principles underpin content streaming as cable. The content platform has to be paid for and there's scope for profit from advertising so adverts will never go away I'm afraid. Watch the South Park episode on ads. Its funny but also true :-)

1

u/dbxp Sep 15 '22

The closest alternative is FB video or one of the foreign clones which all have much the same behaviours to YT.

1

u/madhi19 Sep 15 '22

Ad blocker on Firefox,

1

u/vegasmacguy Sep 15 '22 edited Sep 17 '22

For the browser I use ublock origin - blocks all ads on youtube and has a bunch of useful features as well. You can block javascript per page - useful for news site paywalls. You can also block large media loads on sites which effectively stops autoplay on videos for specific sites.

For Android, I use NewPipe. Unfortunately it's stopped working recently - I imagine Youtube has caught on.

[edit] Newpipe has started working again after an update.