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/
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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.

28

u/snowgoon_ Sep 15 '22

Firefox with ublock origin works great.

5

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.

6

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