Youtube also doesn't like people making use of youtube.lua and VLC Player to stream vids. 99% of the time the connection is throttled down to 60KB/s. That's something that happened in the last few months.
Firefox slow to load YouTube? Just another front in Google's war on ad blockers
Google has admitted its efforts to discourage the use of ad blockers now includes delaying the start of videos – a deliberate "suboptimal viewing" experience, as the corporation put it. Earlier this year, YouTube began interrupting videos for those using advert blockers with a pop-up encouraging them to either disable the …
COMMENTS
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 00:32 GMT Dan 55
This is not the first time this has "accidently" happened
I don't for one minute believe this is a "false positive" since Google have previous and are evil fuckers.
So install uBlock Origin without any twinge of conscience.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 07:53 GMT simonlb
Re: This is not the first time this has "accidently" happened
I started experiencing this about 4 weeks ago - using FF with Adblock Plus - up to 20 seconds of blank screen with a spinning bagel before the video starts. This is usually after Google have changed something and Adblock Plus takes about a week or so update and bypass the wait. It's slightly frustrating but I'd would rather watch a blank screen for 20 seconds than any advert. Looks to have sorted itself out now though.
As I've started advocating on here recently, Google and all these streaming services need to heavily revise their subscription rates down to a much, much lower level to make it a no-brainer for people to sign up. If a service is cheap as chips as well as ad free, people will be much more likely a pay for it. And especially for Google and YT, if I have a subscription I never want to see ANY adverts.
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Thursday 23rd November 2023 09:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: This is not the first time this has "accidently" happened
"If a service is cheap as chips as well as ad free, people will be much more likely a pay for it".
Better yet, if a Youtuber has embedded sponsorships, strip them of their ad revenue.
I don't mind a pre-video ad or a post video ad...it's the random ones in between that piss me off.
Embedded sponsorships piss me off as well...especially when they are extremely overt..."...and that's why I use NordVPN".
There are a lot of theories around why short videos have become a lot more popular in recent years...and a lot of the theories are quite derogatory, such as younger people having shorter attention spans etc...I haven't seen a single person posit that short videos might be more popular because.
a) You get less ads on shorter content.
b) We've always had short videos because of excessive ad breaks.
I use an adblocker so I see no ads, but on peoples machines where there is no adblocker, i've noted that the time between ads on some youtube videos can be extremely short...which makes a long video essentially just a chain of really short videos.
In terms of paying for Youtube, I don't think I'd be up for that...I think Youtube should be trying to recoup some revenue from creators that have embedded sponsors.
I'm not sure how that would work, but surely going after 1-2% of the third party sponsor revenue would be worth more to Youtube than charging the users a small fee?
Bring all of the brand management and third party sponsorship on platform.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 19:39 GMT Screepy
Re: This is not the first time this has "accidently" happened
"PiHole works for Youtube, as long as you view via a browser. When you use the app, it serves ads directly from Youtube servers, making blocking them a game of whack-a-mole."
That's interesting. I've been running PiHole for years and I've never seen it block a YouTube advert (in browser or app). It blocks loads of ads but never ones embedded in the YouTube video.
I need to use uBlock Origin to get rid of the YouTube ones.
Are you doing any extra tweaks to your pihole config to get it to block YouTube ads?
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 20:27 GMT NickJP
Re: This is not the first time this has "accidently" happened
For blocking YT ads, try adding these blocklists to Pihole. I have them in my Pihole config, and without any blocking at the PC or phone level, don't get YT ads when viewing through either browser or app:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kboghdady/youTube_ads_4_pi-hole/master/youtubelist.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kboghdady/youTube_ads_4_pi-hole/master/crowed_list.txt
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 20:41 GMT Scott 26
Re: This is not the first time this has "accidently" happened
> https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kboghdady/youTube_ads_4_pi-hole/master/youtubelist.txt
> https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kboghdady/youTube_ads_4_pi-hole/master/crowed_list.txt
interesting.....
I will take a look at those after work.
I use uBlock Origin in my browser - no YT apps. But I cast to the TV or use the TV's native YT app = ads and I'm reminded how shitty they can be. Normally when casting to the TV its for the family audience, and I haven't seen anything inappropriate. Just annoying so far.
BUt if these work I will raise a virtual glass in your honour!
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Thursday 23rd November 2023 08:59 GMT Screepy
Re: This is not the first time this has "accidently" happened
@NickJP - thanks for those links.
I added them to my pihole, disabled my uBlock origin, and can confirm that I got no YouTube adverts within the video.
I hopped about across 8 or 9 different videos, no issues, none of them had adverts.
I did notice one or two ads appear alongside the comments section of the videos which I never usually see, so I assume uBlock has been sweeping those up for me in the past.
But thank you, please accept this -->
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 01:31 GMT Winkypop
Firefox and YouTube shenanigans
That would explain quite a bit:
- main page load times slower
- slight delay in starting a video
- perhaps even the occasional lockup
Memo to YouTube: I’m not interested in Crypto-fraud, Chinese laser pens, get rich quick scams or “Amazing” new technologies. That’s why I block your advertising.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 07:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Firefox and YouTube shenanigans
Don't forget all the amazing 'Drink this before you go to bed and [insert ailment here] will be cured' ads
Don't forget all the amazing 'Shed pounds with this simple trick' ads
Don't forget all the amazing 'heat your home for pennies with this heater designed by [scottish schoolboy, german engineer, retired US power worker etc,etc] ads. The device does not work very well.
Don't forget all the ads 'use this £49 device to clean your bathroom in seconds' ads. The circuity can't handle the power demands when used heavily and burns out.
Fsck to Google.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 09:52 GMT Andy The Hat
Re: Firefox and YouTube shenanigans
Can Google (Youtube?) can be sued for false advertising as they are insisting that we watch obvious scams, dangerous products, illegal or fake "celebrities endorsing product" ads.
As they are insisting that the the viewers watch the ads, numbers/type are not selected by the content creators, are Youtube acting as a broadcaster constrained by the same legal advertising code (UK Code of Broadcast Advertising) as broadcast tv has to follow in the UK? Does Youtube fall under the remit of the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK? If not, isn't it time for the law to be updated?
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Thursday 23rd November 2023 02:05 GMT Jamie Jones
Re: Firefox and YouTube shenanigans
Yes, they are indeed covered by UK law, and the ASA.
Regulation of Online Advertising: https://www.asa.org.uk/static/uploaded/6829937c-f185-4be6-9455e501af1df1e3.pdf
However, annoyingly, the ASA appears to just let Youtube know they have a scam ad, asking them to remove it - rather than punishing them for broadcasting the ad. - hence we end up doing Youtubes job for them.
If they persistently cross the line though, they can be sanctioned.
https://www.asa.org.uk/about-asa-and-cap/the-work-we-do/what-we-cover.html
If you see a scam ad, and you're in the UK, first report YouTube to the ASA:
https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/03.html
https://www.asa.org.uk/news/scam-ads-online-2023-update-on-our-scam-ad-alert-system.html
https://www.asa.org.uk/make-a-complaint/report-an-online-scam-ad.html
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 17:13 GMT Michael B.
Re: Firefox and YouTube shenanigans
Ah yes the standard YouTube scam template
$Name was working in $Industry and was disgusted by the practises and left to found their own company. $Name created a $(Faster|Cheaper|More Efficient) Product that is disrupting the profits made by $Industry. $Industry is mad and is trying to get this banned. Buy it now before $Industry gets their own way and get this marvel banned.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 07:57 GMT EricB123
Re: Firefox and YouTube shenanigans
I have noticed that the YT main page using Firefox take forever, to the point that I don't even notice the 5 second delay in playing the selected video. The fact that Google charges so much per month, coupled with the fact that premium doesn't get rid of the many creator sponsored ads (that were in response to Google cutting it's compensation to creators) has created quite a hostile environment to the viewing audience (me).
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 10:20 GMT Badgerfruit
Re: Firefox and YouTube shenanigans
I agree. I searched YouTube for something for my kids and the first results are now adverts for products. If I wanted shopping results, I'd have searched Google, not youtube.
I also fail to understand how an advert I can skip after 5s is in any way useful to the advertisers, why not just let those who are sick of companies trying to sell shit we don't need at every single turn in our lives, have an "off switch" (without having to spend even more of our dwindling monthly remaining wages)?
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Monday 27th November 2023 03:01 GMT Not Yb
Re: Firefox and YouTube shenanigans
Skip after 5 seconds of an ad, that you've clicked "skip ad" on and thus proved you've at least (probably) watched those 5 seconds? As someone once said, "half of all advertising dollars are wasted, we just don't know which half"
"Skip this ad" is still feedback that advertising agencies consider valuable.
The problem is, it's not "half" of the ad dollars that are wasted, it's "most" of the ad dollars that target people who run ad blockers.
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Monday 27th November 2023 03:07 GMT Not Yb
Re: Firefox and YouTube shenanigans
Google pays Mozilla for default search engine placement.
Mozilla seems to do whatever they like with that money, though of course with that much revenue coming from Google, they're not as interested in bucking the G's wishes as they might have been.
They still decided against the "web server gets to decide whether a browser and computer are 'trusted'" API. So at least they're not quite as "do what G says" as Chrome has to be. https://www.neowin.net/news/brave-vivaldi-and-mozilla-reject-googles-controversial-tracker-api/
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 02:36 GMT Chris Gray 1
seen it
I see both delays now. I run Firefox, but I do not block ads. I'm perfectly OK with watching a bit of advertisement to help pay for the service. What I *do* block, using "NoScript", is Javascript from places I do not want running software on my computer. That includes all "social media" sites. And "googletagletmanager". And, I've had almost 3400 views on my posted videos. Yeah, I know, that's miniscule, but still... :-)
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 07:49 GMT bazza
Google: “The audience is wrong, they must do this”.
Not normally seen as a way to win people over…
I’d perhaps entertain the possibility of paying Google money, if they could guarantee to not harvest and exploit any of my data or any data they could generate about me. While Ad free YouTube premium is probably devoid of ads, it’s still harvesting away, more valuably so because it’s tied to a solid ident.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 08:45 GMT Headley_Grange
About a month ago I hit the "three strikes" limit and then had no choice but ads. I deleted Youtube and Google cookies and FF cache and updated U-Block origin and and the ads disappeared. The other benefit was that it lost my Youtube viewing history (I don't have a Youtube account) and got me out of the rabbit hole of viewing I was in. I find it hard to believe that clearing history fixed this, so I assume the U-Block update fixed it.
As for the long delay - and delays in the middle of vids too - I get them now, but if you drop the video quality a notch or too then it sometimes speeds things up. There's also an app called FreeTube that can help. Someone here suggested it the last time this topic came up and it works, although it's more useful if you follow specific channels than if you just drop in to Youtube while having pause from doing something more productive to work.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 09:18 GMT AndrueC
I find it hard to believe that clearing history fixed this, so I assume the U-Block update fixed it.
Most likely. I've been using uBO for several years now and had been completely oblivious to the presence of adverts on YouTube until a year ago when I stayed at a holiday cottage and tried to watch some golfing videos on the TV. I didn't realise what a hideous experience it was without an ad-blocker.
I did see the 'You shouldn't be using an ad-blocker' pop up a couple of times a few months ago but refreshing the uBO filter cache sorted that out.
I've never seen YT as a source of entertainment though. I prefer Sky for that. The only times I view something on YT is if a Google search suggests something interesting. Even then as I've posted before I'd rather spend two minutes reading an article than fifteen minutes watching/listening to someone drone on explaining the same thing. So if YT eventually wins over uBO I'll just exclude it from my search results.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 12:24 GMT fromxyzzy
I can confirm, uBlock Origin settings -> Filter Lists -> Purge All Filters -> Update Now is the presently recommended way. It refreshes the filters and they're apparently working hard to stay ahead.
Has been working for a couple of weeks on all of my Firefox installs on Linux, Windows and MacOS. I have noticed start delays sometimes, although not long enough for me to have thought it was anything but Youtube being slow - clearly not having the intended effect because I would never have assumed it was intentional rather than explained by Youtube incompetence.
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Thursday 23rd November 2023 09:57 GMT Schultz
3 strikes and you're out ...
... so I switched away from Chrome.
See, Google and I had this unwritten contract. I got to use their free services and browser while keeping annoying advertisements at a minimum (ublock, etc.). In return, Google could use all their tools to monetize the shit out of my internet activities.
If Google doesn't keep up their end of the deal, why should I? Let's move on.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 09:03 GMT Zebo-the-Fat
Grumble
I was using Vivaldi browser for a long time with Ublock Origin... no ads for crap I won't buy, suddenly I get the "3 views left" message. Clearing the cache and updating Ublock worked for a week, but now it's unusable. Switched to Librawolf, all good again.
Watching ads for crap I will never buy is wasting my time and theirs, if things get worse I will give up on YT completely... then they will be sorry!
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 09:12 GMT Knightlie
"To be clear, Google's business model revolves around advertising, and ad blockers are specifically called out as being in violation of its terms of service."
Sounds to me there's an anti-trust/monopoly issue around Google producing the browser AND the ads people are trying to block. Maybe Chrome should be spun off into another company...
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 11:05 GMT Stuart Castle
I don't use ad blockers.. While the ads generally annoy me, I do tend to ignore them (thankfully, Google haven't worked out a way to stop this , yet, but I am sure they are working on it).
The reason I don't use ad blockers? I follow a lot of small youtubers who really need the income from their channel, and often every penny counts. Even some of the bigger youtubers I follow produce some decent, entertaining or informative content that I am happy to contribute to.
Yes, I know I could pay for Youtube Premium, but it costs a lot, and from what I've been told, creators don't get as much as they would if you watched ads.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 11:25 GMT Headley_Grange
Your post made me wonder about the future of Youtube advertising. I assume that before long I'll be able to tell an AI to go and "watch" a few of my favoured channels' vids with no blockers and to skip about as its fancy takes it so it looks like a real person. This will give my favoured channels some revenue while I continue to use blockers for an ad-free experience. How will Google know that a real person is watching?
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Monday 27th November 2023 04:05 GMT Not Yb
They were hoping the "Web Environment Integrity API" would have let them make absolutely sure that only "trusted" (the web server decided) addons were installed... Thankfully everyone else pushed back on that idea. And of course I don't use Chrome for anything that I can still use another browser for now.
https://www.neowin.net/news/brave-vivaldi-and-mozilla-reject-googles-controversial-tracker-api/
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 12:41 GMT 142
> Yes, I know I could pay for Youtube Premium, but it costs a lot, and from what I've been told, creators don't get as much as they would if you watched ads.
No - that's not the case at all. It's the opposite in fact, and drastically so. 50% of your subscription goes to the creators of the viewers you watch. You'd have to watch an absolutely absurd number of videos in a month (literally in the thousands) for that cut to be outweighed by the income the creator would have got from ads.
Even in niches where advertisers are throwing stupid money at ad slots, like videos targeted at kids or affiliate marketing tutorials, someone would need to watch 500 videos-per-month before ads would be better for the creator.
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Monday 27th November 2023 04:10 GMT Not Yb
"50% of your subscription goes to the creators of the [videos] you watch." As determined by Google, who may not be an unbiased judge of what videos were "watched", and definitely doesn't pay out to all the creators that get watched on youtube.
Not at all sure where your "50% of subscription" statistic comes from, either. Seems unlikely.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 13:08 GMT TheFifth
Just a note, the cut off for monetisation is a minimum of 1,000 followers and 4,000 hours of public watch time within a 12-month period or 10 million public YouTube Shorts views within a 90-day period.
YouTube will still put ads on those channels that fall below this threshold though, but not a penny will go to the creator.
So if the creators you watch are truly small channels, they won't be seeing a penny from the adverts you are watching.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 17:12 GMT Elongated Muskrat
Nice sentiment, except:
- Small youtubers (with below a certain threshold of views) don't get a penny from the adverts, it all goes to Alphabet.
- ads aren't just static images, or videos inserted into other videos, many of the so-called "ads" on web sites (not specifically YouTube here, but the general principle applies), are downloading and running arbitrary code on your PC. This is a delivery mechanism for zero-day, or unpatched exploits. No thanks.
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Thursday 23rd November 2023 07:58 GMT Roland6
>” many of the so-called "ads" on web sites … are downloading and running arbitrary code on your PC. This is a delivery mechanism for zero-day, or unpatched exploits.”
I’ve noticed an increase in this (malware delivery via ads), in part because Kaspersky flags and blocks all the rouge download attempts, yes this is on systems running ABplus.
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Thursday 23rd November 2023 00:02 GMT jake
"I follow a lot of small youtubers who really need the income from their channel"
One word: Merch.
I'm absolutely certain that I provided more profit to ElREg at the late, lamented Cash&Carrion than ElReg would ever reap from forcing ads at me. I'm wearing a fifteen year old RTFM Tshirt as I type (perfect for stacking hay bales), and the coffee mug on my desk has a familiar red logo on it ...
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Monday 27th November 2023 04:14 GMT Not Yb
T-shirt: 15 years use, many still work long after purchase
Coffee Mug: I've got some that are 30+ years old and still work, the technology here has actually improved a bit with baked-in-the-kiln graphics.
I recommend not buying the crappy plastic merch, it's usually fairly simple to find actually good merch that lasts a long time.
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Monday 27th November 2023 13:28 GMT Craig 2
Re: I do tend to ignore them
Do you really, truly ignore them though? Studies have shown even if you're fully aware you're being manipulated, it can still have an effect on decision-making.
I sometimes wonder if my own psyche is subverting conscious decisions.... Who fancies a bowl of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes?
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 11:39 GMT Greybearded old scrote
That Melania moment
"I don't care."
I put up with their ads for a long time despite their attempts at tracking. (I have several methods of screwing that up all active at once.) I installed a specifically YT ad blocker when they got too greedy and were interrupting videos every 3-5 minutes.
Now they can Go Find A Warmer Place.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 20:36 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: That Melania moment
"interrupting videos every 3-5 minutes."
That seems to be "The American Way". I was watching a YT video of Adam Savage the other day talking about his time on Mythbusters and was shocked to hear him describe it as a "6 act show", ie 5 ad breaks in what is supposedly an hour long show. I'd only ever seen it on UK TV, with 3 ad breaks in the show. It's no wonder streaming services took off so rapidly and meteorically in the US is they are forced to watch ads on broadcast TV every 5-7 minutes during a show. YT are just copying that modal and making it even worse. Surely the people at YT who are doing this must remember growing up watching TV with far too many ad breaks and being frustrated by them! And yet they are inflicting the same on their audience, on steroids!
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Thursday 23rd November 2023 03:07 GMT CowHorseFrog
YOu obviously dont appreciate the American business structure.
What is leadeship but another word for people who bullshit. Naturally since they have no skills they are attracted to advertising which is of course bullsht. Its bullshit leadership from companies spending money to bullsht to the public. WIthout advertising leadership and their departments would have even less visibility...and people would realise nobody needs either lot.
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Monday 27th November 2023 04:21 GMT Not Yb
Re: Higher than 1080p
Nope, many of the streaming services have decided that browsers are not "secure" enough for HD. This is not a coincidence.
More than one of them has even decided that Linux streaming is NOT OK, but Windows streaming is. (Peacock, I'm glaring at you with a handful of money I'm not going to be sending you until you fix this stupid decision)
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 13:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
Firefox here... I noticed a slowdown but just thought it was my vpn...lol
Saw a suggestion for a ublock origin filter..
www.youtube.com##+js(nano-stb, resolve(1), 5000, 0.001)
or
www.youtube.com##+js(nano-stb, resolve(1), *, 0.001)
Seems to have helped mine.
Brave browser helps as well.
Saw another comment... Since I never am logged in while at youtube.... how do they know
what software I'm running...unless they are digging around on my computer w/o my permission....
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 22:58 GMT xyz123
They're being sued because they started scanning your actual PC for "files of interest" so they can see just what software you're using.
Illegal in the US, VERY illegal in the EU. and thats why they're facing crazy insane fines.
Trying to bribe EU officials to "drop the case" with under the table payments didn't help as the ones they selected turned out to be honest.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 15:12 GMT may_i
Forcing people to turn off ad blocking won't have the effect that Google wants
I support my favourite YouTube creators directly via Patreon. The majority of them have reported that over the last few years, the amount of money they get from Google has been decreasing every month. What they get from YouTube in exchange for annoying people with far too many ads is hardly even worth the trouble any more.
If Google start making life hard for me by making it impossible to use YouTube while blocking ads, I simply won't visit YouTube any more and if my favourite creators are not prepared to start posting their videos to YouTube alternatives, they will lose my Patreon contributions as well. In the end, everyone will end up losing, including Google themselves.
I will not tolerate Google telling me how I run things on my own computer!
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 20:43 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: Forcing people to turn off ad blocking won't have the effect that Google wants
"In the end, everyone will end up losing, including Google themselves."
Sadly, in realty, what will happen is the vast majority will accept the situation and the few of us who actually care will have to either switch off and tune out or join the crowd and put up with it :-(
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 18:23 GMT Philo T Farnsworth
Re: Not here
I haven't seen any delays either, but I'm running so many ad blockers that most web pages look like mincemeat, which is fine, since all I generally care about is the text, anyhow.
I'm also running an auto-play blocker which may be masking the delay.
I'd be happy with a static ad that displayed on the YouTube page or even a few seconds of static ad at the beginning of the video, sort of like the way PBS[1] funding ads used to be before they started running full-on commercials -- ads in newspapers (remember those? Ask your grandpa) never bothered me since they didn't try to reach out and throttle my eyeballs with flying Toyotas.
_____________
[1] For non-Americans, PBS is the Public Broadcasting System, a purportedly viewer-supported network that has increasingly become more commercialized over the decades as government funding has eroded. Please give.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 17:20 GMT StrangerHereMyself
Re: Don't be surprised if at some point Google bans any non-Chromium browser on switch to Manifest 3
Google shouldn't be surprised then if some other Internet Search Engine starts to make inroads and at some point threatens their dominance.
I've seen companies attempt many of these money grabs simply because they believe they're invulnerable. But they aren't. I've also seen many of them backtrack as soon as a competitor starts to climb the ladder.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 20:52 GMT Headley_Grange
Re: Don't be surprised if at some point Google bans any non-Chromium browser on switch to Manifest 3
Don't be surprised if Devs, effectively, ban any non-Chromium browser by not bothering to test their websites on other browsers. It's happening now. I can't book my local sports centre because its website doesn't work properly on FF or Safari and their solution is to use Chrome and there have been a couple of others in the last 6 months or so.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 17:18 GMT frankyunderwood123
Less intrusive ads are the answer
YouTube ads are horribly intrusive.
Waiting a few seconds to watch an ad I don't care about, sure, I can stomach that.
An abrupt advert right in the middle of a video I'm watching? That makes me sick.
I immediately reach for the ad-blocker.
Actually, the real answer is a decentralised solution, where content creators decide on how they want to earn revenue.
Already, many feature sponsors in their videos, which I'm totally fine with.
Usually, these are relevant to the content and more importantly, the creators are able to mesh adverts into their creations.
Obviously this provides no revenue to Google.
Disruption is required - but the level of disruption needs to be so damn huge, so profound, it's hard to see it happening.
Nobody yet has managed to truly challenge Twitter, FaceBook or YouTube.
The 'eyeballs' have it - the sheer volume of "hits".
It's the same reason nobody can challenge eBay - it's almost impossible to upset a Monopoly, unless laws change globally.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 21:10 GMT Scott 26
> I'm old enough to remember when most video was consumed via broadcast television. The cool kids started talking about the wonderful new world of online streaming video. "And the best part is," the cool kids said, "there aren't any ads!"
or
I'm old enough to remember when most video was consumed via DVD and VHS. The cool kids started talking about the wonderful new world of downloaded video. "And the best part is," the cool kids said, "there aren't any (FBI) ads!"
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 19:35 GMT Claverhouse
A More Insidious Method
I don't watch a lot of Youtubes anyway; nor bother with adblockers, though I heartily approve of them all: Steven Black's Hosts file --- the vanilla one; his selections for his extensions, such as porn, gambling, fake news etc, are idiosyncratic... and I can avoid these foolish things by not going to such sites, I am not 12 --- blocks most adverts.
However if I see a youtube on say another site that might be interesting instead of going there, ( clicking on the screen generally shows something like Copy url at current time ) I download it with Youtube Downloader Plus ( on Linux ), then watch it.
There are rather too many Video Quality options / formats --- just use the highest quality on offer ffs --- for my taste; but using it is simple beyond words: one has already copied the url, and pasting it reveals the options panel. Then click download.
I emphasize this since downloaders are becoming wicked rare.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 20:39 GMT Kingbonj
Can Google stoop any lower?
Not a fan of ads but put up with them. What I'm getting sick of is a company that seems to be out of ideas except for adding restrictions to their services.
They need to understand: customers will pay for a good product/service if its affordable.
What they won't do is pay to be able to stream music and lock their phones at the same time (such an innovation), draining battery unnecessarily - aren't they supposed to be reducing carbon footprint?
Customers like me will just stream via some other software. I have a new chromebook and a pixel. Last google products I will ever buy.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 21:00 GMT BillGatesOfHell
There are ads on the internet?
adblocker ultimate + ghostery + clearurls + privacy badger extensions combined in your browser of choice will supress almost all ads. Need to disable ghostery nowadays on youtube but still working ad free with adblocker not detected (at time of writing).
If you want to pwn youtube on a level beyond comprehension, then get the smarttube android app from github and run in wsa or emulator of choice. This is a must have app for any firestick
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 21:28 GMT steviebuk
They need to be
nailed to the wall and fucked because it's admittance to anti-trust. Not only that, when I do witness the adverts, they are mostly from bogus products. Two that are illegal in the UK yet still targeted to UK audiences and fuck all is done about this. That is the green laser and the retractable baton.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 21:29 GMT Paradroid
Hope a link isn't unwelcome but this ad-block situation has prompted an epic deconstruction of Google by Cory Doctorow:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/22/who-wins-the-argument/#corporations-are-people-my-friend
It's both depressing reading and also uplifting to see someone do such a clear analysis of what's likely going on.
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Wednesday 22nd November 2023 22:55 GMT xyz123
Google - being sued for hundreds of anti-trust violations and anti-competitive behaviour.
Also Google - Deliberately and maliciously introduces sleep timers/slowdown code that affects all browser except chrome.
Also Google - attempts Offers bribes to other browser company employees to introduce back doors and "bugs"
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Thursday 23rd November 2023 01:07 GMT CowHorseFrog
YT ads are a scam. let pretend you watch YT for an hour a day.... with the frequency of the ads, that means 100s of ads in a week.
How is can any person possibly going to have the time or money to purchase even a fraction of them.
THe advertisers are morons they are buying ads that nobody is seeing or purchasing.
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Thursday 23rd November 2023 06:45 GMT raving angry loony
I don't use ad blockers.
I don't use ad blockers. I use blockers of malicious code that attempts to track me across the internet.
I see ads just fine. Many websites display ads that I see, and don't have an issue with. However, I don't allow that malicious code to run.
If they want me to see their ads, they shouldn't wrap it in malware.
This isn't about ads. It's about these corporations deliberately attempting to destroy anything resembling the right to privacy.
Fuck'em with a rusty chainsaw. Sideways. And their tracking malware.
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Thursday 23rd November 2023 09:34 GMT thondwe
And the cost?!
Youtube costs £12/month, or £20 for a family - compare this with Netflix, Disney etc where your tenner or so gets you full TV and Movies content for the household (OK only 2 concurrent)- it's a bit steep.
Plus you can't buy a subscription for Google Workspace accounts - so even if an org, school, etc (or in my case the family) wants to pay to get rid of ads - e.g. for training/educational videos - not possible.
So blockers it is - DuckPlayer within DuckDuckGo's browser anyone?
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Monday 11th December 2023 08:54 GMT pjaj
Still delaying
Just as an experiment I disabled all the ad blockers I had installed in Chrome. General ones and YouTube specific. And YouTube STILL delays loading by 5 seconds. What a bunch of @~£$%&! (insert your favourite expletives here).
Good job there are still several ways round YouTube's shenanigans.