Youtube let the other shoe drop in their end-stage enshittification this week. Last month, they required you to turn on Youtube History to view the feed of youtube videos recommendations. That seems reasonable, so I did it. But I delete my history every 1 week instead of every 3 months. So they don’t get much from my choices. It still did a pretty good job of showing me stuff I was interested in watching.
Then on Oct 1, they threw up a “You’re using an Ad Blocker” overlay on videos. I’d use my trusty Overlay Remover plugin to remove the annoying javascript graphic and watch what I wanted. I didn’t have to click the X to dismiss the obnoxious page.
Last week, they started placing a timer with the X so you had to wait 5 seconds for the X to appear so you could dismiss blocking graphic.
Today, there was a new graphic. It allowed you to view three videos before you had to turn off your Ad Blocker. I viewed a video 3 times just to see what happens.
Now all I see is this.
Google has out and out made it a violation of their ToS to have an ad blocker to view Youtube. Or you can pay them $$$.
I ban such sites from my systems by replacing their DNS name in my hosts file routed to 127.0.0.1 which means I can’t view the site. I have quite a few banned sites now.
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Lol it was some Google employee’s job for months to work on this anti AdBlock method and uBlock Origin bypasses it like same day
Don’t assume ineptitude.
I’ve been in the position of being asked to implement an anti-feature. I made it take as long as possible to drive up the cost and designed it to be trivially bypassable because I’m not motivated to intentionally trash my own project.
I don’t know who you are, or what you write, but thank you.
Subterfuge at work, a fun subject to study.
Some of my favorites from a declassified WWII “simple productivity sabotage” manual:
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Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
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Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.
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When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committee as large as possible — never less than five.
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Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
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Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
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Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
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Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable"and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
When I first saw these I was like goddamn, psyops got to my executive director!
Sounds like how work is done in large corps
Or public administration
Wow, most of these points just sound like a responsible way to handle all the bullshit requests from employees. I’m not saying make it unnessecarily painful for employees to request changes. However, I currently work at a company that did the “just do it” approach for years, got big with it and now our department needs to clean up the bullshit of many years to get the company up to code with whatever regulations we are under and people still think we can continue working just like that.
Generally, too little of something is bad for one reason and too much of something is bad for another reason.
“Don’t order new working materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown.”
See also: lean manufacturing
Sounds like how I buy shoes and jackets.
What’s funny about this is all of this pretty much comes naturally when you’re doing something you don’t want to do without a reason to do it.
Do you know if there is a book (extensive article) which covers that in detail?
OSS’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual, 1944
There’s a link at the top for the full pdf. And do note, OSS is Office of Special Services, the WWII precursor to the CIA - not Open Source Software lol.
Thanks (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
WWII changed their name to BMV I think.
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Destroying them from the inside I see
Not all heroes wear capes, but you are a godsend!
the prejudice, assuming they don’t wear a cape.
Based
I always thought if youtube pushes the anti ad policy too hard they risk alienating the tech people who will end up on another platform which will start growing much faster. What they do is come up with half assed ad blocking. So casual people and people on locked systems like iPhone YouTube app are forced to watch ads.
Anyone not bothered by ads or Lacy enough will make Google money by watching ads. So they’re squeezing as much money without going too far. If they wanted to, they could have ads which would be unblock-able.
Good guy.
90% chance the dev knew and didn’t care
If only they could do the same for Twitch
Adblock solutions still exist for twitch. I’m using one right now. Never seen a single ultra intrusive pre-roll or full screen ad in months. Banner ads occasionally sneak through.
It does break every now and then for a week or so when twitch updates things, but still infinitely better than sitting through ads.
Which addon do you use because I’ve tried like all of them. They still manage to get thru
Ive had to dick around with my adblock settings once every few days lately.
Firefox + ublock origin = I haven’t had to do anything for the last year and stuff just gets blocked with no downsides.
Yeah this is the way. I honestly forgot they had ads until I pulled a video up on my phone to show a friend the other day.
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to clean a condom*
And don’t forget to show your appreciation to the people who maintain that whole shebang - of course, only if you’re able to. Sending here and there 10 bucks, for example to the Newpipe or libretube team - or to your resident open source adblocker - doesn’t hurt, it’s only a few clicks and it really makes a difference.
ublock origin doesn’t accept donations, donate to filter list maintainers instead
How would one do this? I use ublock origin on Firefox, but I’ve started seeing the same pop-ups on YouTube the last few days and would love to get rid of them.
On PC: Click on the little uBlock Origin symbol on the url bar, then click on the little gears in the middle right to go to the dashboard, and then select the Filter Lists tab.
To begin, ensure that the first option, auto-updating filter lists, is turned on unless you have a reason for it to be off.
Then, make sure that you have ALL the ad-related filters turned on, and all the annoyances filters selected as well. Only some are selected by default so you need to look them over carefully. Look over the other filters while you’re at it and turn on any others you’ve missed that you think you might want.
Then, once you have enabled all your desired filters, select “Apply changes” and then “Update Now” via the two large buttons at the top left of the page. You should see all the filters go from an orange triangle to something else. Export your new settings if you want a backup of what you just did, and close.
If a filter list you turned on breaks something, just turn the newly enabled ones off again OR whitelist the broken site. But honestly you shouldn’t have any problems, the uBlock Origin filter lists are pretty fine-tuned these days. I have them ALL turned on, lol.
I’ve done this several times over the last few weeks as I’ve been trying out Linux distros and refuse to use Firefox without ad-blocking. Let me know if you have any problems.
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Great call, thanks for adding that.
We need more people like you in the world.
Sadly it looks like Google/Youtube have now circumvented Ublock again. After implementing the changes you suggested above, it got rid of the pop-ups on Youtube for me for a week, and now they’re back and I can’t get around them even after updating Ublock. Hopefully Ublock gets around these quickly.
uBO! ublock is unrelated.
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I’m sure that it’ll just be an ongoing battle between Ublock & Youtube both updating themselves to get around the other. I’ve transferred over to watching more & more on Nebula as it’s better for the creators, ad free, and way cheaper than Youtube Premium.
I had that problem as well, I had to make sure I didn’t have any other blockers/privacy/enhancer addons that changed YouTube in some way, after that, ublock worked properly again.
Ah, I am also using Sponsorblock. That may be doing it.
That still works for me. I had to disable “Enhancer for Youtube” and the Firefox-internal “Enhanced tracking protection”
You’re right. Sponsorblock still works, but I needed to disable my “Return Youtube Dislikes” extension. After that was turned off, all good!
wait, you can’t use them together? I’ve been using them using them since last year and they still work fine together
Just with these latest new pop-ups that YouTube has implemented within the last couple weeks.
They worked fine in combination with one another until that.
But I delete my history every 1 week instead of every 3 months. So they don’t get much from my choices.
Implying that deleting them from your view actually deleted them.
My man thought he was permanently erasing it from history.
Next you’ll tell me cognito mode isn’t keeping my browsing completely private! /s
How can my workplace admin block Pornhub even when I’m using private mode? He shouldn’t even be allowed to see what I do privately!
I mean, this is mostly borne from a fundamental misunderstanding of what “Private Browsing” mode is and was meant to be.
When you open an incognito tab on Chrome, it literally says “Now you can browse privately, and other people who use this device won’t see your activity.”
It also says
Your activity might still be visible to:
- Websites that you visit
- Your employer or school
- Your Internet service provider
Fuck using Chrome and I’m not defending Google at all here, but they never once claimed Incognito was anything more than it was.
Pretty sure Firefox says that too. Users just don’t read. Like, ever. They’ll get an error message saying “Important!” and click whatever button seems most likely to make it go away before calling support and demanding they “fix the computer”.
If the incognito mode is not keeping your browsing private, imagine the cognitive mode!
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Surely they’ll actually comply, not be caught in an audit years down the line and given a friendly “Now now, we talked about this: don’t get caught breaking the law again!” slap on the wrist for failing to delete and instead further monetising that data?
Under GDPR and DMA, there would be real consequences. Like “being broken up or cease to exist” magnitude of consequences. Why would they risk it for the 1% of users who actually care and set their privacy settings accordingly?
Google doesnt care about you or anyones personal data. They care about the amount they collect. If the most privacy-aware users wrestle back some data and have it deleted, so be it. Google couldnt care less. Users are like cattle to them, as long as the general “data harvest rate” looks okay they wont investigate the odd one out.
Forgive me for being cynical about the odds of those consequences actually being enacted. Giving the courts a weapon for getting such companies in line is one thing, getting the judges to actually fire it another.
A law is only ever as good as its enforcement.
If I’m wrong, of course, I’ll be glad to learn that. I’ve just run out of optimism halfway through adolescence.
Check this out:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schrems
Facebook (and the complicit Irish Data Protection Comission) thought so too, an were rekt.
The case invalidated 2 seperate “safe harbor” agreements between the EU and the USA, making ANY data transfer of EU customers private data to the USA illegal without explicit consent. It was literally pandemonium in the IT sector for a few months, everyone was running stuff in US clouds and panicking.
This is what makes the EU high court (ECJ/EuGh) special: noone can pressure them politically. They couldn’t care less what anyone but EU law says.
And that was “just” GDPR, now they have way more EU laws (DMA, DSA) they can throw at FAANG.
Huh. Neat. Thanks for that!
This isn’t some trivial information like your precise location history, this is serious.
doesn’t even matter. what matters is the meta data. if the data from the list say you like science videos with emphasis on electrical engineering, star wars podcasts and mmorpg let’s plays - does that data go away apon history deletion. what about meta-meta data. if the meta data puts you on group X that receive content Y, does that go away apon history deletion. and what kind of integration does that get with the rest of the google knowledge about you…
I doubt turning off history truly does what it says either though. I think it was more about avoiding the shitty algo recc’s that try to turn everyone’s dad and uncle into a far right extremist.
All the morons defending a mindless corporation in this thread forgot that Google has far overstepped it’s boundaries in general. It got to where it is from harvesting free data from users. And now is initiating a web DRM that will far overstep any boundary seen. If a website decides to adopt it, everyone is screwed.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-web-integrity-api-sounds-like-drm-for-the-web/
“You can go ad free with YouTube premium!”
Buys premium
youtube shows ad for paramount plus under my video
Cancels YouTube premium.
So anywho there’s a thing called freetube. Just saying. Idk that it’s a perfect alternative, but it’s at least one step further from googles prying eyes and grubby hands.
So, stop using Chrome ffs, ublock and Firefox have zero issues
YouTube: starts putting 2, sometimes even 3 ads that are often unskippable before and in the middle of 10 minute videos
Also YouTube: Why are people using adblockers?
Ublock Origin literally works fine for youtube. If you ever receive a warning like this just clear your cache and refresh your filters.
If you’re on PC use Firefox with uBlock Origin.
For Android, Im personally using Libretube but using mobile Firefox with uBlock Origin also works.
On android you should try to go with youtube revanced, its a little tedious and time consuming to install but it is worth every single second.
Nah I prefer Libretube.
I’m curious, what makes you prefer Libretube?
NewPipe is another good option for android
Another option on Android is NewPipe. Doesn’t look as nice as Libretube imo, but it goes to Youtube directly for content which is useful since public piped instances can be a bit unreliable or slow from time to time. (Also on Libretube you have to sign up and re-import your subscriptions whenever you switch instances which can be tedious)
NewPipe is really good once you get the hang of it.
You have to keep in mind that its development has temporarily slowed down a bit, so you won’t have many new features, such as being able to view Shorts and Livestreams tabs in a profile (can be overcome by browsing the profile via Invidious and sharing the page to NewPipe) but bugfixes are usually quick. AFAIK the slowdown is due to a rewrite/refactoring which will make NewPipe easier to develop and maintain and improve its UI.
You can disable libretube proxy in settings
Also FreeTube for PC
Revanced still pretty much works for me
Yeah I just clicked X on their popup and went back to watching videos lol
That is just the beginning of your warnings. Later there will be a countdown before the x appears, and eventually there will be no x to click. You need to use ublock origin (and non-Chromium browsers). Remember to purge cache and updage ublock origin.
For iOS users, I highly recommend using Vinegar. 👌
I just tried libretube but it crashes every time I click on a video :(
It’s such a shame because I used to use newpipe all the time and I absolutely loved that, until it also stopped working
Did you install it from fdroid? There is a problem in fdroid version that crashes app when trying to play video. Its already fixed on github but fdroid is slow to update.
Thank you!! Now it works perfectly :)
Its also available on IzzyOnDroid repo
I think you need to update NewPipe.
If you just installed the app from an apk file, try installing it from the F-Droid app instead, to keep on receiving new updates.
Alternatively, you could add it to the Obtainium app (use the search bar when adding), since it supports GitHub, F-Droid and many more repositories.
That’ll keep you updated!
Revanced not an option?
NewPipe still works for me. But i see only crap, so i close it again.
Find channels and subscribe. It pulls them in from the feed.
I use Firefox with uBO on Windows and it doesn’t help. I tried installing filters I found online but they don’t do shit.
I’ll just install FreeTube.
It’s likely because you have some other addons/tracking protection/etc that blocks stuff or otherwise modifies how YouTube behaves. I had a YouTube enhancement addon installed, once I uninstalled that, everything got blocked properly again.
That’s odd. Were you using other YouTube add-ons?
clipious exists
Never heard of it.
Just to let you know, if you use uBlock you can expect it to adapt to this new shenanigan pretty quickly. Also I think €120/year are ridiciously overpriced. Ask me about €30/year and I might consider it for a second.
To be honest, I wouldn’t mind ads on Youtube if they were less per hour and less obnoxious. But no, every 12 second video now has an ad leading to it.
Not to mention, if I would pay for every single Video service the usual 8-15€ I would pay like €1000 per year and THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
Give me “pretty much everything” for €100 per year and we can talk. My offer stands.
PC: Install Firefox. Then install these extensions: Sponsorblock for YouTube, Enhancer for YouTube, uBlock Origins with all the filters turned on except the language filters (you can use them if you wish) and Return YouTube Dislike. Keep uBlock Filters updated by checking for filter updates once a day.
Android: There’s Revanced. I use pre-built apks along with Vanced MicroG from RVX Lite in Telegram.
Android TV: Install SmartTubeNext.
Enjoy.
Another tip: For security reasons, always install the absolute minimum number of browser extensions you can get by with. And only from devs you trust.
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That works as well.
Invidious has still been working for me too, though I’ll be clear I’m also using firefox
Hey I had a lot of problem with invidious how can u mitigate the long loading times and what about the front page … it changes content maybe once a day yeah I know I probably consume too much yt but it’s pretty annoying to search for content manually…
Sorry for the delayed responce, but yeah I understand if it’s not working for you it might not be a great option sadly.
If that’s happening, I’d try a few different instances. Try inv.tux.pizza which works well for me. I do sometimes have to click the address bar and then enter though instead of just reloading, which is also strange
Thanks I will definitely give it a shot I’m tired of yt policies (eventhow thanks to various addblock its normal for now … )
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People always recommend this, freetube, revanced, etc. When I looked into these, each one either did not work or seemed complicated to setup so I said screw it.
I’m just curious… why not use Firefox and install ublock origin? Even if you’ve never used Firefox before the whole setup process would still be far easier and it works 100% of the time.
You don’t have a choice.
Also Ublock Origin on Firefox already bypass this.
When they take out uBlock Origin, they take me out as well.
If only peertube had the same culture as Lemmy and Mastodon.
But it feels like, imo, Peertube has fallen to the same pitfalls as other YouTube alternatives. 99% of vids I see on Peertube instances are far-right conspiracy theory videos among other obviously abhorrent content that would otherwise be banned on youtube.
Newpipe is still working great, I haven’t used an official interface in like 3 years.
Lmfao, no one is dropping YouTube. You’ll be back one way or another.
Many are on lemmy because they dropped Reddit. Myself included. I was an active user on Reddit for well over a decade. This guy seems pretty serious
But replacing Youtube is sadly much harder.
I bet we’ll just get better ad blockers.
An eternal arms race: Ads vs. Adblockers. Just like malware vs anti-malware protections. System penetration vs. system hardening. It iust entered another stage of technological development, but that doesn’t mean it’s over or that we need to throw the towel.
Use Piped and Invidious. Newpipe with SponsorBlock on my android. LibreTube is also good.
You’re right, I haven’t dropped Youtube - but I’ve added Nebula. It’s not gonna be long now before either my last youtube-only creator moves to Nebula or I find some way to get an ad-free provider to play on my TV. Then I can finally unsubscribe from YT.
Lmfao, I left last week. Be the change.
I’ve quit watching videos on Youtube hundreds of times!
The actual stuff I want to watch is also on Nebula. I had subscribed to premium because I was watching mostly on my console but instead of renewing I’d rather switch there and actually pay the content creators.
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He should go to piped.
