this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
621 points (98.7% liked)

Technology

60008 readers
2639 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
621
YouTube looks to be testing server-side ad injection to counter ad blockers (9to5google.com)
submitted 6 months ago by AnActOfCreation to c/[email protected]
234 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
  • YouTube is testing server-side ad injection to counter ad blockers, integrating ads directly into videos to make them indistinguishable from the main content.
  • This new method complicates ad blocking, including tools like SponsorBlock, which now face challenges in accurately identifying and skipping sponsored segments.
  • The feature is currently in testing and not widely rolled out, with YouTube encouraging users to subscribe to YouTube Premium for an ad-free experience.
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Cool, but that doesn’t work when ads are inserted randomly

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I can imagine a plugin system that gets submissions of hashes of specific frames - or just entire frames - when users play them, then checks those frames to detect which parts of the video are unique vs common, then automatically requests new frames to narrow down the timestamps and carve out the additions.

Probably wouldn't take more than a handful of views across the entire network to get a pretty solid ad removal system. Even better it wouldn't even rely on user input, which itself is already pretty fast. I have never encountered even the newest video that wasn't already in the sponsorblock system.

Honestly this sounds like a fun project, I imagine it wouldn't take the heroes that develop things like sponsorblock very long to figure it out. Plus they have spite on their side.

Edit: actually, rather than rely on randomised frame checks to find the collisions, have the clients submit frames then send frames out and ask clients to see if those frames appear in their videos. Then you very quickly determine which frames are unique.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

you might be onto something.
now if only we could fund this project.. maybe through advertising

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

yeah, i realized it later. i don't see normal ads, forgot they're injected randomly. still a great plugin