I'm sure many of you are already aware that YouTube has been rolling out anti-adblock detection for Chrome users for a few weeks now.
Today, as a long time Firefox user with the fantastic uBlock Origin extension installed, I got my first anti-adblock popup on the platform. Note that this may not happen to you personally for a while, but it is inevitably coming for everyone.
Thankfully, the fine folks at uBlock Origin have already advised a simple workaround (on Reddit, yuck!) which I will duplicate in a simplified form below for your convenience. I have tested it on Firefox and it is working fine for me (so far).
PLEASE READ AND FOLLOW ALL OF THE INSTRUCTIONS IN THIS POST.
Update uBO to the latest version (1.52.0+) . <== The extension itself, for technical improvements. You do this in your browser.
Remove your custom config / reset to defaults. <== This means removing your custom filters (or disabling My filters) and disabling ALL additional lists you've enabled. It might be quicker to make a backup of your config and restore to defaults instead.
Force an update of your Filter Lists. <== This is within the extension. Lists are what determine what's blocked or not. How to update Filter lists: Click 🛡️ uBO's icon > the ⚙ Dashboard button > the Filter lists pane > the 🕘 Purge all caches button > the 🔃 Update now button.
Disable all other extensions AND your browser's built-in blockers. <== No need to uninstall, just disable them. They might interfere with our solutions.
Make sure you follow all 4 points above. If you're seeing the message, it's likely due to your custom config (either additional lists or separate filters in My filters).
Restarting your browser afterwards may help too.
Once you've gotten rid of the issue on default settings, you can slowly start restoring your config (if you really need it). Do it gradually, to easier find out what was causing the issue in the first place. Once you find the culprit, simply skip it in your config.
If you want to use Enhancer for YouTube*, you have to* disable its adblocking*.*
May the ~~force~~ uBlock Origin be with you!
Update
Just wanted to mention a few things that have been pointed out in the comments:
- There are quite a few projects that provide an alternative ad-free front end to YouTube. These include Invidious, FreeTube, LibreTube, Newpipe, Revanced, and I'm sure there are several more options I've missed. I don't have any particular preference really but I routinely use NewPipe on my cellphone just because I tried it once and couldn't be bothered trying all the others.
- In step 4 listed above, to clarify, afaik you only need to remove adblocker extensions (if you have more than one installed) that might conflict with the uBlock Origin rules and trigger the anti-adblock, not all extensions.
- If you hate non-stop ads but want to support your favorite content creators then be sure to give them some love on Patreon or whatever alternative options they provide. Creators typically make only a tiny, tiny fraction of what YouTube makes in ad revenue, assuming YouTube doesn't just outright steal the lot, and it's a shitty business model that's ruining the internet. Even if you watch the ads, you're only supporting YouTube most of the time, not the creators.
I wouldn't even mind giving some money to youtube if it was asking for donations or keep the the prices low and accessible, like $4 max per month to support the up keep)
YouTube could be one of the wonders of the world of we are looking at it at a content perspective.
It should be almost protected by UNESCO, if you ask me.. yes even the stupid stuff as it is a record of mankind.
But google instead of recognising the value, they got greedy.
humankin created a massive information library which google at some point decided to monetize.
We all know what happened to unity right, just as a recent example ? it doesn't take much to turn the users away, and I truly believe, even youtube can fail
They even had a semi reasonable premium tier that was just "no ads, that's all" for something like $7. Now they're kicking everyone off that plan and removing it and your next option is to pay 50+% more and you get a bunch of additional crap that I didn't ask for. I just wanted no ads.
These people seem to adamantly not want me as a customer.
platform capitalism
Yeah I'd pay up to $7 per 1000 videos, that does seem like a fair price. It'd cover about 3 years of my typical usage.
To bad there are upkeep costs. I mean it seems nobody realizes how much it costs. I imagine they well start pruning videos next because it isn't worth it to keep it all available.
This has way less to do with upkeep costs and way more to do with "big number must go up at all costs." This publicly traded company capitalism bullshit won't be satiated until it eats eats itself alive and before that happens it'll chew consumers up first.
Youtube's margins are 38%, much lower than most of its competitors (that are in the 80% range). The primary reason for the margin being so low is that they give a far higher percent of their revenue to the content creators.
Just a reminder... 38% margins are kinda low for the type of product Youtube is.
My CPM numbers are pretty out of date, perhaps their costs have gone up with inflation. On the other hand perhaps they've gone down with storage and bandwidth costs.
Unity has competition. That's why people could leave.
YouTube will (unfortunately) not fail, because there is no viable competition. I was subscribed to Nebula for a while, but obviously that doesn't have nearly the amount of content YT has.
the competition would be to stop consuming that much and instead search for the content you like in the remaining free part of the internet
The content I like is on youtube though
I've been watching twitch a lot more lately. In fact, I practically never watch anything on youtube itself. I just download using yt-dlp (either individual videos, or entire playlists/channels of things that I like), but even then, I would say my habits these days are 75% twitch, 25% youtube.
I know these two services aren't close to being the same, but it definitely is an alternative.
exactly, they're being so obnoxious and arrogant and they act like they just get to do it
YouTube, Gmail, Google search, and more are all really utilities and should be run like them. Google tried/is trying to do that by living off ads but the privacy problems are catching up to them. The service degradation in the name of profit problems are already caught up to them.
I might agree if Google had nothing to do with YouTube. But since it's theirs, I would only be worried about individual content creators and archivists, and they'd be better off with a support mechanism not controlled by Google. The ones not already raking it in with Google's, I mean.
You do know YouTube was not profitable for a long time. I can see them wanting to make some of their money back. The storage and bandwidth cost must be insane for them. Saying that yah I block the ads but I know I don't because I want to and it isn't a right of mine or anything.
Stop shilling, YT already cut their costs drastically. If they can't pay the bills, it's because they burned their own PR with advertisers by running the company like morons.
Man how low have we fallen ... Don't mind paying someone to not do something he shouldn't be doing in the first place ... YouTubers dont start to make videos as a job but for passions someone found a way to monetize other ones free time and passions and only when it comes clear he was making so much money he agreed to pay the creators in the most horrible way catching everything vane excuse to not pay them at all ...
Why should YouTube be compelled to operate for free?
Yeh here we go fine... do you think that a 8.63 to 7.96 billion dollars salary in advertising is a fair salary for basically just hosting some content ?
Of course not, but I certainly don't think they should be expected to survive without any revenue.