This could backfire into something Google don’t want: everyone using adblockers.
Imagine everyone installing adblockers just to skip YouTube’s obnoxious ad rolls, just to also block most Internet ads.
Suddenly, having an adblocker becomes mainstream like wearing socks.
You guys are wearing socks?!
I was curious and latest statistics show 43% of users between 16 and 24 use ad blockers. We’re already at bra level of mainstreamyness.
No, it couldn’t. People who didn’t use adblockers aren’t going to suddenly start using them just because YouTube started blocking adblockers. People who didn’t use adblockers aren’t impacted at all, nothing has changed for them.
Unfortunately, it means they’ll move on pieces they already have in place.
They can disable ad blocking in Chrome entirely, and it probably won’t kill the browser.
“Go on then, there are other browsers than these” - Jake Chambers in The Gunslinger by Stephen King
The article linked here showed a pattern of people uninstalling ad blockers on Chrome… and then turning around and installing them on Edge.
This YouTube campaign might be one of the best things that ever happened to Edge.
I don’t see how? This is targeting people already using ad blockers. People not already using them should not see any difference in service so why would they change their behaviour? At most a mild rise of awareness, though I bet most people following these news stories are also already running ad blockers. It is all the other aggressive shit they are doing with ads that will turn people towards ad blockers/premium.
ublock origion, if anyone needs to know which one to use…
unlock origin
I prefer uBlock Origin myself.
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Adnauseam if you want to add a layer of fuck you on top of it.
It doesn’t say more people overall use ad blockers. It says people that were already using them are now switching between different extensions. Let’s wait and see if this increases Firefox’s market share. This could be the real good outcome of all this.
But people who don’t use adblockers aren’t the target if anti adblock stuff in the first place.
It pushed me more towards degoogling. Was already using newpipe on Android and ignoring the YouTube app, and now I’m on freetube on desktop. No need for Google account anymore to look at the feed I want.
Invidious has been a saviour for me on mobile. The ads were so painfully long. To make it worse, I’d use YouTube to help fall asleep, adjust it to the right volume, then BAM! Loud advert. I didn’t use an ad blocker on PC for ages because I get that bandwidth is expensive as hell, but they really started taking the piss and I gave up.
freetube uses Electron = Chromium ;D
At the moment, I am in a hybrid state. I also use Indivious to watch the videos, but I still use the subscription view of YouTube to see what video is new. I have 145 subscriptions. I installed a new addon Redirector, which you can guess what it does, and it redirects each new tab to an Indivious instance if it’s a YouTube video page. So YouTube thinks I stopped watching videos at the moment. Sometimes I forget to middle click instead and get reminded how bad the ads are.
The reason I am doing that is, because I feared Google could delete my account, if I keep blocking ads with uBlock Origin. It probably never happened to anyone, but the uncertainty was too high to risk for me, as I need this account for other things. Also sometimes I want to like or comment on the video too.
On the off chance you aren’t aware, you can export your YT subs and import them into Invidious via a json file.
I still occasionally visit the actual YouTube frontpahe for the algorithm’s suggestions, but all my subscriptions live on Piped, FreeTube, and on my phone, LibreTube.
I actually wasn’t aware of this possibility. Thanks. That’s probably what I will do soon and stop visiting YouTube altogether.
You can plop a youtube channel URL into an RSS reader and it’s a valid RSS. You don’t need a Google account in that case, but of course Google could just stop supporting RSS at any point.
That’s interesting! I use RSS (and love it) and never tried this on YouTube. You know what, this is actually amazing! Right now I am visiting some channels which I do not want to miss content on and add as RSS News. Thank you for this!
The day i remove my adblocker is the day… ah who am i kidding, i will never uninstall my adblocker.
t doesn’t say more people overall use ad blockers. It says people that were already using them are now switching between different extensions. Let’s wait and see if this increases Firefox’s market share. This could be the real good outcome of all this.
That’s literally the first thing after I install any new system.
- get firefox on a stick so I don’t have to open deprecated explorer or have to download Edge
- install firefox, get ad blocker extension
- then remove/turn off all the recommended shit that are now embedded to your start menu and task bar and lock screen. (I wish there is a github FOSS script that does this for new windows builds. )
I will abandon windows when the games can all be played on Linux properly.
I wish there is a github FOSS script that does this for new windows builds.
Dude, thanks for this.
I will abandon windows when the games can all be played on Linux properly.
I feel you there. I’m just about at that point, although I also need better support for music software (FL studio, VSTs, etc) and hardware before I can fully switch.
quick google search implies that FL Studio “works flawlessly” on linux through wine (which you also use for video games) 5 years ago already. https://jstaf.github.io/posts/flstudio-on-linux/
I will abandon windows when the games can all be played on Linux properly
Sooo… today? Sweet! Welcome to the club! :)
Is there a compatibility list and performance difference?
I have games that are not from steam so they will need to be able to run as well.(and games that requires their launcher, like EA/Ubisoft. Oh and some of them have denuvo.)
How about other driver functions(recording game clips, instant replay buffers) that was provided on windows drivers?
I am planning a new build(so many new hardware’s) so if all above are possible and don’t need some arcane knowledge (like suddenly you need to upgrade your libc and install new kernels and fuck around with driver compatibility) then consider me in.
What/where would be the guide and distro to start with?
I’m eagerly awaiting an answer here. Every time I read “Gaming on Linux is already pretty good!” the further instructions read to me like having to write your own game engine (straight up incompatibility of some games aside).
I’m willing to fuck around with Linux on a similar difficulty to tinkering with somewhat hard to install mods or slightly difficult Windows troubleshooting (such as tinkering with individual registry entries or editing .ini files).
I haven’t had a single game that needed editing ini files in ~ a year of gaming on linux. Most of the time it works straight from Steam as you’d expect on Windows. If not it’s usually just checking protondb.com to find out what launch arguments and proton version a steam game needs/works best with.
If a game is not on steam it’s usually easiest to use Lutris to handle the launcher setup as most other launchers like epic and uplay do not run natively on Linux so they need to be launched in the same container as windows games which Lutris fully takes care of.
Note that some games have kernel level anti cheat which will never work on linux. (eg valorant)
Is there a compatibility list and performance difference?
The closest thing I know is ProtonDB
Sadly, Fortnite doesn’t run on Linux. EAC has Linux support in general but Epic doesn’t it for Fortnite…
Was one of the first things I tried on my Steamdeck after installing HeroicLauncher. Would have been nice with the gyro.I love Linux but this just isn’t true. There are still quite a few games like PUBG that can’t work thanks to anticheat, which are often the kinds of games I’m less likely to stop playing to switch because I’ve got friends I’d like to play it with
I’m about a week off coming back to Windows from Linux.
Some things that chased me off:
- Alan Wake 2 used too new of GPU features
- Once after playing a game, my cursor was just gone—not invisible, just not there. Only keyboard.
- A few times after quitting games, something was broken about the desktop experience and I had to reboot the machine to get things working again
- Discord crashed any time the machine went to sleep (or woke up? Hard to tell which)
- Several games only worked if I manually put in Proton launch options
- No support for DLSS framegen
- Cyberpunk had to be given a fake driver version to support ray reconstruction
- No support for GamePass games still, which is how I’d been playing Starfield and Lies if P, and planning on Cities: Skylines 2.
- No native support for middle-click scrolling without pasting (I don’t count editing low-level X config files)
- [edit] Also Lords if the Fallen thought I was using a modified game and wouldn’t let me online—solo play only, thanks to EAC
I keep feeling like Linux is just a year or two away from being good enough for common folks to switch over, and I guess if all you need if Firefox, it’s probably there. But the experience is just so subtly, but consistently, bad year after year.
For reference, I was on Pop!_OS (whatever their latest stable was, I think based on Ubuntu 22?). I had read that Pop!_OS was one of the better distorts for games.
I’ve done that very long time ago even custom build linux kernels and compile drivers, but the experience is not really good cause it’s basically a waiting game. You wait for updates and fixes and drivers etc cause no one owes you anything and even for gaming updates you might not be priority. (I used to pay money to a side fork of wine that has a paid member voting which game’s compatibility to work on first. I don’t have to pay/wait for anything just to have a game working on Windows. )
I switched to Linux a year or so ago and kept a Windows partition just in case. I’ve only had to use it once for an online exam.
What games have you played since then? For reference. I go check my most recent played game https://www.protondb.com/app/2009100 and I am not really convinced by the result. And the game I am going to play https://www.protondb.com/app/835960, very mixed results. Consider both are UE5 engine games. I will check back like in a year or 2 once UE5 games runs on proton smoothly I will switch.
Yeah I don’t play any UE5 games. Although it looks like both of those you linked mostly work. If you’re not willing to tweak your proton version or settings every once in a while then Linux probably isn’t for you.
That’s why I say maybe I need to give it a year then visit the protondb again. I am too lazy to tweak those per game or doing all the extra works(some people have their own Custom Proton??) just to play a game. It’s also why sometimes I just buy games on console cause it’s way easier to play game on it. (the suspend feature is a big win, I wish PC game has this as well. )
Custom proton usually means the glorious eggroll version, it’s just a community maintained version you have to install on your own.
The real villainy here is that Google is trying to project this practice as stealing. They have started dictating what you can or can’t do on your system (this has parallels with their crooked WEI efforts).
Just in case you are worried about the moral implications of using ad blockers on YouTube, remember this - they didn’t become the video hosting monopoly by playing fair. They waited till all their competitors were dead, to start demanding money and aggressively pushing ads. If you are worried about the income of the creators, please pay them directly - don’t feed a false ‘dont-be-evil’ corporation.
Some users are even going as far as to switch to a new browser.
As someone who changes browsers regularly on a whim, I love how big of a deal this is to the average person.
At this point anyone who is still using Chrome is an utter fool. I can’t understand why you’d use a browser from an obvious bad actor like Google when switching is free and easy.
Yeah, but I’m sure a lot of people just bought youtube premium. I know my friend did…stupid idiot.
I wonder how business owners feel about their advertisements being weaponized to push people toward subscription plans that eliminate advertisements.
Google doesn’t give a shit what their advertisers think. It’s not a “please buy our ads” situation, it’s a “where else would you advertise online, you stupid fuck?” type of situation.
Google reached that position by keeping the platform pleasant till no one else was left standing. That should be an antitrust activity in any free market. Remember this when you see Google gaslighting you about the moral implications of using adblocks.
People that were running ad blockers were not seeing ads and business owners were not paying for those blocked ads. So I don’t see why they would care at all.
True, but people who used to be served one ad per video are now being served 4 or 5, which both lessens the value of each individual ad, and gives more incentive to get rid of them with premium
I was going to buy premium then I saw the price. It’s like 14 a month, 24 for family, per month. To add on top of that, every subscription service has been increasing prices so in a few years it’s probably going to be 20/30 dollars a month. Additionally, I already pay Google for 2 TB drive space for personal for 11 dollars a month and 13 dollars a month for a company workspace with one user. So why would I pay 24 more dollars to Google, and 30 dollars down the road?
Honestly, if Protonmail had better prices I’d likely switch but right now a more expensive service for fewer features isn’t what I am going for. It’s currently 30 dollars a month for only 3TB. I get 2 TB for just 11 dollars, family is free. Not to mention switching the whole family is a whole conversation and getting it to work on everyone’s device is a headache with any service. As much as I would want to degoogle, I use Android, I use Google Voice, and I likely am not going to switch those. It’s not really going to help me untie from Google and would just cause me headaches.
I could justify the AU$30 per month for myself and my housemate, but at AU$43, they can GAGTGF.
GAGTGF?
I have no idea what this means, but I feel like it’s probably something I’d like in my back pocket to pull out and throw in someone’s face…kinda like pocket sand.GAGYGF is Go And Get Your Guts F… GAGTGF substitutes “Your” for “Their”. “GagyGoof” does roll off the tongue a bit better than “GagTeeGoof”.
Nice, I definitely will be keeping that in my back pocket
I tried to take a stab at it, but I’m coming up empty.
Go And Get Totally Gang Fucked
Get A Grip To Get Fucked
Give A Gummer Then Get FuckedI just typed about 6 things, not a one made half as much sense as what you had.
I give you an A for affort!
I use Hetzner’s Storage Share (which is a nextcloud instance) as my drive and pay around 5€ / mo for 1 TB. Depending on the features you want you could also use their Storage Box which is more like a plain network drive, and cheaper… like 13€ / mo for 5 TB.
Why not just get the storage box and run the Nextcloud instance with the storage box mounted? Just curious.
You should be able to do that, you’d just need to set up and maintain the Nextcloud instance yourself :)
damn here in Egypt it’s a dollar a month for students or 2 for others. even with the purchasing power difference its a pretty good deal
I’ve had YouTube premium from the inception of their subscription model prior to/at the beginning of YouTube red, as I initially had a paid Google music subscription.
Personally, there isn’t a better option for the amount of hassle involved in my opinion. It’s a family account, and managing so many people’s YouTube experiences on at least a dozen different devices would be a nightmare I don’t want to think about. (Multiple of each TV’s, Roku’s, Android phones, iPhones, pc’s, etc)
This isn’t really relevant to your friend, it is quite silly when it’s just one person not willing to do it for just themselves.
Only reason they are seeing so many uninstalls is because ublock origin is the big one that works and that requires uninstalling other blockers to get it to not be detected.
Ublock origin doesn’t track uninstalls but it has gained quite a few users in the last 8 days
vs
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
Yeah a more plausible explanation here is that people are installing various adblockers until they find one that works, which is why many are seeing both more installs and more uninstalls.
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Are there any services that provide an alternative to YouTube history? I primarily watch on my Chromecast with Google TV and I haven’t been able to find any
Have you tried Piped? It can be self hosted, but there are also public instances. Features also include Playlists and Feed, probably also History. Maybe you need to create an account for that. Never tried that, because I use it through the Android App LibreTube which also has these features without account.
Thanks. Looks like NewPipe runs on Android TV but isn’t optimized to work with remotes
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I’m shocked I tell you. Shocked! Who could have seen this coming!?
Well, well, well, Google. I told you.
This is only 20% of our power. We are not even Super Saiyan yet.And equally, Google is yet to use the big guns they have. Don’t get me wrong, I hate Google with a passion, but they have way too much power over the internet for us to leave even a dent on their plans.
They have a lot of power, but that power is tied by goodwill.
Right now they are cashing in all that goodwill with price increases, more onerous privacy invasion and “sponsored” links in lieu of actually accurate search results.
Google: it’s over 9000!
It pushed me to buy grayjay which is allowing me to easily keep up with people off youtube. I just wish that grayjay had a web app.
my problem with grayjay is that it really wants to give me stuff from the trending tab even though it’s supposed to be subscriptions only
I’ve been using an ad blocker forever at this point. Honestly the internet is unusable to me without one. My anxiety makes me worried that they’ll ban my gmail even though I’m not seeing the ‘don’t use an ad blocker’ messages. Yeah I need to migrate my emails now.
Anyway fuck Google for this shit. The number of people using an ad blocker was low just from anecdotal evidence I’ve seen. Even youtubers who are tech savvy don’t seem to use them.
