A couple of weeks ago, I told you that Opera browser isn't blocking YouTube ads. This issue has been quite the headache for users, but the latest update seems to have fixed the problem.

Opera has released a new version of its browser to the stable channel. The update announcement on the company's blog finally acknowledges the ad blocking issue was real. As a matter of fact, it was the only thing highlighted in the article. Opera 76 has fixed the YouTube ad blocking issue.

Interestingly, the post also confirms that the ad blocker was not properly blocking all ads. That kind of explains why I got ads only on some videos, it was random. The release notes for Opera 76.0.4017.177 makes things even more interesting, it reads,

DNA-93554 [AdBlock] Find a fix for blocking ‘new’ YouTube ads

Notice how the 'new' part is in quotes. Some Brave users had reported the ad blocking issue as well. That indicates there's something odd going on behind the scenes. It's good to see that the problem has been addressed by Opera.

Speaking of which, does the ad blocker work? There's only one way to find out. I reset the browser to make it work like a fresh install, and to get rid of all extensions and custom settings. The first part of the test was to use Opera browser with its default settings.

So, here are my observations from using the browser without the ad-blocker enabled. A lot of YouTube videos started out with a video advertisement before getting to the actual content, while some had banner ads that stayed on top of the media. The search results page had an ad banner too. There's nothing unusual about this, this is how the world looks when you aren't using an ad-blocker, and that's what makes it annoying.

Time for part 2 of the test, all I enabled was the option to block ads. I did not toggle the block trackers setting. After watching several videos and restarting the browser multiple times, I can confirm that the ad blocker works correctly. Opera browser blocked all three types of ads (in-video ads, sticky banners, and banners on the results page).

Opera 76 also fixes an issue with the picture-in-picture video playback, you can now control the sound properly in the pop-out.

Did you notice that Opera's blog announcement does not talk about Opera GX? If you read my previous article, you may remember that GX had the ad blocking issue as well. After a bit of searching, I found the change log for Opera GX on the community forums. The post mentions that the same fix for the ad blocker was added in version v75 of the browser. That's Opera GX 75.0.3969.282 to be precise. So, I gave it the same treatment as the regular variant of the browser, and GX seems to be blocking ads just as it should be.

If you're using an older version of the browser, I recommend updating to Opera 76. The installer is available at the official site.

Don't forget to tell us whether the ad blocker is now working fine for you.