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  • Security & Privacy News

    YouTube showing ads with uBlock Origin enabled? Here is a fix!

    Karlston

    By Karlston,
    Published Date:

    • 10 comments
    • 1.5k views
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    • 10 comments
    • 1.5k views
    • 3 minutes

    The only sane way for watching videos on YouTube who don't pay the exorbitant price for YouTube Premium is to use a content blocker. One of the main reasons for that is the excessive use of advertisement on the site.

     

    Many users might not mind the occasional ad or two at the beginning of videos, but it often feels as if the ads have a longer playtime than the actual video one is watching.

     

    If you visit YouTube right now with uBlock Origin, or other content blockers, you may have noticed that Google is trying various techniques to discourage you from using it on the site: from detecting the use of ad blockers and showing the ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube notification, which in some cases users can't even bypass without either allowing ads or signing-up for YouTube Premium, to testing Unskippable Ads on YouTube TV.

     

    youtube-showing-ads-with-adblocker.png

     

    Recently, it appears that Google has found another way to bypass content blockers. When you visit the site right now with a content blocker, such as uBlock Origin, you may either have advertisement loaded before, while playing, and after videos, just as if you wouldn't be running a content blocker, or not able to play videos at all, as videos appear to load endlessly.

     

    The screenshot above was captured in Firefox with uBlock Origin turned on. YouTube did display an advertisement before the video while uBlock was enabled.

     

    ublock-youtube-filters-refresh.png

     

    If you encounter the same issue, you may try the following fix to address the issue:

     

    1. Activate the uBlock Origin icon and select the "Open the dashboard" icon in the interface that opens.
    2. Switch to the Filter Lists tab.
    3. Click on the "purge all caches" button.
    4. Select the "update now" button afterwards.

     

    This removes cached content from the add-on, which may include outdated instructions on dealing with YouTube's attempts to display ads even while an ad-blocker is enabled.

     

    When you reload the page after you have followed the instructions, you should notice that the video loads normally again. No ads will play while watching it on YouTube.

     

    You may wonder why this is happening and whether it could happen again in the future. The short answer is yes, it may happen again. Content blockers such as uBlock Origin rely on specific instructions and rules. These detect ads and block them. If a site changes its code, it may happen that ads are not detected and therefore not blocked by the extension.

     

    The filters are updated frequently and it usually does not take long before they are updated. It may take some time though before the updates land on the user's system. Purging the cache and forcing an update will speed up the process.

     

    Ai-powered content blockers may not face these issues, as they do not rely solely on filter lists, but they should be considered experimental at this stage.

     

    Now You: do you use YouTube?

     

     

    Source

    • Matt and aum
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    Karlston

    Have noticed on my iPad that there's a longish delay before fully loading Youtube Home or Subscriptions pages.

     

    Figured that Google's busy checking for or trying to block Adguard, have several custom Adguard filters for Youtube. Still working. Current score... Adguard 1, Google/Youtube 0. :)

    • Mutton, Matt and samoray
    • Like 3
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    samoray
    1 hour ago, Karlston said:

    Have noticed on my iPad that there's a longish delay before fully loading Youtube Home or Subscriptions pages.

     

    Figured that Google's busy checking for or trying to block Adguard, have several custom Adguard filters for Youtube. Still working. Current score... Adguard 1, Google/Youtube 0. :)

    I have "adguard DNS" configured on my router, indeed I dont see too much ads as before, but they still appear sporadically.

    I wonder which filters are you using in your configuration?

    can you name few? if possible.

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    Karlston

    @samoray I block a lot more on Youtube than the ads, tbh I’m not sure which are which.

     

    Have a look at the comprehensive list kindly posted by @jayballs here . They look like they block the in-video ads plus the annoying “Adblockers are not allowed on Youtube” popup tantrums. I remember adding the listed ones I didn’t already have.

     

    I think you probably need the full Adguard to use these filters. IIRC, Adguard DNS blocks only at the domain level.

    Edited by Karlston
    Link to comment, not OP
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    lurch234
    Quote

    If you visit YouTube right now with uBlock Origin,

    Nope. No problems whatsoever. It's blocking 85 elements compared to 7 from ABP. I use Fanboys annoyance list and these lines in "my filters"

    I posted those line in a reply somewhere not so long ago:

     

    Quote

    ##.videowall-endscreen

        youtube.com##.html5-endscreen-content
        youtube.com##.html5-endscreen
        youtube.com##.ytp-ce-element

    Actually, the only grievance I have ATM is the moronic rounded corners on the videos. Found an add-on for that tho :P

    Although there is a method for Stylish users.

    Edited by lurch234
    added info
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    Karlston
    6 hours ago, lurch234 said:

    Is it just me or browsers are behaving more and more like games?

     

    You may be right, but fortunately the game Google/Youtube is playing with users here is "Whack-a-mole" :)

     

    Google may have some smart people, but there will always be smarter ones outside Google.

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    Juhi

    I have all this filters but its not working and youtube is not loading in firefox browser.
    YT load after i disable ublockOrigin. 
     

    Edited by Juhi
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    Karlston
    On 9/5/2023 at 5:45 AM, Juhi said:

    I have all this filters but its not working and youtube is not loading in firefox browser.
    YT load after i disable ublockOrigin. 

     

    Just checked my iPad where no ads appear at the start or inside videos. I think it's just these that are needed for that...

     

     www.youtube.com##.ytd-video-preview
     www.youtube.com##.ytp-ce-covering-overlay
     www.youtube.com##.ytp-ce-element
     www.youtube.com##.ytp-cards
     www.youtube.com##.ytp-cards-teaser
     www.youtube.com##.ytp-cards-button-icon
     

    Try disabling all the ones you added by putting an exclamation mark "!" at the start of their lines, and then click the "Apply changes" button near the top left. Check, it should be back to the way it was.

     

    Then add these 6 in and try some videos.

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    jayballs

    jayballs 67

    Posted (edited)

    This site can teach you all about writing adblocking rules

    https://www.maketecheasier.com/ultimate-ublock-origin-superusers-guide/

     

    I took out the youtube rules as youtube keeps changing there code and I dont want anyone get frustrated trying to use old youtube rules

     

    If you look on this site below youll understand

    https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/173jmog/youtube_antiadblock_and_ads_october_09_2023/

     

    Edited by jayballs
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