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Ask HN: Anyone else getting continuous adverts from YouTube?

41 points by darkclouds ↗ HN
As per the title, anyone else getting continuous adverts from Youtube, making it impossible to watch anything on Youtube? Cant jump forward as it goes straight to an advert, even started watching youtube channels in the search list, but the youtube controls keep changing as well as well as dissappearing. One even managed to crash the computer, wiped out the screen, the keyboard, the mouse.

Keep getting an Eon advert over and over again, 20 seconds long, singing away something about time is running out, and then immediately after the Eon advert loads of junk adverts for spurious health conditions which all seem to be voiced over by the same bloke?

56 comments

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pwg
> anyone else getting continuous adverts from Youtube

No -- because I download anything I might want to watch from youtube with yt-dlp (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Installation) and then watch with my native viewer -- so no ads, besides those the creators insert directly into the video itself.

satvikpendem
You can use SponsorBlock on yt-dlp as well, which is what I do sometimes.
hotpotamus
I use yt-dlp to keep an archive of videos I don't want YouTube to disappear (mostly music videos). What would be nice is some automation to allow yt-dlp to subscribe to channels and pull down the latest videos for you. I have to imagine it's been done by someone already, but maybe I'll take a stab at it too.
pwg
> What would be nice is some automation to allow yt-dlp to subscribe to channels and pull down the latest videos for you.

Point yt-dlp at the channel url, and use yt-dlp's --download-archive option.

Result, new, not before downloaded, items get downloaded.

Wire up to cron to run periodically, you have an "auto-downloader".

anigbrowl
On the (adblocked) computer, no. On my console (hooked up the to the TV) it's so unpleasant that I rarely use it any more. Worse than broadcast television, which is some sort of achievement.
hsbauauvhabzb
Using ublock origin I’ve started to see adds on chrome. If I click back and then forward, it skips the ads. This occurs only at the start of videos afaict.
spartanatreyu
Ublock Origin works better on Firefox. I see no ads on there.

Not that it's going to matter anyway:

- Youtube's experimenting with a strike system for adblockers

- while they're getting spammed with AI generated content

- and trying to charge a stupidly high $15 a month for "ad-free" access for a bundle where no-one wants what's in the bundle except for no ads and background-playback on phones.

If youtube goes ahead with their strike system, doesn't clear out their AI spam, and doesn't unbundle their overpriced premium subscription, I'll probably end up switching to nebula. $50 a year (~ $4 a month) for human created content without ads.

hsbauauvhabzb
Firefox on Linux doesn’t support hardware decoding.

I suspect I’m in a test group currently, I’ve not seen ads till recently.

yomlica8
> - Youtube's experimenting with a strike system for adblockers

Are they going to ban based on your account, or ip blocks? Never figured that out. I never use youtube logged in.

pb7
No, I pay for premium.
linguae
And, of course, the price of Youtube Premium just went up this month (I'm also a Premium subscriber). Seems like Big Tech this year is focused this year on trying to optimize its revenue streams (e.g., more ads on Youtube, crackdowns on password sharing on Netflix).
pb7
Still cheaper than virtually every streaming service for equivalent plans. Max and Netflix are both $20/mo for 4K ad-free.
muzani
When Spotify raised prices, I evaluated other services. I found that YT music was a thing and at the time I was listening to more music on YT (mostly covers) than Spotify. Kids get baby shark without ads. So it was an easy decision.

YouTube has a family plan, which was a bit pricier than the Spotify. But that family plan also means I could share my Google One (i.e. cloud space). Easy decision too.

The services they give scale with price. Unlike Netflix, which has removed my favorite shows and are now trying to get rid of family sharing.

muzani
Same here. It's worth it for the bundled YouTube Music, which is much better than Spotify.
solumunus
In what ways? I’m curious. Been a Spotify user from day 1 and it’s hard to imagine YouTube music is better, but I’m open to trying something new.
Waterluvian
Google seems like it’s quietly in serious trouble based on how they’ve really really cranked up the ads.

On mobile YouTube every third item is an ad. On google search I now get 5-6 YouTube links before a bunch of AI clickbait fuelled by adsense, and then maybe Wikipedia and other legit site are listed… maybe… on the first page.

I’m currently migrating my habits to avoiding search engines in general, but using DDG (which I might stick with) when I need to.

kjs3
I've found DDG to be worse than Google and no better than Bing from a search result quality perspective. Google may be showing a lot of clickbait, but Bing/DDG seem to show me links to ads from every possible entity that might want to sell me something associated with that search term, before showing me a lot of clickbait.

I'm probably going to a paid search provider.

The_SamminAter
DDG being similar to Bing does make some sense, as I seem to remember that it’s one of their major sources? As for ads, DDG kindly lets you disable them entirely under the settings menu.

I personally find Google to be almost unusable now results-wise, and DDG has been better. Not always great, but at least consistently better.

kjs3
I should have been clearer when I said 'ads'. I mean that Bing/DDG seem to front load anyone selling something related to my search term before giving me actual info about my search term. Google at least seems to try and put something relevant on the first page.
CobaltFire
It's paid, and I don't want to sound like a shill, but I've been extremely happy with Kagi for search.
remram
Mobile Firefox has uBlock Origin. Using the mobile site instead of the YouTube app removes no functionality and brings adblocking, tabs, bookmarks, and playing music in the background.

I don't know why anyone use the mobile app to be honest.

Waterluvian
Chromecast. I can’t imagine watching videos on my phone regularly.
Schinken_
Try SmartTubeNext (if your Chromecast is an android TV).
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bibanez
The app is less buggy. That and chromecast are the two reasons I use the app.
uoaei
And NewPipe via F-Droid if you already have the link and just want to watch the video (no recs, etc.).
agent008t
I want to be able to control youtube on my TV with my phone.

If I were to, say, plug in a laptop to an HDMI port on my TV and run Brave on it. Is there any way to easily control playback on it with my phone? I.e. send videos to it, pause, skip etc. Some way of mirroring what I am doing in Brave on my phone?

remram
There used to be youtube.com/tv but they killed it
throwawaymobule
you could run kodi or similar on the TV, and push videos using a remote app.

I'd suggest using KDE connect, if you really want to use a browser on the TV. I just use a $20 Logitech wireless mouse/keyboard personally.

water9
They wanna force you to buy premium
seydor
and google adwords is pretty costly, with meager ROI imho
squarefoot
They've declared war on adblockers, without any regard if that makes the experience miserable for all users. That is a move doomed to fail in the long run, and being the monopolist won't help them much as the day AI can be used to filter out junk from videos and reupload them on a decentralized platform using p2p is not that far from happening.
autoexec
Which ad blockers are impacted? I still don't see any ads on youtube that aren't embedded in the content.
technion
For the last few weeks uBlock on my devices seems to have just stopped Youtube ever playing anything. I've read plenty of threads about it but gave up and turned it off for the domain.
ian0
Weird - works fine for me. Maybe they are rolling out a change in specific regions?
squarefoot
There are reports of uBlock Origin occasionally not working on YT, and I experienced this 2 days ago on one video. I can't recall which video was, I thought I clicked on the wrong video, then realized it was an advertising, checked if uBO was active and indeed it was. Happened only once to me, others were apparently less lucky. This could be the result of different tests performed to discover adblockers limitations.
nubinetwork
At home, I use bind rpz adblock, which uses the same domain lists pihole uses. Everywhere else, I do see ads, which usually means I stay offline when I'm not home.
stevenicr
I watched a 28 minute long ad last weekend on my phone. Is there some place that shows stats on how many ads of various lengths are delivered and not skipped / how much was watched per length?
Minor49er
Why would you sit through a minute of unnecessary ads, let alone 28?
stevenicr
several reasons for this one.. ad was on small screen (my phone) - and I was gaming on the big screen - so it was not interrupting me in any way.

Also the "I'm a digital marketer, starting to learn ads for youtube, and curious how this is actually working, so watch it and learn what can be learned from.. youtube platform, how it's visual / audio / etc is working.." had me willing to suffer more than 60 seconds..

And.. strangely it was on a topic that I studied ~18 years ago - with someone making claims I was ready to pounce on, but then became surprised that this speaker / presenter had taken over this program from the original creators - and I was super curious if any new insights would be published..

In the end I learned a little about the current state of the old program / group.. but more learned about the marketing buzz words used, the crescendos of the claims / benefits / social proofs.. of a 30 minute infomercial, and how the captioning / graphics could be presented on a vertical / tiny screen and be effective..

and of course I had to know the actual pitch and price at the end for the 'new online program thing' that has been adapted with the original stuff..

I still wonder how or IF youtube knew that I would or could be interested in the X program method or if it was just targeted towards whatever demographics the system thinks about my mini-device.

Also thought whoa - what kind of crap is this YT - a 30 min ad?! How, what? Why! Is this real?! (I had seen a 2 hour ad on YT on the PS3 some years ago, that was trippy)

So yeah I wonder if there are stats showing how many ads longer than 30 sec are attempted via YT and how many are watched.

sircastor
To be clear, was this a normal YouTube video that was advertising something, or an actual YouTube official “You can skip this in 4…” ad?

It sounds like the former

stevenicr
no it was actual 30 minute ad - it had the tap here to skip after so many seconds and everything. Now I'm going to check if I have a screenshot from that day - and wonder how to share here, is imgur still a thing or is that the one that was talking of shutdown.. checking.
3836293648
Nope, ublock origin and revanced are working gine for me
isanjay
Installed Revanced last week. I can't believe I haven't installed it earlier
jbottoms
I just got an invoice from Norton (alledgedly) and I don't use it. And it included a telephone numvber for a Debt Recovery company. We need to have wire and mail fraud extended to include email, with a bounty for Whistleblowers.
kjs3
Not sure how this relates to YouTube, but in the US, you can get money via the FDCPA[1] if it's really a bogus debt and you're willing to pursue it. There are tons of websites that walk you through the process.

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/rules/fair-debt-col...

kjs3
I used to use YT for background while I worked. I stopped when they started butting in every 5-10 minutes with an ad, at upped volume, which sorta defeated the point.
expertentipp
Funny is when a public place like gym or shop is using yt for a background music. Suddenly the place is broadcasting the yt ads to their clients for free.
solumunus
Simply use an ad blocker?
kjs3
Because ad blockers don't run on my office smart TV and PiHole doesn't block in-video ads?