Beat youtube ad block blocking with FreeTube

d3athf1sh

d3athf1sh

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 16, 2015
Messages
1,245
so i just found out that youtube is attempting to block people from using youtube if you are using any kind of ad blocker. just started getting popups on certain videos telling me "ad blockers not allowed" but i could just close the box and keep rolling. now the popup window's on a cooldown so prob won't be too long until they just won't let you watch.

well someone mentioned FreeTube and you have to install it but it lets you watch whatever you want without ad's and without letting google keep watch history. you can even import all your subbed channels into it and they give you directions on how to do it. just thought i'd let you guys know in case anyone else looking for a solution.

works on windows and linux!

https://freetubeapp.io/#download
https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube
 
GoldenTiger said:
Yep. All our favorite hardware sites died due to rampant adblocking... You want youtube gone eventually too? Keep freeloading...
Click to expand...
Hardware sites died after being sold and advertised into oblivion. Same with many car forums. Youtube abuses creators and pushes only the garbage content to the top and profits on content that they hold no legal right to.

Google being the giant it is needs to take a step back and chill out. A mega Corp pushing for ever more revenue is a evil entity. Data mining and advertising is a morally wrong industry.
 
GoldenTiger said:
You could just pay up for the service you clearly use a lot of if you are concerned about ads... It's only $12 a month. Just a thought.
Click to expand...
I have no issue paying for services I use but within reason. I am seeing its $14/month, thats $168/year which is a bit too much for what you are getting as a service. If they lowered that price I would be willing to pay, until then I will find ways to block the ridiculous amount of ads they are spamming.
 
techie81 said:
I have no issue paying for services I use but within reason. I am seeing its $14/month, thats $168/year which is a bit too much for what you are getting as a service. If they lowered that price I would be willing to pay, until then I will find ways to block the ridiculous amount of ads they are spamming.
Click to expand...
Go to school and you can get it for $7.99 a month. :)
I just subbed since they offered a free month, and it looks like they are bundling YouTube Premium with YouTube or Google Music for the $13.99 price.
I remember it being $9.99 a month last time I got a free trial for Premium.
 
i was watching a video by ordinary gamers an saw him post this
image
 
work really well, it is a tab support away to do about everything one want.
 
techie81 said:
I have no issue paying for services I use but within reason. I am seeing its $14/month, thats $168/year which is a bit too much for what you are getting as a service. If they lowered that price I would be willing to pay, until then I will find ways to block the ridiculous amount of ads they are spamming.
Click to expand...
I don't know why people see something they don't want to pay for nowadays and instead of using the free option or some other legitimate alternative, immediately go to "I'll just steal it." Here we are, I guess :(.
 
Google-youtube created a platform that work extremelly well that achieve to have over 300,000 channels with over 100k subscribers, many of those making a living out of it.

What would be a better alternative, it is not even easy to imagine, imagine to execute.

The current pricing model, imo is not perfect, for a lot of people higher quality of the streaming is useless for what they watch on youtube and just a lower amount of ads instead of none would do the trick and they watch channel that will still have sponsored content making a mix bag experience versus paying for HBO, but again hard to imagine what I would do.

A no high bitrate, some but quite low and not in middle of video ads for $4 a month USD maybe would be something I would pay, because I watch people that have ads would they switch for no sponsor I could rise up, but that a hard to synchronise problem and they would want to keep their not paying viewer....
 
GoldenTiger said:
I don't know why people see something they don't want to pay for nowadays and instead of using the free option or some other legitimate alternative, immediately go to "I'll just steal it." Here we are, I guess :(.
Click to expand...
I am not stealing anything, they are making money off my demographics/analytics. Ads is just another way for them to make money.
 
techie81 said:
I am not stealing anything, they are making money off my demographics/analytics. Ads is just another way for them to make money.
Click to expand...
Oh, so because you paid for the soda at the movie theater, you shouldn't have to pay for the ticket too? You're still skipping out on part of the deal, and you know it.
 
Darunion said:
their last revenue was what $270bn. Pretty sure an adblock wont kill them lol. The ads on youtube are so invasive anymore, cant even watch a quick 30sec video without a 15sec ad first
Click to expand...
Who cares what size they are? If everyone stops their revenue earning, it will hurt just as much as a small company. Not that I love Google, but it would be ludicrous to expect they would keep operating at a loss if everyone's blocking the ads...
 
Axman said:
Google killed the living internet, why should we give them any more support than necessary?
Click to expand...
No, people using adblocking did by starving sites of revenues and driving them out of business or to youtube. You people put H out by booking with Chrome for example.
 
I dealt with ads for as long as I could. Always wanted to help the creators and artists... but the ads just kept getting worse and worse. longer and longer. added another pre-roll ad, banner ads over the video got larger, mid-roll ads, then mid-roll 2-ads... Old videos got adds algorithmically retro-fitted into the most watched seconds...

No seriously, watch old videos that used to have only pre-roll ads, and ad breaks are now shoe-horned in mid-sentence, and usually at the most 'intense' or 'need-to-watch' moment, like we're talking "Obiwan never told you what happened to your father" "He told me enough! He told me YOU killed him" "No... I NEW DIGORNO PIZZA ROLLS KFC SUPER CRISPY MEGA TIDE PODS ONLY ON THE APP DOWNLOAD NOW BEFORE THEY RUN AWAY -wait- GET A NEW HOME LOAN AND CIRCUMCISION FOR THE PRICE OF JUST ONE PLANE TICKET TO MARS ONLY ON THE APP DOWNLOAD NOW AND LINK YOUR X ACCOUNT FOR 50% EXTRA am your father" "That's not true! that's... Impossible!"

it just got so ridiculous that I was generally closing my browser and moving onto other things after one or two videos.

So I got adblocker. It was either that or find a new pastime.
 
As op described I used to be able to wait a few sec and hit the x, now they say "video player will be disabled after 3 videos", did everyone else experience this shift?

I'm curious if they are imposing an individual degree of manipulation, which would be very possible with the data they have and influence in peoples lives.
 
cdabc123 said:
As op described I used to be able to wait a few sec and hit the x, now they say "video player will be disabled after 3 videos", did everyone else experience this shift?

I'm curious if they are imposing an individual degree of manipulation, which would be very possible with the data they have and influence in peoples lives.
Click to expand...
Yup, Youtube won't let me watch videos without disabling adblocker. I open links with Brave incognito for now, but read it will get blocked too.
 
cdabc123 said:
As op described I used to be able to wait a few sec and hit the x, now they say "video player will be disabled after 3 videos", did everyone else experience this shift?

I'm curious if they are imposing an individual degree of manipulation, which would be very possible with the data they have and influence in peoples lives.
Click to expand...
unfortunately. i hear that youtube is playing cat and mouse games with adblocker's too where they'll work for a few hours and then it's back to the same. right now freetube and there's also a service called invidious that will let you access videos through your browser but those are the only ways that are guaranteed too work right now. it's really not that bad once you get your channels imported, the only things you can't do is like or comment. but maybe if google see's user engagement take a nose dive they'll rethink things? but like most companies these days, they figure everyone will just fall in line.
not me though.

heck about a month ago they quit giving me a home screen because i wouldn't turn on tracking.... oh well, guess no home screen for me. got it back w/ freetube. just have to see what happens. hope people voice their complaints too. but that's probably a fart in the wind at this point.
 
trikat said:
Yup, Youtube won't let me watch videos without disabling adblocker. I open links with Brave incognito for now, but read it will get blocked too.
Click to expand...
Hah, I did this a few times last night and it worked.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Who cares what size they are? If everyone stops their revenue earning, it will hurt just as much as a small company. Not that I love Google, but it would be ludicrous to expect they would keep operating at a loss if everyone's blocking the ads...
Click to expand...
I do clearly. They ruined youtube with their purchase of it. I click on content creators links, i like and subscribe to them as much as i can and if they provide video elsewhere i watch it there too. But I don't just have to feed google money. Blocking an ad is just my small insignificant way of fighting back against them. Sorry, not all forms of protest will be universally agreeable.

Also lets all just spend one day counting the number of advertisements we are shown (banners, audio ads, pop ups, text messages, videos, billboards, car stickers etc) and realize how bad things are starting to get. You see all the cyberpunk futuristic stories where everything is covered in ads, we really are going that path.

Not to mention on top of watching all that google listens to you talk so it can then show you more appropriate ads. VIVA LA RESISTANCE! lol
 
Last edited:
hell no I'm not paying for YouTube...I haven't tried FreeTube but how I beat the ad enforcer is I first disable my ad-blocker for that site (uBlock Origin)...YouTube then loads up as normal...I then immediately go back and re-enable uBlock and everything works as normal again
 
Ads waste my TIME. What is more valuable than TIME?

We are just "screaming into the void" and fighting an un-slayable giant...

All I can do is propose a solution...

Split screen youtube!
- advertisers get "impressions" on the RIGHT as the screen loads
- I can double click the LEFT video window - skip ads & watch full screen

future.png
 
Last edited:
The more I look at my mashup mockup - the more this appeals to me (I prefer zero ads w/ ad blocker).

However, creators are already doing sponsored content for 1-2-3-4-5 minutes in the middle of their vids.
~ sometimes, it's relevant to me or the vid context and "fits" in - but I can skip it!

With my mockup, there are 20 ad "impressions" shown immediately upon entry while "loading" the vid start screen for 20 seconds per hour .
~ they'll make it 90 sec though & I'll have time to get a beer & take a leak...

If the ads are truly "meaningful" to me & actually relevant to my specific demo, I might really click one.
~ they can also show this same "ad wall" at the end of the video...

The weirdest thing to me is - why even bother showing ads on youtube?

1 - majority of youtube viewers are dumb / mobile only & this wall of ads would require a long scroll to get to the actual content.

2 - savvy PC / desktop users don't watch or want ads because we can SEARCH for products we want vs the dumb / mobile only crowd.

I will NEVER click them. I will actually AVOID those "sponsors" like the plague.

This is a fairly big deal to me because I "cut the cord" 10+ years ago & everything I wanted to watch has since been removed from AMAZON PRIME.

Suddenly, what I was getting for $10 per month on PRIME cost me $10 for PRIME + $10 for EACH - Showtime, HBO, Sony, BET, DC, Disney, CW, Netflix, hulu, etc.

I canceled PRIME & only watch youtube & hulu now.
~ no, I never watched most of that crap listed above, but PRIME removed all of it - like Homeland & The Shield.

OK, I think I'm done.
 
Last edited:
Blocked ads on this site once upon a time and got my butt ate-out by somebody with Frog in his username. lol. I deserved it. Realized this is/was a small business that needed the revenue. Can hardly say that about Google. Or Wikipedia. Meta and X for that matter. More is better in some cases, sometimes more is just more as regards monies. Aside from Wiki, I just don't use Meta nor X so problem solved.

As for Google, I'm on my third Pixel device at this point. They've made a few bucks off me and no idea the amount of advertising I've seen--no ad blockers on Android in my case. So it ain't like I'm not supporting poor Google.
 
Last edited:
tordogs said:
Blocked ads on this site once upon a time and got my butt ate-out by somebody with Frog in his username. lol. I deserved it. Realized this is/was a small business that needed the revenue. Can hardly say that about Google. Or Wikipedia. Meta and X for that matter. More is better in some cases, sometimes more is just more as regards monies. Aside from Wiki, I just don't use Meta nor X so problem solved.

As for Google, I'm on my third Pixel device at this point. They've made a few bucks off me and no idea the amount of advertising I've seen--no ad blockers on Android in my case. So it ain't like I'm not supporting poor Google.
Click to expand...
The web has always been bloated with blogs that promised to make the bloggers millions of dollars via advertising.

Unfortunately, the blogs mostly suck & the ads were just a money grab & obnoxious blinking distractions from any real content & largely irrelevant to the user (not talking about this site).

That is what youtube ads are now.

They are throwing shit at the wall & realizing nothing sticks, because ads are obnoxious blinking distractions from real content & largely irrelevant to the user, so they are asking - now what do we do?
 
GoldenTiger said:
No, people using adblocking did by starving sites of revenues and driving them out of business or to youtube. You people put H out by booking with Chrome for example.
Click to expand...

There is a big different between youtube ads and ads on forums: ads on forums ear money when people click on them. Ads on youtube earn money when people don't skip them.

It makes little sense for forum to complain about adblockers since people who tend to use adblockers also tend to never click on ads when they do see them.
 
usa all day said:
The more I look at my mashup mockup - the more this appeals to me (I prefer zero ads w/ ad blocker).

However, creators are already doing sponsored content for 1-2-3-4-5 minutes in the middle of their vids.
~ sometimes, it's relevant to me or the vid context and "fits" in - but I can skip it!

With my mockup, there are 20 ad "impressions" shown immediately upon entry while "loading" the vid start screen for 20 seconds per hour .
~ they'll make it 90 sec though & I'll have time to get a beer & take a leak...

If the ads are truly "meaningful" to me & actually relevant to my specific demo, I might really click one.
~ they can also show this same "ad wall" at the end of the video...

The weirdest thing to me is - why even bother showing ads on youtube?

1 - majority of youtube viewers are dumb / mobile only & this wall of ads would require a long scroll to get to the actual content.

2 - savvy PC / desktop users don't watch or want ads because we can SEARCH for products we want vs the dumb / mobile only crowd.

I will NEVER click them. I will actually AVOID those "sponsors" like the plague.

This is a fairly big deal to me because I "cut the cord" 10+ years ago & everything I wanted to watch has since been removed from AMAZON PRIME.

Suddenly, what I was getting for $10 per month on PRIME cost me $10 for PRIME + $10 for EACH - Showtime, HBO, Sony, BET, DC, Disney, CW, Netflix, hulu, etc.

I canceled PRIME & only watch youtube & hulu now.
~ no, I never watched most of that crap listed above, but PRIME removed all of it - like Homeland & The Shield.

OK, I think I'm done.
Click to expand...
tubi and crackle have movies and shows for free too. i use them sometimes if i'm bored and don't know what i want to watch. but usually i just torrent the movies i want to watch so i don't have to pay for any of those subscriptions. couple bucks a month for vpn is only thing i pay for. actually airVPN is doing there bi-annual sale right now where you can get it for 75% off. getting ready to grab another 3 years. been with them for 5 years now and it's been great. they are also privacy activists and use some of their revenue to fight for those causes.
 
Google isn't the "do no evil" corporation it once was. However we all have or own actions to account for, and should do the right thing.

cdabc123 said:
Hardware sites died after being sold and advertised into oblivion. Same with many car forums. Youtube abuses creators and pushes only the garbage content to the top and profits on content that they hold no legal right to.

Google being the giant it is needs to take a step back and chill out. A mega Corp pushing for ever more revenue is a evil entity. Data mining and advertising is a morally wrong industry.
Click to expand...
This is true, but if you don't like something you shouldn't use it. I hate bank of america and wells fargo. I try to use their services as little as possible.

Darunion said:
their last revenue was what $270bn. Pretty sure an adblock wont kill them lol. The ads on youtube are so invasive anymore, cant even watch a quick 30sec video without a 15sec ad first
Click to expand...
If you hate Kroger, but felt they were your only option, you wouldn't shop lift from them would you? Or would you?

techie81 said:
I am not stealing anything, they are making money off my demographics/analytics. Ads is just another way for them to make money.
Click to expand...
You don't get to make that call. It's not your business, not your product. That's mental gymnastics you're doing to justify incorrect behaviour.

GoldenTiger said:
Oh, so because you paid for the soda at the movie theater, you shouldn't have to pay for the ticket too? You're still skipping out on part of the deal, and you know it.
Click to expand...
This 100%.
 
OFaceSIG said:
You don't get to make that call. It's not your business, not your product. That's mental gymnastics you're doing to justify incorrect behaviour.
Click to expand...

Yes and no. Having had a couple of businesses crushed by Google, while it is true that they make money on ads and whatnot on the side, that's strictly to protect their monopoly on the flow of information on the internet. It is core to their business model, but it is not how they make money; it's how they protect their money, which is based on their control over information itself.

GoldenTiger said:
Oh, so because you paid for the soda at the movie theater, you shouldn't have to pay for the ticket too? You're still skipping out on part of the deal, and you know it.
Click to expand...

It's more like being forced to go to the movies at gunpoint and then being shamed for stealing a soda from your captors.
 
OFaceSIG said:
If you hate Kroger, but felt they were your only option, you wouldn't shop lift from them would you? Or would you?
Click to expand...
The gap between stealing food from a store and blocking an advertisement on my pc makes the grand canyon look like a scratch on a piece of chalk. Seriously, google doesnt need you to white knight for them, they own and control so much already.

If kroger was collecting my data and selling who i am to other people like google and still showing me ads , yes probably.

I have my cease and desist letter still at my parents house that NetZero sent me when i blocked their banner back when i was 14 lol
 
OFaceSIG said:
Google isn't the "do no evil" corporation it once was. However we all have or own actions to account for, and should do the right thing.


This is true, but if you don't like something you shouldn't use it. I hate bank of america and wells fargo. I try to use their services as little as possible.


If you hate Kroger, but felt they were your only option, you wouldn't shop lift from them would you? Or would you?


You don't get to make that call. It's not your business, not your product. That's mental gymnastics you're doing to justify incorrect behaviour.


This 100%.
Click to expand...
Actually, I do, since its MY data. In exchange for my data and analytics, I am using their services - it is a fair trade to me and they haven't stopped me from watching yet. I will NEVER watch ads.
 
Axman said:
It's more like being forced to go to the movies at gunpoint and then being shamed for stealing a soda from your captors.
Click to expand...
You don't have to use youtube if you don't like the monetization they have. Completely inapplicable analogy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top