For those curious how efficient these things are, recently I did some tests using this tool (clear your cache between tests).

I had decided to install an additional DNS blocker on my OpenWRT router so I was curious how these methods stack up against each other.

I tested uBlock Origin (default lists, reports 116k network filters), the Firefox (122) built-in ETP (Enhanced Tracking Protection) and the router adblock (only a modest 65k IPs in the default set, you can add more lists).

• Everything off gives me a score of only 3% blocked. Those 3% must be stuff so outrageous that they probably get blocked by upstream DNS servers.
• Firefox ETP only, set to strict: 41%
• Router adblock only: 69%
• Firefox + router both on: 83%
• uBlock Origin (alone or in combination): 97%

Same. Didn't even get any youtube pop-ups regarding adblocker detection. Also no slowing down observed (as was reported in some articles a while back).

I moved from Vivaldi to Firefox during the crackdown, signed out all of my Google accounts, and immediately noticed the problems went away. Sorry Vivaldi...

Same. Not one interruption during the crackdown.

I've noticed the occasional jump cut forwards in video where there should've been ads, just two or three seconds.

I've gotten the pop-up once or twice, but updating uBlock fixed that.

I have instead noticed a large decrease in quality, things like frozen images/pages and endless buffering. I don't know if all that is related, but it did start around the time YouTube started cracking down on ad blockers.

Right? I've never even heard of adguard

May also indicate that users were shopping around for a blocker that worked against Youtube. Maybe some of those users actually just settled with AdGuard coming from ABP, or uBlock, or whoever.

Pretty sure they did that on purpose, trying to skew the narrative. The goal is to make it seem like it's all doom and gloom because it'll get people to read the article to the end, and maybe in their minds get some people to stop using adblockers.

The fact that ads are so intolerable is the problem. I understand that much of the internet being free is because of ads. But we went from the early days of the internet where ads were malicious, active annoyances to the modern internet where ads are malicious, passive annoyances. Clicking on an ad no longer ruins my afternoon with a virus, but it does log and sell my data to the highest bidder. Nearly every ad on the internet is in bad faith.

Until we have better ads, I will block absolutely everything I can.

Ads basically everywhere on the net have become intolerable in their content and quantity,

I was reading a huffpost article the other day on my work computer on Firefox that doesn't have an ad blocker. The page was refreshing with new ads every 5 seconds and took up like 20% more CPU power than before I opened the page.

So huffpost is now in my mental blocklist.

Yeah I've always been on firefox and I haven't noticed a single thing change during the last year of all this hubbub about Youtube.

With unlock I didn't even know there was an arms race. Seamless performance the whole time!

I've never given Youtube a cent and I always use adblock, on the endpoints and my network, and I have had no problems watching anything I wanted on youtube. I guess you just have to mercilessly block ads at all levels to achieve dominance

Yeah, never noticed a thing of this "war" because of FF and uBlock origin.

It all just kept working, including on Youtube.

Check out TTV LOL PRO. It's available on Firefox and Chrome and blocks all the ads on Twitch. Very rarely I'll get a purple "streamer is taking an ad break" screen, but I haven't seen an ad in quite a while.

Same here. Firefox and uBlock Origin. My son uses Chrome with uBlock Origin and was having problems. Constantly and me to check and never a problem. I mostly only watch YouTube on ReVanced

My YouTube use is going down because the algorithm absolutely sucks now. I went to the gaming tab 2 hours after the state of play and it was nowhere to be found. But outdated years old crap was being shown.

But never had any ad issues with ublock origin or revanced.

If I had to watch ads, I would not use youtube. Period.

Yeah, recently had my Android with adblockers break, and my YT consumption is almost non-existent now as I watch more on mobile devices than on PC.

As an aside, if anyone has any advice for a ReVanced-like app for iOS, I'm all ears. I miss my Pixel 🥲

when there’s no more ads to see.

the surviving AI will be upset at the loss of revenue that occurs, but since they'll exterminate the human race, it's not an entirely unexpected side effect.

The cpu bombing actually wasn't Youtube, it was adblock plus (if thats what you were using)

I don't know how true that is about YouTube intentionally CPU bombing ad block users specifically.

I will say though that websites run by big tech companies getting much heavier and more poorly optimized is ultimately just a fact of life. They don't care about optimization, in fact it benefits them more that people have the latest and greatest hardware so that's what they're going to target. Ultimately that means that these websites will get slower on older hardware with time, and people will rely more and more on alternative frontends to access content, and it won't really matter if you have ad blockers or not (*turning it off on a bloated site that is bogging down your CPU might actually make it worse).

Yeah ditto, been working fine for me

Same, on phone Newpipe works fine for me so far.

Is Tubular an Android only thing? I can’t find it. I'm still looking for an iOS solution.

Seen plenty of people talking about the crazy ads they see on Youtube. Right wing propaganda, blatant grifting, scams... Folding Ideas has done not one but two videos talking about the ads he saw and picking them apart. Surely the people complaining about these ads know adblockers exist right? Why don't they use them? I'm sure there are several reasons but, it's been a known quantity for decades that you have the power to control how many and what kind of ads you see.

Yeah I have my adblocker disabled on edge on my work laptop as it messes with my web dev.

I accidentally used it for general browsing and I couldn't believe what people put up with! It's like a totally different internet.

This is what I use also, but youtube stopped it and blocked the videos. The work around was opening in an incognito window.

Same I also add Decentraleyes and Privacy Badger to my repertoire. Never had a problem but maybe I should think about the sponsorblock extension as well

For those of us who can't code their own extensions: LibRedirect does this for other sites as well, not just YouTube.

Very cool! I'm walking this same route, but with LibRedirect and Invidious Instance Selector Firefox addons. Maybe libraries can do community video-hosting and moderation? But please, no more businesses

Have you tried LibRedirect? It works for quite a bit more than just youtube. I personally love it for the fandom mirrors.

I'm not familiar with yewtu.be, but couldn't you accomplish the the same thing with a simple Host File entry in your operating system? Get the IP of yewtu.be (by pinging it which I just did to get 104.244.72.25), create an entry that says:

youtube.com 104.244.72.25

So when your OS goes to find youtube.com, it gets directed to the IP of yewtu.be

Same here, it made me finally add some extra blocking on my router.

I have the same with ublock, however the video quit with sponsorblock. Ublock doesn’t block all yt ads.

When webmasters running homely sites with flavor of their own personality would add places for ad banners, that was fine. You usually knew what kind of content you'd see on which banners where, and they weren't as bad as now.

With modern ads served by companies stronger than many states, on platforms with less personality than many nation-states have, it just became something you never need which gets forced down your throat via phishing practices and works exactly as phishing.

Nobody who literally follows those ads and believes them does understand what they are doing. It's aimed at teens who can only poke fingers at screens and at elderly who can also often only poke fingers at screens.

It's a completely predatory thing by now, with no fair scenarios of usage. It should be outlawed if nothing else works.

Gosh, at this point I'd approve of an official state-standardized replacement of the Web, intentionally limited in extensibility, a bit like Gemini, only without the "minimalist" and "small" parts, which would be mandatory for state institutions, medical institutions, educational institutions, public transport etc. Maybe more similar to HyperCard or having some PostScript support there =\

Its literally always been that way. When a webmaster gives up control of their content, it gets exploited.

How do you block shorts? Please and thanks.

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

I do decree!

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

Tubular on my phone and firefox with ublock origin on my PC. don't have money to pay anyways.

And you believed it with a straight face?

Not everyone is using Youtube exclusively on their phones, you know?

Because:

A) New Pipe is a phone app only.
B) People view YouTube on devices other than phones.
C) People view more websites than just YouTube, on which they also want to block ads.

I've yet to get a new pipe link to work on phone or desktop. Not sure what I'm doing wrong.