HACKER Q&A
📣 IG_Semmelweiss

Are you seeing Youtube ads for the 1st time?


Until recently, i never saw any ads on YT. This was because of a combination of VPN, strict stealth mode browsing on only YT, fully deleted history on browser exit, and ublock origin js blocking. We used to never see ads presumably because YT didnt have a solid enough profile on the user that it could bid out CPM.

It seems that recently something has changed since we do now see ads.

I dont recall specifically but suspect this happened when youtube started to break if user had all js fully blocked (using uBlock).

I can tell YT still doesnt know who we are since on the homepage we still get the same clickbait for an unknown profile, which we saw before they started servind ads

Are you experiencing the same change?

  👤 easytiger Accepted Answer ✓
As per https://help.getadblock.com/support/solutions/articles/60001...

I would assume they are constantly trying to circumvent blocking. It's not even a profit making platform. Note sometimes on VPN or when i travel, even with YT premium subscription i sometimes get a pop up indicating YT premium might not be available in my area and I might see ads. Don't think i've experienced it yet.

One aside is i noticed on my Google drive/workspace whatever its called now business account i see ads on youtube. Seems a bit cheap not to give that as a benefit for paid accounts

👤 simonblack
I saw a fix the other day. I've only used it once or twice, and it appears to work. (But I've only got a couple of items in my own experience so far.)

Change the URL by adding a '.' to the domain's name, as in

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
to

     https://www.youtube.com./watch?v=

                            ^
                            |
Seems to work. Try it yourself. (I couldn't find an actual video with ads in the few moments I spent searching for an actual example. Murphy's Law strikes again!)
👤 pwg
Just use yt-dlp (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp) and enjoy a, mostly, ad-free experience. Mostly because downloading the video can't remove ads the creators inserted into their footage before they uploaded to youtube.
👤 smoldesu
Could be device/browser related, I'm still blocking ads just fine on Linux/Chromium and on my smart TV.