It’s so bad I can basically only watch YouTube on my computer with Adblock. It would be helpful if YouTube premium weren’t $15 per month.
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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I could not afford that either. I have U-Block origin but for some reason, I had turned it off for YouTube. Probs because I heard a rumor that they were going to flat block people using ad-blockers. I have turned U-block back on again.
There will always be a workaround unless they start using DRM on YouTube videos
Personally, the alternatives to youtube simply don't have a big enough amount of creators I watch.
I've settled on NewPipe on Android and FreeTube on linux, since both are really nice FOSS clients providing a good Youtube experience without the ads.
Also have a Nebula subscription since the majority of creators I watch on YouTube have a profile there
Ok, So far FreeTube is working well - I can subscribe to all my favorites. I will probably be using Freetube, at least until Youtube finds a way to squash it.
I read yesterday (I forget where, I can try to find the article if you want) that a YouTube video only has to be 8-10 minutes long before they put an ad in the middle, and they reward creators for making videos that length. The vast majority of creators on YouTube make almost no money, but even a tiny financial incentive affects people's behavior.
Personally, I just pay for ad-free YouTube, since there are a lot of small channels I like, including some that serve as useful background noise for me, so I find it worth the investment. I use it enough that I think the company would get more money by serving me ads than they do from my subscription, and if it ever stops meeting my needs, I'll stop paying. It certainly wouldn't meet my needs if they served me an ad every 4-5 minutes.
I don't have the spare cash to pay for a thing like that. I am retired on a fixed income. I also will not turn off my U-block origin, I was surprised to find it was off. Those ads and all "Fill the hole" ads are a vector for malware. A website says we have a place for an ad here give us $$ for it. Ad broker sells that space. Anyone can buy that space and fill it with any HTML and PHP they like. Anyone, Anything.
That's fair, I might not if I had to pay the current price. I got grandfathered in on a lower price. I block ads through a VPN on most sites, but YouTube ads are hard to block on mobile without more technical skills than I personally have.
While there are Federated youtube alternatives (Peertube comes to mind) they will usualy have even less content then Odysee. A better way is to use an alternative frontend/app like Newpipe or Youtube Revanced.
Free tube is a porn site, don't listen to this person if you are at work
FreeTube is a YouTube client for Windows, Mac, and Linux built around using YouTube more privately. You can enjoy your favorite content and creators without your habits being tracked. All of your user data is stored locally and never sent or published to the internet. FreeTube grabs data by scraping the information it needs (with either local methods or by optionally utilizing the Invidious API). With many features similar to YouTube, FreeTube has become one of the best methods to watch YouTube privately on desktop.
Oh thank you, I stand corrected.
Agreed, and Twitch is even worse. I avoid streamers that run ads all the time.
I use Firefox with UBlock and I don't see any ads on Youtube. You should try this.
As for a fediverse version of YouTube there's peertube, but realistically hosting video is more expensive and you would never see a collection as large as YouTube on the fediverse IMO.
Somehow my Ublock origin got turned off, I turned it back on. I use FreeTube to watch the channels I am subscribed to. I go to YouTube itself to watch things I search for.
My solution appears to be a bit unique, at least on the deskfop.
I have four extensions on my Librewolf browser. Ublock, NoScript, Alter, and Chameleon.
Additionally, I use newsboat rss reader which reads a list of youtube rss urls from a simple txt file. This keeps my youtube subscriptions without subbing on google's platform. Whenever I open one of these rss feeds via newsboat, Librewolf opens and uses the Alter extension to redirect to an Invidious instance. Ublock and Noscript block everything. Chameleon feeds a fake fingerprint to invidious as well. The invidious url remains in tact. I copy this url.
In a terminal on Linux, I invoke yt-dlp on this url. I include a sponsorblock flag that literally cuts out the mention of sponsors and the sponsored content. I watch it with mpv/devour, often including the captions as well.
On my GrapheneOS phone, its more simple, i just use Libretube which has sponsorblock turned on. To avoid ads otherwise I use mull browser with ublock, noscript, and a few other about:config settings. I also bypass paywalls for major news sites using ublock and a list I yoinked from somewhere on github.