The adverts seem to be getting more frequent on YouTube, and given the data they must have on my interests I’m mystified why they are so consistently irrelevant but nonetheless they are incredibly irritating. I do use YT a lot and I’m coming round to paying for it – the fact that they create none of the content feels wrong but I guess it’s a good platform. Anyone taken the plunge?
Ad free YouTube, anyone?
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I took the plunge 6 months ago or so, and haven’t looked back.
Same.
I watched The Band Wembley 74 on you tube (had to give up as the sound kept cutting out) occasionally a note would say advert in 5 4 3 2 1 seconds but they never appeared.
We have YouTube Premium for the family, so that’s the streaming music and ad free YouTube.
I’ve completely forgotten adverts are a thing on YouTube. Why wouldn’t you?
For anything longer than a short clip, or anything that I want to watch properly, I use 4K Video downloader to download a copy and then watch offline. It strips out any adverts.
If I see David Seaman larking about on a jet ski while that soppy twat sits on a settee grumbling about how he was swindled out of his pension just one more time, I’m going to send my set back to Rumbelows.
LOL
Not sure exactly how it works, but a combination of A): being always logged into a registered YouTube creator account (non-paying) into which I’ve put a few original filmed-by-me clips for anyone’s viewing, plus B): using AdBlocker Ultimate as a (Chrome) browser extension, seems to keep things pretty much ad-free here.
Mmm interesting, I have a bunch of original content and ad blocker but I still get them, ad I watch on my Smart TV which isn’t smart enough to have an ad blocker.
Perhaps always being logged into your account is the key. I suspect the ad blocker has no real effect on YouTube.
I only seem to see ads that are part of an actual clip I’m watching. I’m reluctant to do any tinkering because it currently works just fine for me.
^ I’m the identical situation to Mike H too. It hasn’t always been so easy but I don’t recall seeing an ad in (a.t least) about3 months or so with the most recent update to the free tier of Adblock.
I use chrome but nothing else special, and I use the YT alot. Maybe 3 hrs a day on average, it is, I suppose what the Boob tube/ Idiot lantern /humble tv used to be for me:
Comfort food, an ignorable soundtrack, just some thing to have on in the background as required.
It kind of became that by stealth and I don’t recall a day I thought “that’s it, no more TV for me” but it has happened nonetheless.
A little bit of simple investigation:
The little red shield icon, up in the top right corner of Chrome that tells me the ad blocker is active, generally shows at least 1 ad blocked at all times. If I then open another tab and go to YouTube in it, even before looking at any clips, the count of ads blocked leaps up to about 10. Having gone back onto this tab to type here and then checked the YouTube tab again, the count had increased to 25. I started watching a clip and it jumped to 39.
Looks like YouTube is churning out a hell of a lot of stuff that AdBlocker Ultimate is blocking.
A disadvantage of using an ad blocker is that some sites with good content are reliant on advertising for their existence. An increasing number can detect that you’re using an ad blocker and won’t let you access the pages unless you disable your ad blocker. The better ones will ask you to unblock their site only. Some will even explain how to do it.
Excellent research, thanks Mike.
Been using Ad Block on Vivaldi (a Chrome based browser) for a while. Always stunned when I use YouTube on my iPad – pretty much unwatchable.
Hmm just tried on my phone and made no difference at all. I’ll try on the laptop tomorrow.
Reading this made me reconsider a youtube premium account. Changed my mind when saw it was £11.99pm!
I’ll stick with ads and use Downie to just download longer stuff ad free first.
It’s a lot isn’t it. Three months free to start with though. I’m going to experiment with and blockers though.
I also plunged and it’s the best money I spend all month.
My Channel 4 and ITV player are ad free for the price of a Starbucks each per month (Other coffee brands are available apparently, but I never see adverts for them).
ITVX too, presumably?
Ah yes. That’s what I meant. Rebranded
Ahhh I didn’t realise it was a rebrand! I thought it was new!
You obviously weren’t watching their adverts!
I decided to try this about a year ago as I was finding that 10 minute YouTube videos would have three adverts in them and it was just ridiculous.
I have kept paying it and the main reason is that I do most of my YouTube watching on a smart TV so there’s just no way of taking the ads out except to pay. £11.99 a month is really too much just to remove adverts (okay, there are a couple of other things you get, but I really don’t find them of any use at all), especially when you compare it to the price of other streaming services, but I decided the advert situation was only ever likely to get worse, not better, so while I can afford it, I’ll keep doing it .
I access YouTube on my iMac, using my favoured Opera browser with Adblock Plus enabled. I’ve never seen a YouTube advert.
If I need to look at a site which forbids adblocking, I use another browser.
That’s the best approach for those who can’t stretch to paying to lose the ads.
Ad Blocker Ultimate has a facility for whitelisting sites where you are willing to accept ads but I don’t use that, I keep to the defaults, which appear to be very effective. I just use Microsoft Edge as my occasional alternate browser and make sure M$ can’t make it my default.
I suppose there’s no alternative, when visiting YouTube on a smart TV, to either paying for a premium account or else putting up with the ads. I just don’t watch YouTube on my smart TV.
I have noticed that it’s become harder to find a particular non-mainstream clip on YouTube than before. Paid-for content only tenuously-linked to your search comes first and then you get lists of whatever happens to be trending (presumably also paid-for), interrupting your search at around the midpoint. Sometimes bearing no relationship at all to your search. Also too many algorithmically-generated playlists of stuff they’ve decided are your favourites, because you’ve watched them before.
Pays to remember, I suppose, that it’s not a public service. It’s a business.
I’m having trouble with the Rediffusion socket on my windowsill.
You just can’t get the parts these days.
I blame the EU.
My uncle George worked for Rediffusion. He can’t help you though, he’s dead. (Not that that makes much difference)