Computer magazine staff writer Michael Crider has a good old rant.
Article © PCWorld. (The magazine, not the retail outlet).
There are links you may not want to click on and he has a favoured ad-blocker that you don’t have to try if you don’t want to. I use an ad-blocker (not his one) which I find very effective on YouTube. Most of the time. It’d be nice to find what I’m actually looking for without having to scroll past loads of crap that doesn’t interest me, though.
The article is quite a long read, but personally I’m in complete agreement with him on how Google have ruined it.
YouTube sucks! Almost all the time.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/2419276/i-block-every-ad-on-youtube-and-im-not-ashamed.html
“Modern web ads are targeted towards people with a shocking degree of specificity…”
If only. The ads I get on Twix are wildly, surreally irrelevant. Why Trump’s new best friend thinks I’m even mildly interested in online gambling, bitcoin, investment opportunities on the African continent, the chance to make my business more efficient or brainless computer games is beyond me. I block everything and if I had a pound for every time I’ve been promised that the information will be used to make my timeline better I’d be as rich as Muskus.
Yes! “Big data” is rubbish. I hardly ever see an ad for something I’m even vaguely interested in.
Obviously, if you think about it, the reason you get ads that have nothing whatsoever to do with you is either because you specifically don’t allow targeted ads, or because the site doesn’t know anything about what your interests are.
They are going to send you ads come what may.
If they can’t send you targeted ads, they’ll send you random shite in the hope that something hits.
Yebbut…you’d think given the number of advertisers of, say, crypto I’ve blocked in the past few months there might be a bit of a learning process at work. Isn’t that what “We’ll use this to make your timeline better” is supposed to mean? Or is it possible I’m being naive?
I suspect that what you block has a lot less relevance to their algorithms than what you don’t block and that their algorithms aren’t actually very good, because they don’t really need to be. At least from their point of view.
And above all, that there’s a certain volume of advertising per user that must be delivered. Perhaps their Crypto clients are paying for more adverts than the others?
To avoid the ads (especially those halfway through longer videos), I tend to download the specific YouTube video using Downie or 4K Video Downloader and then watch “offline”
Just use Adguard like what I have done since like forever, duh. …I even give them money every so often. It works most of the time on YTube and all the time on almost everything else
Does it work on your armpits as well?
A combo of Adblock Plus and a private browsing window on Firefox works for me.
Although they aren’t a charity, and how else would you be able to watch Single Ladies by Beyonce for free at will, if they didn’t have some source of income?
I spring for the ad free version which is annoying but I use it a lot so c’est la vie.
Ironically this article in PC World is itself awash with pop-up ads that render it unreadable on my iPad because the screen jerks all over the place and scrolls at random.
I never look at such content on my phone for that very reason.
The ads are still there, but they don’t “pop up” on my desktop machine. They just have to be scrolled past. I use AdBlocker Ultimate on the Chrome browser.*
I’m not so daft as to be completely against web advertising. Sites have to be paid for somehow, I know that.
The polite YouTube ads will let you click past them after a short intro. Some, though, seem annoyingly interminable, while you’re waiting for the content that you came there for.
I deleted the YouTube app that was preinstalled on my (Google Pixel) phone, along with the Facebook app. I very rarely want to use either on such a small screen, but if I do I do it from their websites in the browser.
*Quite ironic that AdBlocker Ultimate, which works really well against YouTube ads, is offered as an officially-approved Chrome Extension, given that YouTube is a Google venture and Chrome is their browser.
Use AdBlock on Edge, and whilst I briefly see the start and end of an ad sometimes, it never actually runs full length or gets in the way. Never get ad interruptions bouncing between videos either.
When the ads thing was first introduced, I was forever getting warnings and ads running full length before the chosen video started.
And then I ended up on the naughty step for a month where YouTube just wouldn’t run in Google Chrome (but weirdly would in Edge and Firefox).
Chrome then kept logging me out of my account, not syncing with other devices, and generally being annoying.
Dumped Chrome, went to Edge, and no problems since.
So we just expect to get everything for free, is that it? Do people who make popular content for YouTube deserve some form of compensation? I would say so.
If you don’t want ads then pay a subscription
What gets most people’s goat is the specificity and, more annoyingly, the non-specificity of YT ads. Very few of us minded watching ITV and sometimes some of the ads were actually entertaining. YT bombards you with anything and everything – just because I once accidentally clicked on “Buxom Girls” doesn’t necessarily mean I need a new bra….
If an Ad doesn’t interest me I wait 5 or so seconds and click Skip.
Doesn’t look like you’ve actually read the article, if that’s all you have to say about it, dai.
I agree with you. Some people seem able to rationalise anything so long as they can get stuff for free.
Youtube premium has no ads, videos are downloadable, and you also get YTmusic included, which to me is just as good as Spotify for the same cost. Particularly as we know all AWs music consumption is via Vinyl or CD and streaming services are just for the odd preview or review.
The utility of YouTube for Google and it’s advertisers is pretty wonderful, I should think. The money rolls in and business is good. For casual users and for small-to-medium-time content creators it’s not so great.
Nobody with a functioning brain thinks YouTube could exist without advertising, but they’ve taken it too far and it’s now an unpleasant user experience IMO. Microsoft seem to have taken note of Google’s success as an advertising platform and are making Windows 11 an ad-serving service as well as a computer operating system.
As for the users who fork out for YouTube’s premium service, you only have to look at what Amazon has done with Prime. You pay a subscription to get a premium service and then they stick ads all over a major part of it and ask you to pay an extra subscription on top of the other one if you don’t want them. How long before YouTube’s premium service becomes two-tier?
Amazon Prime was always something of a bargain as it also included free shipping. Something I use a lot. And there were always paid options to rent or buy content.
When regular Netflix subscription went up to about $18, I cancelled and got the $6 service with ads. I don’t use it much but I have found them relatively unobtrusive and way better than the ads on regular TV (especially in Canada)
I think YouTube may go 2 tier as getting ad-free content plus all the music stuff is a good deal right now (am currently on a 2 month trial)
I watch YouTube on an XBox which is the media centre for the living room – music, games, DVD, streamed telly all pass through it.
So how do I stop the ads on an XBox playing YT?
I use YouTube a LOT, but I can’t honestly say that I think it’s become worse or that the ads are annoying – as Dai says, most of them can be skipped after five seconds, most channel creators put the ad content on low (which usually means before and after) to avoid pissing off their subscribers, and the few times I try to watch a TV channel on streaming (apart from Public Service of course) they bombard me with so many endless ad breaks that I usually give up before the episode is through.
YT is very pain free in comparison. As I’m always logged in the ads are supposedly aimed at me specifically, but it’s clear that they don’t know that much about me (I guess because I don’t use other social media, like Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram), beyond the latest video I clicked on.
Ever so often I get a pop-up that urges me to try YouTube Premium, but I’m not interested, regular YT works well for me as it is.
I think that is my perspective. My wife hates ads, on whatever platform, and rails against my willingness to sit thru’ them. My excuse is that I await a golden second dawn of adverts, being better than the programmed content, as was often the day in the black and white and early colour days, where most of the current top film directors learnt their trade. I am yet to be convinced it will be soon.
A lot of channel creators have no say at all on the advertising that’s served with their content. They’d have to pay Google more than it’s worth to not have them or to serve their own adverts. Most small-time content channels have to have Patreon donations or paid subscriptions to survive. The alternatives being almost-complete invisibility or ever-increasing fees.
Content creators are also subject to copyright takedowns which are often spurious. If they’re not actually taken down as a result of a claim*, YouTube will withhold any monies due “while they investigate” (which they are in no hurry to do while they have their money).
*i.e. if they are generating revenue.
So now the football has started again I’m enjoying my Sunday in Oz ritual of watching the PL highlights on YT. But I’m having to suffer the indignity of being winked at by Eric Cantona in the William Hill ads (or is it Paddy Power). This is unacceptable.
DuckDuckGo browser has a built in Youtube player that simply strips all the crap out of the vast majority of videos.
So it does. Been a DDG user for years, never clocked this. Excellent!
Me neither – blimey, game changer …
Me too! Brilliant.
Opera does it too, in fact removes ads from everywhere unless you switch it off for a particular site. I mainly watch YouTube via Apple TV on the big screen so ads are there
In other fucked-up world news I’ve signed up as an experiment with a website called Incogni*, which claims to find data-harvesting companies that have scraped your data and tell them to cease and desist. They’ve found 45 so far, of which 12 say they’ve removed my data. One of the outfits digging its heels in and described as ‘resistant’ is called Censia, based in SF. Their CEO claims on their site that ‘Her mission at Censia is to unlock the full potential of the global workforce by giving companies access to sophisticated and ethical system intelligence and the most comprehensive and actionable people data available.’ Why they think a retired gent with no company of his own and no affiliation to any other companies is likely to be of any interest remains to be seen…
*Not available in Oz, I’m using the VPN and my UK address.
But what if Incogni are themselves data-harvesters, harvesting data about you from all of the others?
With your (sort-of) consent, too.
What if, indeed…which is why I’m just trialling it. It’s part of SurfShark, which is kosher as far as I know. Online reviews eg TechRadar and Business Insider are positive, TrustPilot broadly so (although I tend not to pay much attention to TrustPilot reviews). The number of removals is up to 17 now, so something’s happening.
Tell you something though, these companies’ websites are an absolute goldmine if you like meaningless business speak bollox. Such as:
“OUR ETHOS
Crosswalk Technologies is mission-driven, designed and led to truly affect for the better, individual lives as well as organizational enterprises.
We are blessed with the special relationships that have come from the bridges erected from our existence; and isn’t relationships, not money or power, the ultimate quality-of-life measuring stick? After all is said and done, we are not just a place that does business technology and consulting services. We are a human being focused quality-of-life improver. We do this by following a moral compass not set by our own subjective standards (because human nature is often selfish and self-serving) but by a drive and path greater that ourselves.”
@mikethep
That is staggeringly shite!
Do people read this and think “Wow, brilliant!?”
@freddy-steady plenty more where that came from!
Now this is my kind of mission statement.
“We go alright.”
Can’t remember the name of the company, but about 15 years ago I saw one of those drain-unblocker/cesspit-emptyer trucks with “Number One for Number Twos” proudly emblazoned on the back of it.