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Comment by svnpenn | Hacker News Reader

Honestly its getting out of hand. I have everything blocked I can think of [1], and even browsing in private mode, I still sometimes get the "recommended for you" on YouTube. Stop invading my privacy.

[1] https://cup.github.io/rosso/youtube

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I looked up some DevOps stuff on reddit through a proxy with adblockers in private mode and all of a sudden my front page was filled with posts about depression, men asking advice about how to talk to women, and advice about getting a job and moving out of your parents house. These were based on sessions cookies, but I was still kinda offended it pegged me as a sad loser just because I wanted to know more about NGINX and Heroku.

Are you sure those weren't just regular ads without any personalization ? This seem like the kind of ad which is very broad and could fit most men (how to talk to woman, how to get a job, ...)

Yes, because I closed my private window and reopened it to see if it made a difference. They also had regional stuff from where my vpn is located.

I'm unsure of behaviour in firefox, but at least for me chrome at work will keep session information for the private window until chrome is closed completely not just the private window.

Having said that anecdotally I'm sure google do ip/wifi network tracking as after I was connected to a friends wifi network while he was in the process of moving house I began being served ads for moving companies even though I had done no similiar searches or visited related sites.

There is almost no action you can take on Youtube without it recommending a deluge of god-awful 'user generated content' videos on these topics. The only solution is to frequently right click and select "Not Interested" and then "Not interested in the channel: [channel name]".

The recs are poor enough that I don't mind blanket-banning an entire channel from my feed. Youtubers so frequently "compete" by using clickbait titles and thumbnails, I'm glad I at least have this method to punish that kind of behaviour.

Another solution - block the recommendations altogether. On PC, you can use specialized extension, or just Stylus (the latter works especially well with old Youtube layout). On Android, use NewPipe[0] or Youtube Vanced[1]. On iOS, perhaps Ivory[2] will do. Or at least delete your watch & search history[3], so the recommendations will be related only to the video you are currently watching.

If you are subscribed to enough good channels, you won't notice anything aside of suddenly having much more free time. And whenever you're bored, unlock recommendations for a while to learn about new channels (I do it once every few months).

[0] https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe

[1] https://vanced.app/ , beware of scam sites

[2] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ivory-video-player/id129434748...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/feed/history (on old YT layout)

> The only solution is to frequently right click and select "Not Interested" and then "Not interested in the channel: [channel name]".

This has never worked for me. I've tested this while signed in without blocking anything - "not interested in this channel" has never once caused a channel to not be recommended to me.

> These were based on sessions cookies, but I was still kinda offended it pegged me as a sad loser just because I wanted to know more about NGINX and Heroku.

The same thing happened to me except I'm a cis woman and my front page was filled with transgender posts/subs. Reddit seemed to conclude that the only reason I could possibly be interested in DevOps is because I'm actually be a man.

Just because a site says something is recommended for you, doesn't mean it's actually a personalized recommendation. If a site has a recommedation box, they're going to fill it with something. They might be making that recommendation off a lot of data, or they might be making the recommedation off no data other than "people tend to click things when we label them as personalized recommendations".

It's probably just using your IP address.

So it's possible that by using a VPN, you're seeing ads recommended for other people using the same VPN?

Yes, that is exactly what happens when you use a VPN. Only services like primevideo and Netflix bother to detect VPNs and force you to get off, 99% of the web treats you like a regular user, but with an insane diversity of interests.

That's becoming less and less true.

For example, the wiki.debian.org blocks users of (at least) privateinternetaccess VPN. (You get a 403 forbidden. This doesn't happen when I use my personal VPN routed out through a VPS provider, only through PIA.)

I have encountered this with various other sites as well, both outright blocks and degraded experience.

Frustrating. Although I don't really trust VPN providers, I trust my ISP even less, and a VPN helps me get by some of their more heavy handed shaping.

Slightly off-topic but I visited Arch Linux's forum with Tor and it says I have been banned with the reason: "Never come back". I wonder if they were referring to Tor users in general.

It's more likely those IPs were blocked manually due to vandalism. If you set up a VPN server on a VPS with a static IP, you shouldn't run into that problem.

Yeah that's probably that. I always laugh when I see an ads for me on any of my colleague computer. if they use that on ads, they certainly use it on Youtube.

I also gets recommendation for videos that my SO watches even though we don't use the same computer. It's rare but it happens.

They're probably just examining your HTTP requests:

> Even if you opt out of Ads Personalization, you may still see ads based on factors such as your general location derived from your IP address, your browser type, and your search terms.

https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads

I've got a plugin[1] that allows me to use youtube links. It uses invidious[2], which seems to help avoid that kind of concern.

https://gitlab.com/Booteille/Invidition https://invidio.us/

Recommended for you, does that mean anything at all?

Could just be "We don't know anything about you but these things are generally liked"

One tip: get a channel blocker extension (just like you would block people on Twitter), so you don’t see any videos of that channel.

Besides that, I have block the whole recommandation landing page that Youtube gives you with uBlock, since it was huge distraction for me

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