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Comment by cercatrova | Hacker News Reader

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cercatrova

I have a list of adblockers I use, hope it helps other people here:

Desktop:

- Pi-Hole (network wide adblocking)

- AdGuard (device wide adblocking)

Web browsers:

- uBlock Origin

- uMatrix (not developed anymore but still works, can also use NoScript)

- SponsorBlock (blocks in-video sponsor segments, intros, outros, filler tangents, etc in YouTube)

Mobile:

- Firefox for Android / Kiwi Browser (both have web extension support so you can install uBlock Origin)

- YouTube Vanced (alternate YouTube app blocks ads, also has SponsorBlock)

- NewPipe (alternate YouTube app blocks ads, also has SponsorBlock via a fork [0], different UI than main YouTube app)

- YouTube++ (for iOS, similar feature set as Vanced)

TV:

- SmartTubeNext (ad-free YouTube)

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

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> YouTube Vanced

I get why they want to stay anonymous but that website is no different from any other malware site - no source, no authors just some affiliate links. Putting your google credentials in an app like that is not something people should be comfortable with.

NewPipe let's you 'subscribe' to channels without giving it any credentials. You know, like how it used to be with RSS. The good way. The user empowered way.

> You know, like how it used to be with RSS.

That, my friend, would be because it is RSS!

IIRC, think NewPipe actually requests the channel pages and parses the html.

It has both. The RSS method is fast but doesn't have the full video data (it's missing durations, for example). The parsed version is slower but complete.

https://github.com/YTVanced

This doesn't seem to contain the source code for the app itself.

Some time ago, the version I installed (from a regular Google search) tried to use my phone as a throwaway number. For around two months I got validation codes for PayPal, confirmation calls from crypto sites and a lot of messages from horny men who click ads on porn sites. It took me a while to piece it back together.

The only reason it didn't work is that I refused the app the permission to read text messages.

You likely downloaded a malware version if you just googled the name. The official version is at https://vancedapp.com/.

Just use it w/o logging in. I have a YT account, but I never login with Vanced. I only do so when I have something very important to add in the comment section and that happens on the desktop. You don't have to be too paranoid

There is also alternative youtube front ends that don't have ads, notably Invidious[0], and work in cases where the browser doesn't have or can't support extensions such as ad blockers. For anyone interested I run my own instance that is retro tech themed[1], and there is a public instance list with more instances[2].

[0] https://github.com/iv-org/invidious

[1] https://serenity.video

[2] https://instances.invidious.io/

YouTube Vanced is miles above NewPipe in features: https://vancedapp.com - If you frequently watch videos on Android and haven't given it a spin yet, do so.

SmartTubeNext is excellent on Fire Stick, if you can get the damn APK installed!

Yes but NewPipe is a completely from-scratch implementation and has some unique features like 3x speed or downloading videos and audio. The NewPipe UI is not as good however, so it depends on what tradeoffs you want to make.

Also, isn't Vanced closed-source?

I find the people behind it slightly sketchy.

It's YouTube reverse engineered so it seems a bit difficult to open source something like that

Newpipe is also youtube reverse engineered, as is yt-dl/dlp. No need for closed source.

Vanced is a patched official youtube app.

But do they distribute the source of the patches?

I searched some time ago and didn't find any, so they probably don't. They do distribute the sources of their manager app and their fork of microG tho.

I can add https://blokada.org/ to the "Mobile" section.

Similar. Pi-hole, uBlock (desktop), vivaldi with adblocking (mobile, FF android has perf issues).

For the non-techie, Pi-hole isn't something I quickly recommend due to "knowing when it's the culprit", and the effort in disabling it.

I also have a simple Wireguard config (pivpn) installed as well and my mobile devices are set to always-on VPN for DNS only. Occasionally I will have to turn off the VPN to join certain public Wifi. also perhaps consider hosting your VPN on a well known port if you expect to be on restrictive networks.

Final note: Pi-hole and Pi-VPN(as a frontend to WG) can be hosted on any machine. I have them running on containers.

This is true with pihole. PiHole is one of my favorite pieces of software and true to this post opening a website off my home network can result in a horrible, ad-ridden experience. But installing PiHole seems to make a number of sites not work, or for example my devices stop updating because they can’t phone home the update server, and it’s difficult to describe to third parties how to address that. All good on my network, but it did take a little targeted whitelisting effort.

I used to run a Pihole, now I just point my router at NextDNS. Not an exact substitute but largely maintenance-free and low cost.

Still occasionally breaks something you need, but there’s no way around that as long as the web is such a mess.

There's also an iOS app for SponsorBlock now (safari extension.)

If you subscribe to YT, the ads are gone, plus music.

Though rewarding Google for an anticompetitive solution to a problem they created is... problematic.

Showing ads in videos isn't exactly new. I think Youtube Premium is too expensive, particularly if you don't have any use for their subpar music feature. However the concept of paying for an ad-free experience doesn't seem alien to me. A more affordable plan that just removes the ads would be welcome (and I hear it's planned).

For text-heavy websites (blogs, news), I use archive.is as a "wget" [0], as it were. It is unreasonably affective at rendering most javascript-driven pages too (like twitter.com).

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3083536

Are there any iOS app-based solutions for dealing with YouTube ads? The app you mentioned (YouTube++) appears to require a jailbroken iPhone. I've read that AdGuard Pro can work with mobile Safari YouTube ads, but I'm curious about an app solution. Seems like there's plenty of stuff out there for Android.

No, and this is one of the primary reasons I have an Android, and support side loading on iOS. I should be able to install whatever software I want on hardware that I own.

I use the paid version of 1Blocker, and it seems to handle YouTube ads from within Safari. I had to uninstalled the YouTube app to keep everything in-browser.

How do I block Youtube ads on LG web OS ?

Pihole doesn't work, they serve the ads on the same domain as the video content.

Invidious.

https://invidious.snopyta.org/feed/popular

I would be happy to try it, if it was available on the LG content store...

You can root your TV and then install apps. Alternatively, you can get a Fire Stick and install SmartTubeNext.

https://rootmy.tv

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