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Comment by m4tthumphrey | Hacker News Reader

This is interesting as I had noticed this happening to me (in Chrome) when the anti-ad-blocking started. I assumed that it was YT's way of "annoying" me still while no ads were shown... It was eventually replaced with the "You cant use Adblockers modal" and now I just tolerate the ads.

So I wonder if that 5s delay has always been there.

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When I ran into the adblocker-blocker (Firefox + uBlock Origin), I noticed that I could watch videos if logged out. So I just stayed logged out, and haven't seen an anti-adblock message since. Or an ad.

Added bonus, I'm less tempted to venture into the comments section...

I'm using Firefox + uBlock Origin logged in and it works totally fine. Maybe Youtube removed the anti-adblocker on select accounts? I remember I once entertained myself with writing a report in which I sounded like I'm sitting in a retirement home and have no clue what's going on with "ad block." Did perhaps someone actually read this?

It seems to be something which is randomly deployed. Not everybody gets the warning.

I got it in the past for weeks, though.

I think you have simply been lucky, the full story is that uBlock Origin and Youtube have been tying to outpatch the other, with uBlock rolling out a bypass to the filters every one-two days since late October (https://github.com/stephenhawk8054/misc/commits/main/yt-fix....).

Depending on if you've set up uBlock to auto-update and when you've watched youtube relative to when the block filters got updated you might just not have been hit with the latest detectors while they were active. Personally I know I got the "accept ads or leave" modal with firefox + uBlock, locking me out completely on one of my devices.

Same here . No problem with anti Adblock. It was shown twice to me and I googled „YouTube alternatives“ then tried Vimeo and it was nice. Maybe they did register this ? :D

Same, I use Firefox + uBlock Origin + YouTube Unhook for a cleaner interface. I also always watch videos on private navigation windows (my default way of browsing the internet) and I manage subscriptions with the RSS feed of the channels, much better to track what I have watched since the default homepage of YouTube does not display the last videos of your subscriptions.

Edit: I have forgotten to add sponsorblock to the list of extensions

I've been randomly getting the situation where the video on Firefox doesn't work, but the sound does. It says something like "Sorry something's gone wrong", but for a brief second I can see the video. I think it's connected to the ad-blocker changes, but it doesn't actually have a message about having an ad-blocker on.

One of the benefits of ublock origin for me is blocking the youtube comments section, along with all of the video overlay elements.

It's weird but I saw the anti-blocker modal a week or two but them it stopped appearing and never saw it since shrug

Might be because of the EU ruling, if you're in the EU.

I'm in the US, and had the same experience.

I got the you can't use an adblocker message, but was able to close and/or reload the page to watch videos without ads. After a week or so it stopped popping up.

US, Firefox, uBlockOrgin.

Another way I noticed is good at skipping ads when adblocker fails is to refresh the page. When it loads again it does not play the ad.

It's still trivial to block ads, but the delay has recently started for me, after never happening before. So presumably a very intentional volley in the ongoing war to own your attention.

I still use adblockers perfectly fine on Youtube. There was never a real interruption in adblocking either. You just need ublock origin + bypass paywalls.

ABP also still works just fine. I prefer the armsrace being taken care of someone else

I think they only disabled adblockers to logged users probably because non logged users don't have to agree to terms of services.

Blockers work with my throw away Google accounts that I use for this and that. So maybe it's restricted further still to very entrenched users.

I'm always logged on and using adblockers. So no, that's not it. I also use Youtube probably every day and am a very active user.

Just install adblocker?

Or Freetube / Newpipe

no need to go that extreme, the fix is to just update ublock orgins filters

Go into ublock origin addon > click filter lists > purge all caches then update now

all done

Meh.. I could but I have to tolerate them on TV anyway. I may look to install pi-hole one day.

Pi hole doesn't help, but there are various Android TV apps that do block ads. I still prefer the Roku eco system but I switched after they started putting ads in the middle of music videos.

If you have an Android TV, You can use SmartTube[1] that has Adblock + Sponsorblock

[1] https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube

pihole doesnt work for youtube because ads and content are served from the same domains.

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