Every time piracy or Youtube ads come up, HNers grandstand on how they don't even pay a dime to the content creators making the hundreds of hours of videos they watch.
GGs if you want a buck for the VSCode theme you made.
GGs if you want a buck for the VSCode theme you made.
I know I'm in the minority, but I block ads because of memetic hygiene. I don't want to deprive artists but I'm not sitting through adslop for a podcaster's sake.
Disclosure: I work at Google.
Soon, I'm going to need an extension that removes the AI stuff I don't want and didn't ask for.
Using youtube in 2025 is exhausting.
Skipping sponsored sections: https://sponsor.ajay.app/
Remove shorts: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-youtub...
Return dislike: https://www.returnyoutubedislike.com/
Forgot to mention returning the dislike in my original comment.
At least I can use these extensions and get something resembling the service I want to pay for.
Also note that while it takes away the ads, it does nothing about the stalking (which bothers me much more than the adverts themselves) the results from which will be used to serve ads if you cancel in future (and in any case may be made available, directly or otherwise, to third parties, unless that part of the terms has changed).
Netflix 1080p: $18/mo. Netflix 4k: $25/mo. No annual plan.
Youtube Premium, which offers 4k, is $14/mo, or $120/yr for the annual plan (which averages to $12/mo).
UK prices:
Netflix 1080p: £13/mo. Netflix 4k: £19/mo. No annual plan.
Youtube Premium: £12/mo. No annual plan.
It's interesting how in the Youtube Premiums discount over Netflix is smaller in the UK than the US, and how Youtube Premium lacks an annual plan in the UK.
>Also note that while it takes away the ads, it does nothing about the stalking
Does an ad blocker change that?
> Does an ad blocker change that?
In many places, yes. Youtube? Less so, but it depends on which blocker(s) are in play.
A DNS based blocker won't help completely as some of the ad/track related requests are coming from their main domain or sub-domains that are used for other things so can't be blocked wholescale. It will block JS and other resources pulling from *.doubleclick.net though.
A browser/add-on based blocker may do much better by being able to more selectively block resource that are tracking related. It will also be able to block data passed via embedded videos in other sites. They can, and probably do, still track based on what you are actually watching via requests to the main domain, no ad blocker can do much about that without blocking the whole site.
>The Privacy Enhanced Mode of the YouTube embedded player prevents the use of views of embedded YouTube content from influencing the viewer’s browsing experience on YouTube. This means that the view of a video shown in the Privacy Enhanced Mode of the embedded player will not be used to personalize the YouTube browsing experience, either within your Privacy Enhanced Mode embedded player or in the viewer’s subsequent YouTube viewing experience.
>If ads are served on a video shown in the Privacy Enhanced Mode of the embedded player, those ads will likewise be non-personalized. In addition, the view of a video shown in the Privacy Enhanced Mode of the embedded player will not be used to personalize advertising shown to the viewer outside of your site or app.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/171780?hl=en#zippy...