In all these years I haven’t found a better solution than DNS blocking with NextDNS on iOS. The only place I get ads is YT (but for that I have an Albanian VPN)
I use it in conjunction with Adguard and secure DNS, but they also publish configuration profiles for iOS.
I want to say though, that the initiative is sponsored by the EU and has privacy preservation as one of it's main objectives, so until proven, i will assume that this is all circumstantial.
For me at least, it solves exactly the use case i was previously using NextDNS for, which was basically DNS level ad blocking, and while i still have a NextDNS subscription, my previous months of testing have proven DNS4EU to be more stable and slightly faster responding than NextDNS (for my usage).
As for the legality, the following text is from their website:
> Yes, our DNS4EU Public Service is completely free for citizens. Although primarily intended for users within the European Union due to our infrastructure's geographic distribution, we impose no restrictions on users from other locations.
It works everywhere.
Anyone happen to know exactly what the "Protective" option is for/does? I see there is one "Unfiltered", and lots of "Protective + Something" options, which is kind of clear what they do, but just "Protective", what does that mean in practice? Couldn't find any concrete information except "It protects you".
If you check dns0.eu (free dns service for EU provided by the company behind NextDNS), it says they’ve closed down, and refer to DNS4EU or NextDNS.
As for what the different categories cover, they have the block lists they use linked “somewhere” on their page.
Also do you connect to the Albanian VPN all the time? That would mean all the websites you connect to now think your in Albania
I use their WireGuard endpoint with the WireGuard app in iOS. I have the WireGuard app icon next to YT and toggle it as I start using and stop using YT. I’ve set mullvad dns to also block ads etc so if I forget to turn the VPN off it’s not a big deal.
I tried selective routing but it’s impossible to figure out the YT IPs. They overlap with GCP infra and a lot of apps block connections from Albania so they break and the VPN has to be toggled.
If someone knows of a list that only includes YT servers I’d love that because wireguard lets you do routing easily if you have CIDR blocks.
[0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vinegar-tube-cleaner/id1591303...
You get no ads but everything else sucks. I haven’t tried sibling’s suggestion for vinegar though, I’m taking about stock with a dns blocker.
Don't use Youtube then.
People always say "vote with your wallet" and that's pretty much why people go any other way than "Subscribe and pay Google money" today with YouTube.
It does not actually, a large chunk of the money goes to Youtube.
And actually, I would happily pay for either the creator or myself to fund the content hosting. I pay for Nebula for example.
What I refuse to pay for is a company who has routinely fucked over innocent creators doing nothing wrong, and a company who has threatened to burn those people's livelihoods to the ground for triggering false positives in terribly made automated systems that Google leans on to have a higher profit margin.
What I refuse to pay for is a company who uses their absolute control of the platform to enforce a system of Clickbait thumbnails and titles, by insisting on an adversarial system of surfacing content. I am subscribed to a creator, but if I don't click on their next video one of the first times google shows it to me, google will stop showing me content from that creator that I am still subscribed to. If enough people do not click on it in the first couple impressions, google will not show that video to anyone.
Google will also punish users who make such awful and deplorable content as... War history (accurate or not), until recently swearing, videos about aircraft (somehow ended up labeled as a content mill), An end of year summary and highlights video that is exclusively crafted out of content that exists already live on your channel and is not demonitized but when you release that highlight reel it immediately gets demonitized so since you are a big ish channel you ask your account rep wtf and they tell you oh its a mistake it wont happen again. And then, next year, it happens exactly the same, with the added bonus of this time all the content on your channel that wasn't previously demonitized also gets demonitized to go with it, even though your rep once again says this is a mistake.
Remember how youtube used to have so much small time animation, and some of it was great? Notice how it's gone now? Youtube changed what they were prioritizing in the algorithm, and that killed the entire business of small time animation. An entire era of internet media that started before youtube and drove the power and influence of Newgrounds was just wiped out because it wasn't profitable enough. This was separate from the time that youtube also cut ad rates in half without warning.
I will pay for youtube when they demonstrate that they want good content on their platform. I will pay for youtube when, instead of platforming and supporting and paying big bucks for Mr Beast and his awful empty content, they support channels like Applied Science, and Breaking Taps, and NileRed, and Explosions&Fire, and Thought Emporium, and Stuff Made Here, and BPS.Space, and Jeff Geerling, and Dave from EEVBlog, and Brandon F, and Technology Connections, and Practical Engineering, and How to Cook That, and Ze Frank, and AvE, and the other Mountains of people who make great content that is high quality and well made and carefully done and not feeding into gross addiction systems.
But their hard work does not match Youtube's desire to be a constant churn 24/7 watching ad delivery platform, so google punishes them and rewards the people literally trying to scam children instead.
That is why not pay for Youtube Premium.
Maybe that’s true for the NextDNS configuration—I don’t know, I haven’t tested, so I’ll take your word for it—but not true for DNS settings in general.
> turn that off and you're golden.
Unless you want iCloud Private Relay, in which case you’re not.
I have known this for a long time, and still find it shocking. I run Graphene on a Pixel now (with my own DNS server), so I don't really care, but I feel bad for the hundreds of millions of Apple users who think that Apple is a "privacy-respecting" company.
Absolutely love GOS as well. What are you using for your DNS server?