cross-posted from: https://lemdro.id/post/2787773 (!google@lemdro.id)
Some solutions:
- Android
- iOS
- Yattee with this guide
- (Adding Piped/Invidious website to Homescreen)
- Web
- Desktop
- FreeTube
- (Using any of the web solutions as PWAs)
- TV
- Android TV
- Apple TV
- Yattee with this guide
Where is YouTube ReVanced?
ReVanced is definitely worth mentioning, but I’m here to tell you that GrayJay is better.
Tangential question - what is stopping youtube from restricting access to their API for 3rd party apps like Reddit did?
Sideload uYouPlusExtra on iOS
I am aware of this option, but sideloading on iOS currently kinda sucks. You have to use AltStore which sometimes goes unmaintained for a few months, even when it’s maintained it’s kinda buggy and the Windows version almost never works for me. It’s also not available for Linux. And you have to connect your phone to a computer running AltStore every 7 days, otherwise the app will stop functioning. It’s just not a great solution and especially bad for less tech-savvy users.
You don’t have to use AltStore. I re-sign the IPA myself and install with Apple Configurator
Just use a proper ad-blocker like uBlock Origin in combination with a browser like Firefox or LibreWolf that supports proper ad-blocking extension. Fuck this Chromium garbage that deprecated MV2 because Google is scared of adblockers. Don’t support Google’s monopoly on browser rendering engines and use Firefox or something even better like LibreWolf.
Did you read what the addon is about? It’s not an adblocker but is to be used in conjunction with one. All it does is circumventing the adblockerblocker. It specifically recommends being used together with uBlock.
Btw, I use FF with uBlock. But I am not everyone, so when I stumbled across this, I thought it might be helpful for some people.
And I found it ironic, that Googles own extension store contains an extension that circumvents the YouTube adblockerblocker.
Ya know, I’ve seen a lot of posts regarding Elon Musk spam in this community, and calls to “ban” them, yet every week we get gloom and doom posts like this when some new subset of the world starts seeing this shit. I’d really like to see a pinned message about the fix, which is…
- Install Firefox or a derivative, and add the uBlock Origin extension.
If you visit YouTube and see the pop-up, the page isn’t loading the video content, or it just seems to be acting strange, do the following:
- Click on the uBlock Origin brown shield in your extensions.
- Click the three little gears icon to enter the settings.
- Make sure you’re in the Filter lists section from the top and click the Purge all caches button below it.
- Click the Update now button.
- Wait until the filter update completes.
- Refresh the tab(s) that YouTube is in.
- Press play.
I literally have no other installed add-ons for ad blocking, anymore. Only uBlock Origin. Any time I see the message or YouTube starts acting up, I just repeat those 7 steps above for any YouTube tab that was already open, and viola, the video plays. It has simplified so many issues for me and reduced the number of adblock extensions I need to run.
I definitely plan on donating this holiday season to their team, probably the biggest share of the pie between the FOSS apps I enjoy and appreciate. Should uBlock Origin ever fail, I’ll just stop going to YouTube.
Apparently you can’t donate to them.
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Why-don’t-you-accept-donations%3F
Weird. One way or another, they’re gonna get my money!! How dare they make a great tool for free, and accept nothing for their time and contributions!! The nerve of some devs, I tell ya! /s
Or do what uBO’s creator suggests: donate to the silent Chads maintaining the lists uBo depends on.
The element picker and disable JS button are also a life saver. Gets around so many shitty things about the modern web. The one thing I agree with from Brave (Firefox all the way though) is including uBlock by default (I just wish they gave credit).
Intrusive and sneaky ads like the ones on YouTube should be heavily regulated if not illegal.
Edit: especially ads louder than the average content volume, repetitive jingles designed to get stuck in your head, billboards, and ads thrown in the middle of the video you’re watching
“Loud” is unfortunately hard to quantify. There’s a lot of psychoacoustics that mean that the number of decidels really doesn’t tell you what’s loud and what’s not.
This is a great demo of how sounds can appear extremely loud without actually being physically very loud: https://youtu.be/tONF9OSUOSw?t=7m16s
Anyway the point is that it’s hard to make rules about this kind of thing, because sound is subjective and there are ways to circumvent any restrictions you make.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/tONF9OSUOSw?t=7m16s
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I can honestly say, apart from seeing it on on the background when visiting parents or similar, that I haven’t watched free to air TV in maybe 15 years. Been streaming or downloading all that time.
I hardly watch it either. Just found it funny all the complaints above could be applied to what free to air tv has been doing for decades.
Ublock Origin on firefox still work for me no filter
It’s pretty random whether you get the message or not. Some of my friends, including me, straight up cannot watch youtube on their website half of the time anymore, because it full blocks us. It’s not just an annoying message, videos actually just don’t play. But I only get it on some days. I think the message only pops up if you’ve been watching for more than like an hour straight. Then again, some of my friends have never seen the message. Who knows. Just more weird big tech server bullshit. Like how twitter’s api works 15% of the time (for me).
I’m daily using uBlock Origin (with Firefox) on Windows, and ReVanced on Android, and have experienced zero indications that Google is at war with ad blockers. These two are fucking fantastic and highly recommended. I don’t expect it to last forever, but bravo to these devs and contributors.
Firefox with Adblocker Ultimate working fine for me as of last night. I’ll check again tonight.
A bit unrelated, but do you know if there is a hardened firefox for linux (just like Mull for Android)?
It isn’t blocking my uBlock Origin on Firefox.
Yeah, all Google accomplished with this bullshit was finally getting me to switch from Chrome to Firefox as my main browser on desktop.
Pretty much, also encouraged me to download uBlock, and now I see how many items it blocks from pages like YouTube. Spoiler: It’s a lot.
Right?
I have two tabs open…one is a site that is overtly and actively promoting products to me, with literal links to retailers where I can buy the stuff they’re promoting…the other is YouTube.
The promotional site’s uBlock counter is at 4.
YouTube’s is at…139.
Or mine on Vivaldi. It was showing me the notice the other week, but seems to have stopped now. Either they are now time limiting youtube before the ad blocking thing comes back, or uBlock upped the ante.




























