Youtube let the other shoe drop in their end-stage enshittification this week. Last month, they required you to turn on Youtube History to view the feed of youtube videos recommendations. That seems reasonable, so I did it. But I delete my history every 1 week instead of every 3 months. So they don’t get much from my choices. It still did a pretty good job of showing me stuff I was interested in watching.
Then on Oct 1, they threw up a “You’re using an Ad Blocker” overlay on videos. I’d use my trusty Overlay Remover plugin to remove the annoying javascript graphic and watch what I wanted. I didn’t have to click the X to dismiss the obnoxious page.
Last week, they started placing a timer with the X so you had to wait 5 seconds for the X to appear so you could dismiss blocking graphic.
Today, there was a new graphic. It allowed you to view three videos before you had to turn off your Ad Blocker. I viewed a video 3 times just to see what happens.
Now all I see is this.
Google has out and out made it a violation of their ToS to have an ad blocker to view Youtube. Or you can pay them $$$.
I ban such sites from my systems by replacing their DNS name in my hosts file routed to 127.0.0.1 which means I can’t view the site. I have quite a few banned sites now.
But I delete my history every 1 week instead of every 3 months. So they don’t get much from my choices.
Implying that deleting them from your view actually deleted them.
doesn’t even matter. what matters is the meta data. if the data from the list say you like science videos with emphasis on electrical engineering, star wars podcasts and mmorpg let’s plays - does that data go away apon history deletion. what about meta-meta data. if the meta data puts you on group X that receive content Y, does that go away apon history deletion. and what kind of integration does that get with the rest of the google knowledge about you…
My man thought he was permanently erasing it from history.
Next you’ll tell me cognito mode isn’t keeping my browsing completely private! /s
How can my workplace admin block Pornhub even when I’m using private mode? He shouldn’t even be allowed to see what I do privately!
I mean, this is mostly borne from a fundamental misunderstanding of what “Private Browsing” mode is and was meant to be.
When you open an incognito tab on Chrome, it literally says “Now you can browse privately, and other people who use this device won’t see your activity.”
It also says
Your activity might still be visible to:
- Websites that you visit
- Your employer or school
- Your Internet service provider
Fuck using Chrome and I’m not defending Google at all here, but they never once claimed Incognito was anything more than it was.
Pretty sure Firefox says that too. Users just don’t read. Like, ever. They’ll get an error message saying “Important!” and click whatever button seems most likely to make it go away before calling support and demanding they “fix the computer”.
uBlock Origin is quite apt in not showing any of that. I am thankful for the creator’s attentiveness.
deleted by creator
Here is my take on this.
First, I am with OP on this, but with mild counter points:
- I block ads because they are intrusive, contain scam and viruses
- I don’t want to pay YT because I am already the product, and my trust is long gone about them saying they respect my privacy
- “Hosting is expensive” is what we hear left and right but…
- letting people upload many hours long is not what YT was supposed to be,
- 4K vids and up are huge, so is HDR, do we really need such fat video files/streams? I don’t…
- for those who need 2000inch TV size quality, yeah, they want to charge those.
- I would be OK to pay, but google will rise the price eventually and it feels like changing a contrcat I signed to begin with and I dan’t agree with that. (price raising reason are the previous points above, I am not concerned by those and I don’t see why I should pay that much)
- I am a google pixel user, google already got some of my money anyway, which I am happy with.
In the same vein, I wait Netflix to raise their price again (I bit the bullet twice) but there won’t be a third time.
Same for Spotify.Those services should realize they are not essential, just bare useful, and should be priced as such.
Just my 2cts.
PC: Install Firefox. Then install these extensions: Sponsorblock for YouTube, Enhancer for YouTube, uBlock Origins with all the filters turned on except the language filters (you can use them if you wish) and Return YouTube Dislike. Keep uBlock Filters updated by checking for filter updates once a day.
Android: There’s Revanced. I use pre-built apks along with Vanced MicroG from RVX Lite in Telegram.
Android TV: Install SmartTubeNext.
Enjoy.
All the morons defending a mindless corporation in this thread forgot that Google has far overstepped it’s boundaries in general. It got to where it is from harvesting free data from users. And now is initiating a web DRM that will far overstep any boundary seen. If a website decides to adopt it, everyone is screwed.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-web-integrity-api-sounds-like-drm-for-the-web/
Greed, by definition, has no limits.
What happens when they block adblockers? Do you think they’re just going to stop there? Or will they go from 3 ads every 10 minute to 4 ads every 10 minutes?
Greed, by definition, has no limits.
The solution to the problem is to have higher standards. But people with low standards get mad whenever that’s pointed out.
They’re useful idiots for a reason.
“You can go ad free with YouTube premium!”
Buys premium
youtube shows ad for paramount plus under my video
Cancels YouTube premium.
So anywho there’s a thing called freetube. Just saying. Idk that it’s a perfect alternative, but it’s at least one step further from googles prying eyes and grubby hands.
SOLUTION:
- just right click on the message and ‘block element’ :D
or paste this to your filters: www.youtube.com##tp-yt-paper-dialog.ytd-popup-container.style-scope www.youtube.com##.opened
You weren’t on Piped or Invidious already? /hj
Use an alternative front end like https://piped.video
You may want to try various instances (in preferences) as the main one has been under a lot of load
Odd, I have uBlock Origin and it’s blocking the ads without any pop ups or angry messages
Wait, what’s Youtube History?
I just got this popup today too, but only in Brave, it doesn’t show up in Firefox and LibreWolf at all and I use uBlock Origin for all of them. Looks like it’s just a Chromium thing. I mainly use Firefox anyway, I only use Brave as a music player at work because I have too many FF tabs opened in 3 windows already.
I just got this for the first time today. I was able to dismiss it and go on to watch ad blocked YouTube on Firefox, but I wonder how much longer this will be an option. Nebula and Curiosity Stream are looking really good right now.
The enshitification of youtube is complete. Nothing stopping them from just upping the rate and duration of ads to the stratosphere.
