About google's attack on adblockers

[mrcrossroads]

I feel left out. I've been watching youtube videos without issue. I use Firefox with Ghostery and not signed in. No problems thus far. Which, I probably just jinxed myself.

 

[mrcrossroads]

@osprey
You convinced me.

if google takes this route I'm sure alternative platforms will flourish! or perhaps ad blocker developers fill find new methods to block these pop ups and delays.

I don't think people will accept to watch ads, I certainly wouldn't.

Odysee and Rumble are a couple of decent options.

 

[Condobloke]

@mrcrossroads, I just gave Rumble a tryout.....not bad !!.....not bad at all

It is all about content. I listen to a wide variety of music. everything from Joan Carden to Lady Gaga to Itzhak Perlman

Odysee failed on Lady Gaga and Joan Carden, but nailed a few others.

Rumble nailed Lady Gaga, failed Joan Carden (that one didn't surprise me), but surprisingly nailed Itzhak Perlman, albeit with a different title, it found precisely the same music

I, for one, do hope the alternatives flourish....what is a world without competition ?

Interestingly both sites respond perfctly to using Video Downloader, which is found in the Software Manager of Linux Mint (and I am sure it is found all over the Linux distros)...it is , of course, free, and will download either full video or mp3....whichever you choose....or both.....flawlessly.

I will put a shortcut for Rumble on my desktop.

Thanks, Mrcrossroads.

 

[mrcrossroads]

@mrcrossroads, I just gave Rumble a tryout.....not bad !!.....not bad at all

It is all about content. I listen to a wide variety of music. everything from Joan Carden to Lady Gaga to Itzhak Perlman

Odysee failed on Lady Gaga and Joan Carden, but nailed a few others.

Rumble nailed Lady Gaga, failed Joan Carden (that one didn't surprise me), but surprisingly nailed Itzhak Perlman, albeit with a different title, it found precisely the same music

I, for one, do hope the alternatives flourish....what is a world without competition ?

Interestingly both sites respond perfctly to using Video Downloader, which is found in the Software Manager of Linux Mint (and I am sure it is found all over the Linux distros)...it is , of course, free, and will download either full video or mp3....whichever you choose....or both.....flawlessly.

I will put a shortcut for Rumble on my desktop.

Thanks, Mrcrossroads.

Glad you liked it.
Rumble really grew in popularity during the Trump admin. Won't get into why as I can't without getting into politics.
Off-topic - a Twitter alternative called Parlor sprang up around the same time.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Odysee and Rumble are a couple of decent options.

I was searching "my content" on forums for some time to figure out in which thread somebody recommended some alterntives to you tube, now that I found it I added them to my bookmarks to avoid the mistake again.

Thanks again my friend!

 

[osprey]

I was searching "my content" on forums for some time to figure out in which thread somebody recommended some alterntives to you tube, now that I found it I added them to my bookmarks to avoid the mistake again.

Thanks again my friend!

It's possible to run youtube videos from the mpv program on one's system which just gets the video. E.g.:

mpv <url-of-youtube-video>

 

[CaffeineAddict]

It's possible to run youtube videos from the mpv program on one's system which just gets the video. E.g.:

mpv <url-of-youtube-video>

Thanks a lot, I will definitely look into it!

There is also ytdlp which exists in debian's repo and allows you to download videos to computer.
I don't use it but but if google attacks us with ads I'll consider that option!

GitHub - yt-dlp/yt-dlp: A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader

A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader - yt-dlp/yt-dlp

github.com

 

[KGIII]

Thanks a lot, I will definitely look into it!

There is also ytdlp which exists in debian's repo and allows you to download videos to computer.
I don't use it but but if google attacks us with ads I'll consider that option!

GitHub - yt-dlp/yt-dlp: A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader

A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader - yt-dlp/yt-dlp

github.com

As I've brought attention to it before, look into an Invidious instance. That's what's behind Freetube, the handy application that I've previously mentioned - as (I think) have others. It's something you install and sits between you and YouTube.

If you want, you can easily migrate to the application or to an Invidious instance of your choosing. There's a bit of a hassle if you want to import your favorite channels and you have more than 150 of them. If you have more than 150 channels, you have to import them in chunks of 150. It's plain text, so not exactly difficult.

You can export your channels on YouTube by simply exporting your personal data. There are directions all over the place.

Done this way, you can completely eliminate your involvement with YouTube and, not only that, YouTube won't get your data. You are giving that data to a third party, but they're an opensource project and only store what data you tell them to - such as your favorite channels.

You do lose some features. You can't comment on videos directly, for example. I've also found the recommended videos to be lacking any context. The application and the individual Invidia instances tend to favor what's popular overall and don't seem to take any account of your personal preferences.

Of course, if you have hundreds of favorite channels, you'll never be able to keep up with all the content in your feed anyhow. So, you'd have that going for you.

In fact, if I were a privacy-minded person who still wanted to consume YouTube content, this is exactly how I'd do it. I'd avoid giving them data in favor of the other options.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

@KGIII
Thank you very much to repeat what you already suggested, I admit I missed it but now after reading your post this sounds very attractive and I'll discover all the options in this thread as soon as I get the will and time to test all solutions.

I just bought a new GPU so I'm currently ALL IN to play with it lol, but I'll get to these awesome YT suggestions for sure later.
Cheers mate!

 

[mrcrossroads]

I was searching "my content" on forums for some time to figure out in which thread somebody recommended some alterntives to you tube, now that I found it I added them to my bookmarks to avoid the mistake again.

Thanks again my friend!

No problem. Glad you found them.

 

[Deleted member 147986]

All you have to do to survive in our dystopian future is visit your local tech inclined person and hope they help you out to not get screwed over. Maybe that's better than getting screwed over in the first place or not, you decide.

Already do a lot of my video watching on Rumble. Problem with video watching seems mostly that so many of the trendsetters aren't moving, the rest just shrug it off as it doesn't affect them. You can't really compete with a company willing to lose crazy amounts of money, so I can't blame anyone for not going for it either. Weird times.

We need competition in this market though. Sick of this youtube monopoly. Want to see more options.

 

[osprey]

I realise this is an old thread, but after a year, google has started a new campaign to try and dissuade users here from blocking ads by sending the message in the image below:

There's nobody logged into google on this machine, and the window can be closed by clicking on the cross in the top right hand corner (partly obscured).

Google is asking the user to allow ads, or try "YouTube Premium".

Interestingly, the adblocker on this machine, Ghostery, has detected that google is trying to have ads blocked, and has popped up a window of its own on the top right of the image, with the suggestion to open the video in a private window.

Fortunately, it wasn't necessary to use a private window since clicking both pop up windows off was sufficient to play the video.

The only hindrance was that the user was delayed by about 5 seconds before the video would run, but when it ran, it did so normally.

These windows have been fairly regular over the last few days, but decreasing today to a single occurrence.

It was surprising to get this message after about a year of not getting any, but I guess it's a neverending struggle for both the company and the ad blocking coders.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

@osprey
I don't have this problem with uBlock and NoScript combo.
Maybe you should reconsider ghostery.

 

[KGIII]

If you use uBlock, Ray has added some great functionality from the now-dead uMatrix application,

Just tell it that you're an expert in the settings, and you'll be presented with this:

If you want to set the default settings, just go to an 'about:blank' page and edit those settings. Like, you can do that to block all 3rd party scripts (and frames) by default, meaning they'll be blocked unless you tell them otherwise on a per-site basis.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Just tell it that you're an expert in the settings, and you'll be presented with this:

I have expert mode enabled all the time even though not using expert functions, but it's cool to have wider overview.
Just enabling right static filters is enough to block anything you want, some static filters though break pages.

 

[osprey]

@osprey
I don't have this problem with uBlock and NoScript combo.
Maybe you should reconsider ghostery.

Just changed to uBlock Origin and filled in a few filters. Good to go.

 

[Condobloke]

On occasion, I am presented with a full google page of crap...I don't really bother to read it properly.....but in a nutshell they want me to sign in (I have a gmail a/c so I can do that...IF I wish. The answer to that is a hard NO.


I scroll to the bottom, and choose to reject all cookies. I proceed from there and everything works as I wish it to.

(I will keep a note of @KGIII's link above, just in case. )

 

[KGIII]

I have expert mode enabled all the time even though not using expert functions, but it's cool to have wider overview.
Just enabling right static filters is enough to block anything you want, some static filters though break pages.

It's very similar to how uMatrix once was. And it is awesome.

uMatrix can still be downloaded and sideloaded. It still works perfectly fine, or it did the last time I played with it. It's not as easy as NoScript, but it does things that NoScript can not. It just takes a month of Sundays to learn how to use it and get it configured for your very individual needs.

Just changed to uBlock Origin and filled in a few filters. Good to go.

That's what I do when Google gets fussy. By the time I notice on my system, someone has often already updated the filters. So, I just go in and swap a few filters off and on (which causes them all to manually refresh when you update the lists/settings).

If that doesn't work, I deal with the ads for a bit - but it has oddly not happened to me lately.

Also, I think we should be a bit more careful with how we describe this. While this may be an intended consequence, the existing ad blocking extensions will stop working when Google changes their API (or would this one be an ABI?). Whatever it is, it's Google changing what extensions have permissions to access and how they can do so. This is claimed to be for security reasons.

Their war on blocking ads at YouTube could be considered another matter entirely.

Extensions will still be able to block ads. They'll just have to go about it in a different way. With Google's current legal situation, I'm not sure how much they're really willing to push things. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

There are enough people, including businesses with vast resources like MSFT, that are very fluent in Chromium.

A major fork would not be out of the question. That major fork may very well gain some traction if it's because Chrome stopped allowing ads to be blocked. We've seen very rapid changes in the browser wars before. While a distant memory today, Firefox once revolutionized browsing and was the dominant player, usurping even Internet Explorer.

That could easily happen today. Google knows this.Google is WELL AWARE of this. They are not piloted by stupid people. They not only have 'the data', they have 'all the data'.

 

[Condobloke]

Their war on blocking ads at YouTube

Will forever be ongoing. Ads are their primary source of income.

As much as we moan & groan about not being able to access youtube without crap happening, just think along the lines of "if Google REALLY wanted to stop add blockers from working on their sites....they would do so, in an instant.

BUT.....the very people who are affected by such a change (you and me, and the rest of the human race) are also the people who spend money....quite often in response to advertising ....so mr google has to be somewhat careful who he 'ticks ' off !! lest he bites the hand that feeds HIM (again, that is you and me and whole human race)

It comes down to a game of cat and mouse. The number of folks who dig deep into ublock origin settings to keep google at bay are in the minority....hence the on again/off again approach from google.

my knowledge here is not complete....so take this with a grain of salt....the current status of manifest 2 and manifest 3....I have not read about properly....Yet.
I am sure it will, however, have a great deal to do with this topic

 

[Mike-W0BTU]

If you use uBlock, Ray has added some great functionality from the now-dead uMatrix application,

Just tell it that you're an expert in the settings, and you'll be presented with this:

View attachment 24942

If you want to set the default settings, just go to an 'about:blank' page and edit those settings. Like, you can do that to block all 3rd party scripts (and frames) by default, meaning they'll be blocked unless you tell them otherwise on a per-site basis.

For some reason, I am unable to select or deselect some domains in ublock Origin. That's in Firefox. I'll have to try this soon.