YouTube doubles down on enshittification. The site will no longer load videos if it detects ublock origin on your browser.
Discussion
YouTube doubles down on enshittification. The site will no longer load videos if it detects ublock origin on your browser.
@blair_fix @pluralistic It's working just fine for me right now, but I understand youtube is probably testing this with a subset of users, not everyone
@blair_fix @pluralistic also, this article suggesting using any chrome-based browser at all is completely missing the plot
Well apparently that subset includes me :)
@blair_fix If I can't watch YouTube without ads, I won't watch YouTube. I'd miss some creators, but I'd gain back a lot of time.
Easy peasy. YMMV.
@blair_fix @pluralistic ublock origin is not even allowed on Chrome.
@blair_fix As others mentioned third party clients for Android, if you’re on iOS try Unwatched.
Strange. The article writes "uBlock Origin Lite seems to work" (and continues some more about Google Chrome and uBlock Origin Lite). I can share that things work fine with Firefox and the full blown uBlock Origin (no lite) for me today right now.
@blair_fix @pluralistic don't use any of those browsers anywas. FF, Librewolf (FF fork). Brave, if you are careful to turn all the malicious stuff and A I off. Is this guy trying to sell YT subs? I've always wondered, how people pay for that. It's not that hard to get around that.
@blair_fix @pluralistic maybe. Hard to read #tomsGuide these day behind the giant ads
@blair_fix @pluralistic time to (mass) migrate 🛸 maybe to https://peertube.tv ?
@blair_fix @pluralistic whelp, no more YT then.
I don't use ad blockers, but I use Firefox with "Enhanced Tracking Protection", which causes some sites to *think* I'm using one. Hopefully this won't happen to me with YouTube, as I'm a premium subscriber.
Regardless, I'm generally OK with sites using ads or paywalls to compensate their creators. If the ads annoy me, I either avoid that site or pay if there's an option to remove them. I don't feel entitled to unlimited free content.
@blair_fix @pluralistic as of today (12/nov/25) youtube works ok on FF + uBlockOrigin... (in Italy)
@blair_fix @pluralistic use freetube. A desktopapp for win and Linux, that is a YouTube frontend and protects your data. On android use new pipe or libre tube available from f-droid store. Simple. No data. No fee.
@blair_fix @pluralistic Rather sad that not even halfway through the article a popup appears, begging me to sign up and never disappears. Also: recommending ChatGPT Atlas is a red flag for me.
@blair_fix @pluralistic i’d buy a plug and play pi-hole
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