540
YouTube adds new hurdles for ad blockers, and there's currently no way around it
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
540 points (97.0% liked)
Technology
81387 readers
4860 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
There is no fucking way in hell I'll ever a) watch ads b) pay for Youtube Premium. They created this monopoly with no alternative option and now we're suppose to just get fucked while they get even more obscenely rich beyond all tasteful levels. Yeah, I don't think so. And given how I ditched everything Google, if it ever comes to it, I'll ditch Youtube too. It's basically the only thing I still even use from Google because there's just no alternative.
Soon will be a good time to quit YT completely. Suddenly, you’ll have lots of time to do all the things you were supposed to do long ago. You know like taking a walk, cooking nice food, reading books, getting to bed early etc.
My ad blocker won't let me watch YouTube. I didn't know there was a problem. Good ad blocker.
you can kind of ungoogle youtube by using invidious https://invidious.io/
I just use it without account and subscribe to my favorite channels using external RSS feed reader. This way I still keep track of my fav content and doing it entirely outside of Google. If they track me as guest, I really don't care that much.
the hardest thing to stop them tracking you is digital fingerprinting. they don't need you to sign in, they have a profile with dozens of data points unique to your hardware/browser, unless you've got things installs specifically to prevent fingerprinting
https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
That site is brutal. No matter what I do or what browser setup I use, it always says that I have a unique fingerprint
i think the message is there's no such thing as 100% private/anonymous--there'll always be something giving you up
Why does firefox allow random people to farm all that information? That's the real problem here.
it's not just firefox. pretty sure that's just how the web works. i use librewolf with privacy badger, canvas blocker, and ublock, but it's still built around firefox. i get a "unique fingerprint" notification, but also "you have strong tracking protection"
Ironically, YouTube is one case that's much better with personalized recommendations. I even open links from social media in incognito tabs so as to not pollute my recommendations accidentally.
Any time I happen to open Youtube's main page in an incognito tab, it's filled with complete trash that's offered to my region by default. It's not even my usual snobbery talking — the content is like wall-to-wall Jerry Springer Show.
Don't forget the phone. Almost everyone with a smartphone is either an Apple or Google user via it, and everyone seems to forget that.
The main issue with phones are fucking banks. Their bullshit insisting on phones having to have locked bootloader is so fucking annoying. I used phone with LineageOS but it was nightmare to work with my bank and they all do this shit to "protect the user". Yeah right.
Yes, I do use Android phone, but I used ADB AppControl and just deleted and disabled all the Google shit on it (easier on Samsung since they have their own services which I prefer over Google if I have to). I also run DNS level filtering using Hagezi Ultimate list which filters so much shit. Not ideal still, but it works.
Yup. That's the main thing stopping me from yeeting Google from my phone (also Samsung): the tickbox sanctity of a non-rooted phone that financial (and some other) apps require. Very frustrating.