YouTube is Killing the Overlay Ad Format Next Month - Slashdot

Posted by msmash

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  I won't lie, when they first started doing those pop-ups I thought I had an ad-ware bug somewhere on my computer. I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what was causing it so that I could kill it.

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    That's weird. I spend quite a bit of time watching YouTube videos and I can't even remember the last time I saw an ad.
    
    Oh wait.... That's because I'm not retarded and I use an adblocker.

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      Which works great, until you want to watch on an actual TV. The difference in experiences watching YouTube on my computer vs. on my Roku is quite stark.

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        I watch Youtube on a TV with SmartTube on a Google TV. It doesn't display ads, and it has sponsorblock. I used to use a Shield Tube but then they put ads on the home screen like everyone else, and then I surrendered to having the functionality in the TV where it doesn't take up any additional space. The Shield Tube was a better device, but it wasn't a good enough gaming platform to be worth using for that (especially when I have a 40" display on my PC) so the fact that the TV's SoC is worthless for gaming i

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      Well that, and maybe you want to support the creators abit, and spring for a Youtube premium sub, that way you don't get third party ads, and the creator gets at least something ( a pittance I know but still)

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      Let me know if you've found a surefire way to block YouTube ads on iPhone.

  • Re: I thought that was malware

    when they first started doing those pop-ups

    ... was 20 years ago. What are you on about?

• They will put an ad at the beginning, middle, and end of a video.

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    Adblock will stop all ads ont he desktop. I've seen no ads there on youtube for years. In the last couple of years it has meant that you ahve a pause before you can continue, just like the ad was there but you can't actually see any ads.

    However - this doesn't work for streaming to a device, like a smart tv, Roku, etc. There I just put up with the ads, and if they're too obnoxious I skip the video. This is absurd at times, like multiple ads being shown during a movie preview. But because a movie preview

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      There are third party Youtube clients with ad and sponsor blocking baked in. Smart Youtube TV and SmartTube are both AndroidTV applications that do those things, for example. I believe there are ad-free options on lesser platforms as well.

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        Apparently pi-hole doesn[t work for Roku. Or Google, whoever injects the ads. The SmartTube is android only, but it loses a lot of functionality if you don't have a remote control, ala chromecast. And YouTube premium costs as much as Netflix despite it being "free content" from third parties that Google does not produce. Oh well, the ads aren't terrible. People tell horror stories of 3 hour ads and ads very 3 minutes, but I've never seen that.

        I don't think there's tracking; maybe it's because I turned

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          If you're using an "official" youtube client, the ads are baked in over SSL and can't be removed. You can screencast to your Roku from a better platform at least.

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      I watch YouTube videos on a Roku and the ads are BRUTAL, sometimes seemingly popping up as often as every few minutes (and the ads themselves can be a few minutes long). The experience can be pretty miserable.

• Youtube is currently at the point in ad placement in its videos that Hulu was shortly before they went to an exclusively pay-to-play model: back to back ads before, during, and after, and obnoxious enough that you often don't even bother unless you absolutely need the information.

  I've all but stopped using youtube directly, at this point, as a result. The content they offer now, after they've purged a very significant amount of "non-corporate" media, is not worth the $12/month to avoid the ads, either.

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    Or maybe its just that the majority disagrees with your stance. Maybe you should do some self reflection.

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      Or take a Dark Retreat like a certain American quarterback?

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    YouTube never purged any non-corporate media, and there's no shortage of content. In fact, a good deal of creators from other platforms like Twitch, TikTok, and Instagram also upload their content to YouTube. There was a brief period where they did a massive change to how things were monetized which led to some creators changing their content or quitting, but that's pretty much in the past. And whoever quit is just replaced by other creators.
    
    It's funny to me when people say they don't watch YouTube be

• Now, if they can make subtitles and closedcaptioning appear below the video instead of overlayed that could be useful too.

• This does not intercept the in-line videos add before, during, or after viewing the stream. Sadly

• Everyone I know already installed adblockers a long while ago because the ads became SO obnoxious that it is virtually impossible to use YouTube without anymore. And they're not going to get uninstalled. They are here to stay. Yes, you managed to even piss off the crowd that puts up with hundreds of malware popups in their browsers enough to reach out to their friends to have adblockers installed. There's even blocking software for those "sponsorship" plugs of the content creators themselves now.

  Get a clue:

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    I don't hate advertising per se, but the manner in which it's done.

    Last time I encountered it on Youtube (which I rarely use anyway), it was too loud (like it was on TV channels), and it interupted the video at the stupidest possible moments.
    Used youtube-dl ever since, but I noticed it fails lately and the videos on the site only play for a second in Pale Moon before pausing, so I'm not bothering any longer.
    I might check if the video is on Vimeo or another site if I really want to see it.

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      So you'll spend 15 MINUTES to avoid watching a 15 SECOND ad spot? That's silly.

      • 1 hidden comment

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        It's not. ads change your brain.

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      There is a fork of 'youtube-dl' that is better than 'youtube-dl'.

      I am not sharing the name of the fork here because the 1st Rule of Fight Club is not to talk about Fight Club.

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    They'll do...everything?

    You mean they'll pay a nominal fee in order to be considered an actual customer instead of The Product in order to avoid ads everywhere?

    We know how we got here. Enough with the BS.

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      If offered the chance and no other way to escape it, surprisingly, yes, they do.

      Of course, if offered the chance to avoid it for free, they'll take that option.

• plus the ads that the content creators themselves embed into their presentation

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    I can ff those. It's the annoying 6-âz second-long ads that are driving me away from YouTube. If I'm going to pay to remove ads, I pay for Netflix or Sling

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    This works great on the browser. Not at all for streaming devices though:/

    https://chrome.google.com/webs... [google.com]

• I guess everyone on this site knows how to prevent ads on desktop, but I still see lots of people struggling on mobile.

  Time for some community service. Use Firefox on Android (and soon in iOS too, when Apple allows 3rd party rendering engines) and install uBlock Origin. Extra points: you can configure Firefox not to open youtube.com URLs in the proprietary app.

  On TV you are screwed, except you have Android TV and run Youtube through the browser.

• A one minute clip with last 20 seconds obscured by four pop up ads begging for a click completely obscuring content...
• YouTube has ads? Who knew? My Newpipe player must be broken, it fails to show me those.... (It does break from time to time, refusing to play anything until I update it - put the repo into F-Droid and you can get the updates easily.)

• The amount of ads for scams that I get is unreal. I report then through their "ad center" but it doesn't lessen them. Are humans even dealing with these reports? Reporting an ad returns a thankyou message which they haven't updated since COVID claiming somebody might get to do something sometime. On top of that, there is ZERO feedback if the report was handled.

  The stupid part to me is that the scam ads are there at all. I reckon it would be easy for YouTube to transcribe or watermark scam ads and once they'