DuckDuckGo Browser Now Blocks YouTube Ads on iPhone and Mac

[marte91]

Amazing well done DDG never pay for Google YouTube

To be honest, i wont mind paying for youtube premium as long as they don't play adds, at this point in time google does not offer an ad free tier, just reduced ads, I'm subscribed to Netflix and apple tv+, I'm willing to pay for the content as long as is ad free, the moment i see an ad on Netflix, i will cancel, I'm even able to accept price increases now and then, but if at anytime Netflix start showing ads and not offer an ad free tier, they will loose me as a customer.
Also i will remember ads, and I will go out of my way not to use the service or product being on the ads, yes I'm that hateful of online ads.

 

[marte91]

It feels like we already pay for it by having our lives tracked by that company. So yeah, no qualms.

Not only that ads will still show up on paid versions of youtube, is right there in their comparison between premium and premium lite, there is not a 100% ad free tier, just a reduce ad tier.

 

[marte91]

Ad blockers are immoral and tacky. Disservice to creators. Premium is a good buy. DuckDuckGo is trying to cash in on the luddite peasant AI revolt and it's just another instance of corporate gaslighting and rent-seeking.

Premium still shows ads, so no, is not a good buy.

 

[krakenrelease]

I trust Google more than Brave.

Brave is nothing more than a Crypto / Ai / VPN Subscription Bloat browser these days.

And you can turn those features off?

 

[macdaddy43]

They probably will. It's usually a cat-and-mouse game.

I use a DNS service that redirects my YouTube traffic to another country that isn't monetized, so no YouTube ads anywhere...including the YouTube app itself on all my smart devices (iPhone, iPad, TVs). Much more difficult for YouTube to block this method.

What country do you use? Asking for a friend…😅😂

 

[turbineseaplane]

What country do you use? Asking for a friend…😅😂

Albania works

 

[Doug.J]

I installed DuckDuckGo. Working pretty well stand alone.

 

[Jeeve Stubbs]

In this game of cat-and-mouse between adblockers and websites, it won't be long before YouTube comes up with a countermeasure. Its business model is at stake, no less.

 

[Doug.J]

No doubt. However, all the Social Media business models rely on gathering intel on us.

 

[turbineseaplane]

In this game of cat-and-mouse between adblockers and websites, it won't be long before YouTube comes up with a countermeasure. Its business model is at stake, no less.

Perhaps but it’s a fine line and if it’s too cumbersome or too annoying usage will drop off.

To me a bigger threat than the whole ad situation and the cost they want to charge is the quality of the actual content on YouTube these days.

 

[63W]

Why would I watch videos in a browser?? It's like going backwards.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Why would I watch videos in a browser?? It's like going backwards.

A huge canvas where you can see the video, comments, transcripts .. or take notes alongside it ... all easily and with room to spare.

 

[wyliej]

Why would I watch videos in a browser?? It's like going backwards.

So you can block ads, obviously.

 

[Graphate]

Why would I watch videos in a browser?? It's like going backwards.

A huge canvas where you can see the video, comments, transcripts .. or take notes alongside it ... all easily and with room to spare.

So you can block ads, obviously.

True, and there are also frankly not many good apps for video, they’re bloated, and packed full of analytic. At least with a browser you know what you’re getting.

 

[Populus]

I give it a week since it's making front page news everywhere

Yeah, this features should be introduced more sneakily. Sure, Google will know either way, but it’s not the same having 15,000 users watching as-free YouTube through this loophole, than having 150,000 or 500,000. In the first case, Google won’t bother too much. In the latter, they will try to patch it, and that will probably break the ad-blockers as well…

 

[MacBH928]

Is this some sort of satire?

The guy is either unwell or joking. Hard to tell.

actually, @DEMinSoCAL is correct.

These services put on their offering in exchange for watching ads (free). If you block the ads, you are getting the content without accepting the terms of service (Watching the ads). This business model (like 99% of the internet including macrumors) will collapse if everyone used ad blockers. We are already seeing paywalls and i doubt it will work since you will need serious number of subscribers to keep on going especially when the service is a gigantic like CNN or Reuters.

I hate ads like every other guy, but the truth is truth. I would let ads on if they were none-tracking, privacy respecting, and acceptable (a banner at top) . But the method they are using now its basically war between provider and consumer.

 

[MacBH928]

Always wondered how this was possible?

there are 2 ways AFAIK:

1-Most ads come from 3rd party service that you join and share ad revenue with (ex Google Adsense). you put "load GoogleAdsense.com ad here" on your site. The adblock blocks the domain "GoogleAdsense.com" , so when you visit macrumors.com it will load but the ads coming from Google Adsense.com won't load. Ads are block.

2-Ads are served from the same domain like youtube.com . What happens here is a an ad code like "<load ad1 and ad2 here before the video>" after that it says "<play video>" . Your adblocker does something like this:

1- youtube sends website code <load ad1 and ad2 here before the video>
2-Your adblock intercept it, blocks it from going into your browser, so you wont see add.
3- youtube send the following code <play video> , your adblock gives it green light and loads in your browser.

Its as if the <load ad1 and ad2 here before the video> was never part of the website you are trying to access.

Is there no way YouTube can block such antics?

depending on the method you use, i have seen websites that won't load if you have an adblocker .

 

[dba415]

To be honest, i wont mind paying for youtube premium as long as they don't play adds, at this point in time google does not offer an ad free tier, just reduced ads, I'm subscribed to Netflix and apple tv+, I'm willing to pay for the content as long as is ad free, the moment i see an ad on Netflix, i will cancel, I'm even able to accept price increases now and then, but if at anytime Netflix start showing ads and not offer an ad free tier, they will loose me as a customer.
Also i will remember ads, and I will go out of my way not to use the service or product being on the ads, yes I'm that hateful of online ads.

What are you talking about? I have YouTube premium and have never seen an ad

 

[Abazigal]

So you just think everything should be free? Ad free and cost free?

I subscribe to online websites where I can (currently paying for Macrumours, Are Technica, YouTube Premium, Mangadex), newsletters (Macstories, Stratechery, AboveAvalon), and support a streamer with my free Prime sub. I also have ad-blockers running in my browsers. To me, it's also about supporting the creators whose content I enjoy, and if a website displays a pop-up telling me to disable my ad-blocker, I just won't visit it, however valuable I think its content might be.

I feel like there is a fine line between serving ads to cover the cost of running an online service (like Macrumours) while also making some extra money at the end of the day, and having every scrap of data about me extracted and sold to all parties for any purpose, as well as bogging down a website with popups and overlays to the point where it becomes unusable (think "Windows Central").

Ad-blocking, to me, is a form of bargaining. To take back the internet that has been stolen from us. Today, the core of the internet is “We’ll take everything and you will hand it over.” Running an ad-blocker is really the only way the average user has of saying "Nah, I am good. Thanks".

And in a way, I am hoping that those who can support a website financially will do so, and help keep it free (or ad-lite) or the rest of the users who may not be in a situation to subscribe.

 

[Haiku_Oezu]

I like DDG but a browser with no extension support is just a non starter for me

 

[Jeeve Stubbs]

I like DDG but a browser with no extension support is just a non starter for me

DuckDuckNoGo

 

[wyndly]

Works great and it's free forever! No subscriptions.

 

[Graphate]

[…]

I feel like there is a fine line between serving ads to cover the cost of running an online service (like Macrumours) while also making some extra money at the end of the day, and having every scrap of data about me extracted and sold to all parties for any purpose, as well as bogging down a website with popups and overlays to the point where it becomes unusable (think "Windows Central").

Ad-blocking, to me, is a form of bargaining. To take back the internet that has been stolen from us. Today, the core of the internet is “We’ll take everything and you will hand it over.” Running an ad-blocker is really the only way the average user has of saying "Nah, I am good. Thanks".

And in a way, I am hoping that those who can support a website financially will do so, and help keep it free (or ad-lite) or the rest of the users who may not be in a situation to subscribe.

Agreed, the amount of data scraping on almost every website is shocking the first time you see it. Exhibit A, 50+ connections attempted, below (some are legitimate CDNs) website works fine with one allowed, most is just bloat, but too many are pixels.

Works great and it's free forever! No subscriptions.

Any time I can avoid a subscription, even if I have to pay 10x (not a great economic choice) I do it.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

It feels like we already pay for it by having our lives tracked by that company. So yeah, no qualms.

Yeah, I feel like I pay my taxes so I think food should be free. Maybe I'll just steal it from the store, no qualms. 😉

Do you use an ad blocker? Do you use an add-on or equivalent that prevents web sites from tracking you? Websites run ads and use trackers to help cover their costs. By blocking them, you'd be denying them revenue which means you think access should be free.

If you're going to use an analogy, at least use one that is apples-to-apples. Yes I do use ad-blockers for websites (not YT), but the difference is, there isn't a PAID VERSION of the websites that I'm trying to defeat or get around.

As I stated in my original post, YouTube offers a PAID Ad-free experience or you can choose the FREE experience with ads. To circumvent the ads and not pay is equivalent to downloading movies off the web for free instead of paying for them.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Premium still shows ads, so no, is not a good buy.

If you mean the sponsor ads that the YouTubers include in their videos, that is nothing YT can do anything about. If you don't like the sponsored ads, don't watch that channel's videos.

In my experience as a Premium subscriber, I NEVER see the introductory ads that I see when I'm not logged in.