this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2025
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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 163 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

The workaround: Switch from Adblock Plus to uBlock Origin.

ABP has had random issues that break it often for years now. It's crap.

[–] zqps@sh.itjust.works 27 points 1 day ago

ABP has also been owned and run by a shady investment firm for the past decade.

[–] madcaesar@lemmy.world 41 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Wasn't adblock plus bought by some ad agency? I thought they were long gone...

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago

I don't know about that but they do have a program where advertisers can pay them in exchange for their ads being allowed past the block.

[–] ohshit604@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

The workaround

Quit using YouTube directly and proxy your request through an Invidious instance.

Your requests are mixed in with everyone else’s, ad’s are blocked and most importantly only 1 machine touches YouTube directly and that’s the server hosting Invidious.

[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago

Unless the instance owner is a network god, they blacklist the IP address almost immediately (they see thousands of videos watched at the same time from the same IP address, trivial to detect)

[–] nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not a solution for most people, unfortunately...

[–] ohshit604@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Could you elaborate on why not?

[–] lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Most people don't even know what Invidious is, let alone the fact that there are other video hosting sites that aren't youtube (Vimeo, for one).

Invidious is always breaking, too, and most people will stop using it when that happens.

We are talking about most people, not the absolutely tiny minority of technical users who are aware that such a thing as Invidious even exists.

[–] bilb@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I wonder what percentage of views are done with a general purpose web browser vs. YouTube apps on phones and TVs. Otherwise, yeah, if you have a web browser it is an option. And since this thread is about browser extensions, I too am wondering what they meant.

[–] OmegaSunkey@ani.social 3 points 1 day ago (3 children)

You see how often growing youtubers complain about more than 85% of their viewers are not subscribed to the channel, or how just some videos have more views than their main content? The issue is that Invidious doesn't have the algorithm Youtube provides to everyone, and that not a lot of people really watch their subscribed page.

[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago

It's almost irrelevant to subscribe to a channel, the algorithm anyway pushes whatever it wants ignoring your requests

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

more than 85% of their viewers are not subscribed

Why would you have an account in that hellhole?

[–] lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Some of us made Gmail accounts long before Youtube even existed, and still rely on youtube for tutorials and other things of that nature that aren't found anywhere else.

Don't be a pretentious dick about it.

[–] ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I was just thinking that I should host a "how to" peertube instance.

[–] lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 hours ago

I think that's a great idea. We shouldn't turn away potential users, nor should we mock current YouTube users who might be willing but not have the knowledge to do so.

[–] ohshit604@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

You see how often growing youtubers complain about more than 85% of their viewers are not subscribed to the channel, or how just some videos have more views than their main content?

I actually don’t watch a whole lot of YouTube anymore so I can’t really comment on this here.

The issue is that Invidious doesn't have the algorithm Youtube provides to everyone,

But isn’t this what people are trying to avoid when it comes to digital privacy? User data being used in less algorithms?

[–] OmegaSunkey@ani.social 2 points 1 day ago

But isn’t this what people are trying to avoid when it comes to digital privacy? User data being used in less algorithms?

Yes. Invidious and other programs, websites and anything else are useful for these kind of things. When you go to another house and in another computer you want to see some video but not affect the watch history of the user that uses the computer mainly. Or just simply watching some video that you wouldn't normally watch.

But most people who use YouTube actively on their main computer binge-watch. Sometimes they follow creators, sometimes they follow what the algorithm recommends them for the day. Invidious does not have such algorithm, since its a proxy. So, it is really not for everyone.

[–] W3dd1e@lemmy.zip -2 points 1 day ago (3 children)
[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 points 14 hours ago

On Firefox on Android you can use extensions. I've been using uBO for years on my phone.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Firefox on Android has it.

But if you're on iOS you'd better speak to Tim Apple about it, assuming he's finished noshing off Trump.

[–] cooligula@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You can have it on iOS as well. Use Orion browser instead of safari and install UBO from the firefox addons store ;)

[–] W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago

I just tried this and I get an alert that unlock isn’t fully available. Seems it can’t access web request API.

I’ll give it a spin out of curiosity. I pay for Kagi anyway. I’m very opposed to Google.

[–] kahnclusions@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It doesn’t work properly… Orion still really falls short. I use Brave on iOS just because of Adblock and paywall bypass.

[–] cooligula@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oh, well I haven't had problems so far with Orion+UBO!

[–] kahnclusions@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Even YouTube? The last time I tried (a couple months ago) on both mobile and desktop Orion it’s totally unusable, most of the time it just gets stuck on a black screen for 10-60 seconds where the ads should be.

[–] kahnclusions@lemmy.ca -2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As much as I hate to say it, if on iOS use Brave. You can disable the crypto shit, but it’s got the best adblocking on iOS, and paywall bypass built in.

[–] obrien_must_suffer@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Never. I hate Brave more than the few ads that get through on iOS with AdGuard or the recently released uBlock Origin Lite.

[–] ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
[–] obrien_must_suffer@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

It's Chromium based, has a history of doing sketchy things, and spite.

[–] ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 hours ago

Spite has been a powerful driver in my most recent software choices recently. I know how it is.