YouTube is blocking ad blockers to push Premium subscription

Ashwin
May 11, 2023
Youtube
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77

Google is reportedly blocking videos from playing if you have an ad blocker. A reddit user on YouTube's subreddit came across a pop-up while watching videos, it said that "Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube."

 

The message (pictured below) says that ads allow YouTube to stay free for billions of users, and tells that you can ad-free with YouTube Premium. It also displayed two options: a button to allow YouTube ads, while the other is for YouTube Premium.

YouTube is blocking ad blockers

A comment from the user who reported the pop-up says that they were using Chrome with uBlock (likely uBlock Origin). Another user says they saw a similar warning on Firefox and uBlock Origin and theorized that it could be a slow roll out. A moderator on the subreddit commented that a member of the YouTube team at Google had confirmed to them that the pop-up was an experiment.  So essentially, you will not be able to watch a YouTube video without disabling the ad blocker.

Google is infamous for its anti-ad stance. As Android Police notes, it has previously banned ad blocker apps from the Play Store. It went after a popular client called YouTube Vanced that allowed users to watch ads without a Premium subscription, and killed the app.

The elephant in the room is, of course, Manifest V3. The new API for web extensions cripples the functionality of content blockers from working efficiently, and without access to webRequest, there isn't really a proper solution for this mess.

This isn't the first time YouTube ads have been problematic with content blockers. The Mountain View company has consistently been working on combating ad blockers, and keeps changing stuff on the back end. You may run into ads on YouTube when you open your web browser, and it reloads tabs from the previous session. Raymond Hill, the developer of uBlock Origin had explained that the tab loading process could let some ad requests slip through before the extension's filters kick into effect at browser start up, this issue was addressed in a workaround in version 1.40 of the popular add-on. Here are some

YouTube ads: Yay or Nay?

But YouTube detecting an ad blocker is a different issue, a more serious one. It remains to be seen how content blockers will deal with it. YouTube ads not only pose a privacy risk, they are also annoying in many ways. Video ads are often unskippable, repetitive, irrelevant, loud, may use up chunks of your data. Many videos have multiple embedded ads, which are a complete waste of time.  You could use a system-wide ad blocker like NextDNS or AdGuard to deal with the problem, but not everyone is going to resort to such measures.

It's not like Google is a startup, it doesn't need your funds to bear the server costs and survive. For reference, YouTube Premium has over 80 million users, it costs $12 per month in the U.S, and £11.99 in the UK. If the company wants to kick freeloaders from using YouTube, maybe it should go full premium like Netflix or Amazon Prime, and discontinue the free tier. But if that happened, the platform's usage and economy would take a nosedive. It won't be able to partner with advertisers, which in turn would result in a significant loss of revenue, probably more than what it makes from selling Premium subscriptions. That's the whole point behind blocking ad blockers, it's all about the money, and Google wants to get its share by displaying ads or Premium subscription.

From a user's perspective, this poses a bigger issue. It's about the freedom to use it the way you want to. Should you risk your privacy by disabling your ad blocker? No. If Chrome stands in your way, maybe it is time to step away from it. Manifest V2 isn't going away just yet, but you may as well make the move now.

If you're looking to switch from Google Chrome but still want a Chromium-based browser, I would recommend taking a look at Brave and Vivaldi. Both browsers come with built-in content blockers, and since they will continue to support Manifest V3 and V2 APIs, add-ons like uBlock Origin should work better on them than with Chrome.

Microsoft Edge will continue supporting Manifest V2 until 2024, but if privacy is a concern, I don't think you're going to be happy with Edge.

If you want to ditch the Chrome ecosystem completely, the only choice is Mozilla Firefox.

Will you use YouTube without an ad blocker?

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YouTube is blocking ad blockers to push Premium subscription
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Google wants you to disable your ad blocker or get a YouTube Premium subscription to let you watch videos.
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Comments

  1. RockOrDie said on October 20, 2023 at 6:50 am
    Reply

    Firefox is my everyday browser, so when ad blocker messages started appearing on YouTube this week, I did a Web search for help and found you. All I had to do was follow the Firefox’s instructions to refresh and speed up the browser, and then install Ublock. A million thanks for your help!

  2. High Tech RedNeck said on May 13, 2023 at 5:13 am
    Reply

    I use Ublock, and will keep using any ad blockers that’s going to stop YouTube ads, until I can’t use them anymore.

  3. Someone said on May 12, 2023 at 2:02 pm
    Reply

    I remember the veoh. Do you ? It was an YT alternative, on the first Yt period (2006-2009) and was good. Nowdays is scam/forgotten site. What a same. The same thing would happen to adtube
    if community dont do something against Google (imo).
    ;)

  4. Anonymous said on May 12, 2023 at 12:37 pm
    Reply

    I don’t see any ads

  5. Iron Heart said on May 12, 2023 at 12:25 pm
    Reply

    There is already a working filter circulating to counter YouTube’s banner, add it to your existing custom filters and you’re golden:

    youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.openPopupConfig.supportedPopups.adBlockMessageViewModel, false)

    youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.adBlocksFound, 0)

    youtube.com##+js(set, ytplayer.config.args.raw_player_response.adPlacements, [])

    youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.hasAllowedInstreamAd, true)

    1. John G. said on May 12, 2023 at 1:32 pm
      Reply

      Are these filters for uBlock?

      1. Iron Heart said on May 12, 2023 at 1:38 pm
        Reply

        @John G.

        Should work for most adblockers. I am using them in Brave Shields right now.

      2. John G. said on May 12, 2023 at 2:27 pm
        Reply

        @Iron Heart, thanks, I will give them a try!

  6. Scroogled said on May 11, 2023 at 10:56 pm
    Reply

    The older I become, the less I do online and the more I rely on legacy applications. Even simple apps like calculators are increasingly subscription-based. It is absurd. I stopped gaming 8 years ago because everything is online-based, full of DRM, buggy, and stale. I’m glad I stopped watching YouTube videos. It’s mostly rubbish, such as MrBeast and TikTok-style shorts. I’ll just get a YouTube mirror of whatever I want to watch.

    1. Tom Hawack said on May 12, 2023 at 12:11 pm
      Reply

      I must be older than those becoming older such as @Scroogled : if he considers MrBeast as rubbish at least he know him :=) I’ve never heard about that guy, “a net positive on the world” according to @basingstoke…

      1. basingstoke said on May 12, 2023 at 2:55 pm
        Reply

        Tom Hawack, MrBeast has such videos like “Helping 1000 Blind People See For The First Time”, and another video like that but helping deaf people – in those videos, he goes around the world, even to 3rd world countries, paying for safe surgeries that people can’t afford, to cure disabilities. Him being a net positive for the world is hardly an opinion!

        I would advise you to use one of your smart methods to find a way to access those two videos, both are quite recent. Other notable things he has done in the past are massive projects to build trees and clean up oceans of debris. The more you know…

      2. Tom Hawack said on May 15, 2023 at 2:12 am
        Reply

        @basingstoke, I’ve found the channel/videos you mention.
        Replace [piped.adminforge.de] by [www.youtube.com] if you prefer Google servers …

        MrBeast – Piped
        [https://piped.adminforge.de/channel/UCX6OQ3DkcsbYNE6H8uQQuVA]

        1,000 Blind People See For The First Time – Piped
        [[https://piped.adminforge.de/watch?v=TJ2ifmkGGus]

        1,000 Deaf People Hear For The First Time – Piped
        [https://piped.adminforge.de/watch?v=WTOm65IZneg]

        I’d have to dig into this channel and its videos. First impression is circumspection : the tone, the rendering seems closer to those of a circus than to charity and compassion … even if I’m aware that nowadays and especially in the States many topics are presented as if they were a show, a performance, with an equal smile and enthusiasm, as if life, happiness, dramas were all a big live show. I never got to apprehend that part of American culture :=)

    2. basingstoke said on May 12, 2023 at 10:42 am
      Reply

      Calling MrBeast “rubbish” is really stupid – like him or not he’s a net positive on the world, with some of the things he’s done recently, he’s a little like a modern day Jesus – he’s literally using his money for good, separating him from 99% of “content creators”.

      1. Anonymous said on May 12, 2023 at 2:25 pm
        Reply

        He fooled you much as all his mindless viewers. It’s referred to as exploiting people. YouTubers been doing it for years.

      2. basingstoke said on May 12, 2023 at 6:13 pm
        Reply

        Anonymous – So you’re saying that: Doing good for someone (for many people) becomes immediately negated, disqualified, and exploitation, if you film it, and upload it for “content”?

        I thought the only fools on this site were the new writers, but seems you might be an even bigger fool. If he didn’t make videos from the things he does, he wouldn’t have the revenue to do these things in the first place – I thought that was kinda obvious.

        Go ahead, watch the video “Helping 1000 people see for the first time” or whatever it’s titled – if you can say those people are being exploited, you’re demonstrably wrong. If you could ask ANY of the people that were helped, all of them are probably very grateful for the charity they received.

        There’s no valid argument against this – it’s massively different from pretending to give a homeless person $10, there’s no way he can fake the things he is doing.

        I am not a “megafan” of MrBeast, but he has become a great example of a popular ad-friendly “influencer” that is actually a genuinely decent person (at the very least, through his actions) – people cannot fathom the concept for some reason :)

      3. owl said on May 13, 2023 at 12:20 am
        Reply

        @basingstoke,

        I support your opinion and respect your courage to stand up to idiots.
        In retirement, we rarely use the web because our entire family is oriented toward the slow life of digital detox. So we are spending very pleasant days free from the “hustle and bustle of the web (BS, abusive language, lies)”. I really respect the sincerity and positivity of you and @Tom Hawack and others. I’ll be happy to support you from time to time.

        It’s also important not to “feed the idiots and the troll.” They don’t like to be ignored (they want attention).

      4. basingstoke said on May 13, 2023 at 5:33 pm
        Reply

        @owl – thanks for the kind words – I have to admit I have a bit of a problem where a lot of my comments on this website are either negative or overly critical – this is not intentional but none-the-less I am going to try and turn that around – and then even if I do need to write a negative message, I need to watch out that I’m not being rude(r than necessary).

        I only found this website a couple of months ago – and apparently it has seen much better days, but the fact that there are *some* decent writers and a great number of real, genuine people writing messages in the comments section is a real breath of fresh air.

        Whenever I am looking at news now, elsewhere on the web, I instinctually scroll to the bottom to see if there are any thoughts left behind by people – the number of news sites that don’t have any kind of option to leave a message these days is staggering.

        I have a question I thought I might ask – Is there some method people are using to be notified when someone replies directly to one of their messages? Sometimes when I reply to someone on a few days-old article, and then they reply back shortly after – I am left wondering, how did they know I replied? My current method is just checking recent articles where i’ve commented a couple of times a day.

      5. owl said on May 14, 2023 at 11:58 pm
        Reply

        @basingstoke,

        Until about two years ago, Ghacks would notify the commenter’s e-mail address when a reply was received.
        However, @Iron Heart was the first to react and the thread was covered in “hail” and became a huge problem and Ghacks (Martin) stopped the notification feature.
        And even then, the “havoc” was not converging, so they began moderating the posts. Some commentators are idiots for wanting to spew “BS” and even now (in Firefox topics) threads can get very rough. Martin has the authority to moderate, but the presence of the idiot will cause Martin is always have something to worry about. I fear for his physical and mental health.

        By the way, back on topic.
        That is why the means by which @Tom Hawack and @Yash commented is appropriate, although I am no longer able to reliably catch that replies were received.
        The advantage of “RSS” is that Web (news, update notifications, etc.) information is obtained through “RSS” subscriptions, thus avoiding miscellaneous Web topics.
        With RSS, system resources are lower than with a browser-based Web experience, and no Java Script is required, making it simple, energy-saving, and streamlined.

        The RSS reader is,
        I am an iPad user so I use “Feedly Classic”.
        For Windows machines, I prefer “RSS Guard”.
        The browser extension “Feedbro” is popular.
        You can sort and filter by author, date, title, etc. using the filters provided in your RSS reader.

        Our family is oriented toward a slow life of digital detox, so our current Web experience is limited to “RSS” and a means of communicating with friends.
        I use my iPad regularly because it is a means of enjoying the internet radio “Classic FM” in an audio environment (Airplay).

      6. Yash said on May 14, 2023 at 9:11 am
        Reply

        @basingstoke

        As Mr.Hawack has mentioned already, that is the best way to read ghacks comments – add feed URL. It was the shining light when these AI chatbots started writing articles as that was the place for finding human interactions.

      7. Tom Hawack said on May 13, 2023 at 7:29 pm
        Reply

        @basingstoke,

        > Is there some method people are using to be notified when someone replies directly to one of their messages?

        Not that I know.

        > Sometimes when I reply to someone on a few days-old article, and then they reply back shortly after – I am left wondering, how did they know I replied?

        Maybe with Ghacks’ Comments RSS feed : [https://www.ghacks.net/comments/feed/]
        That’s what I use. More frequently accessed it is likelier is the chance of having responses at the top of the list …

    3. John G. said on May 11, 2023 at 11:58 pm
      Reply

      Certainly I can agree.

  7. Doni said on May 11, 2023 at 7:15 pm
    Reply

    Are you guys so poor that bitch about few google ads?… LOL.. I pay for YouTube Premium ad free plus I get Google Music with it…since YouTube is my go to entertainment hub I watch on TV most of the time I think it’s worth paying for..

    1. John G. said on May 12, 2023 at 12:34 pm
      Reply

      @Doni, it’s not a question about paying services, because it’s quite obvious that not all the entertainment services aren’t free. Furthermore there are such few really free thing in this life. Here at my country, and mostly better say in the place where I live, there are 15 online streaming services and plus 20 paid/free online internet platforms. Plus 40 TV channels and 150 TV international channels. The sum of the all paid services can easily reach the 2000€ per month, just to see four guys and five girls dancing and making their modern crap music, and also to listen some people to propagate their ideology about (set here the censored and forbidden word). No, thanks.

    2. basingstoke said on May 12, 2023 at 10:36 am
      Reply

      How are you watching youtube on your TV? Clearly it’s not a TV but instead a “smart TV” with built in operating system, right? You can’t really dunk on people for anything when that’s what you’re doing… lol.

      1. Iron Heart said on May 12, 2023 at 12:20 pm
        Reply

        @basingstoke

        > How are you watching youtube on your TV?

        SmartTubeNext

  8. Iron Heart said on May 11, 2023 at 5:44 pm
    Reply

    Browser: Brave or any other browser, like Firefox + uBlock Origin
    Android TV, Fire TV: SmartTubeNext
    Android smartphone: NewPipe
    iOS / iPadOS: Invidious instance, or Brave, or Safari with an adblocker like 1Blocker or Wipr

    People who pay for YouTube Premium: No comment.

    They first create the problem (loads of obnoxious ads displayed in conjunction with one single video) and then offer the solution. If you give in to that type of extortion, then I have a bridge to sell you.

    1. John G. said on May 12, 2023 at 12:18 pm
      Reply

      @Iron Heart > Browser: Brave or any other browser, like Firefox + uBlock Origin
      Brave doesn’t need uBlock origin, it has a lot of filters by default.

      1. Iron Heart said on May 12, 2023 at 12:21 pm
        Reply

        @John G.

        That’s true, hence the “or”.

      2. John G. said on May 12, 2023 at 12:36 pm
        Reply

        @Iron Heart, you’re right, my fault.

    2. Rogue Ghost said on May 11, 2023 at 10:29 pm
      Reply

      I think the problem will solve itself. Shift people over to Brave, along with the other solutions mentioned, and then see if there’s a mass exodus to whichever platform. The other platforms may not have the reach and usability of YT but this will probably give them a push.

    3. Andy Prough said on May 11, 2023 at 8:10 pm
      Reply

      >”They first create the problem (loads of obnoxious ads displayed in conjunction with one single video) and then offer the solution. If you give in to that type of extortion, then I have a bridge to sell you.”

      That’s an excellent point you’ve made there. I think you’ve said it better than anyone else. I called it fraud-tube, but it’s not really fraud, it’s extortion.

    4. Yash said on May 11, 2023 at 7:51 pm
      Reply

      +1

  9. Mystique said on May 11, 2023 at 5:44 pm
    Reply

    I understand the frontends such as piped and invidious as well as the many others exist but just like other services completely out of the realm of youtube are available but its just that they are so bare bones. Youtube has been around for so long that not only is the bulk of the content there but also extensions, scripts and all sorts of tweaks are there to customize the experience to be so comfortable and great too.

    If content creators want to pull users away from youtube then I would suggest they upload content elsewhere first and then upload it to youtube a week or so later with a reminder that this video was first uploaded to x service first and if you wanna see it first then go there in the future granted that someone will simply sponsorblock that segment but it’s a start. If your content is that worth it then people will shift there. If that doesn’t work you could release cut down version to youtube and the full video on x service but as it is there isn’t really a great alternative to be honest.

    This move by youtube is just going become a cat and mouse game granted google has already thought about this which is why they are rolling in Manifest 3 to try get some sort of upper hand and slow down extensions like uBo to try slow them down and make them less efficient.

    One can only hope google loses a huge marketshare in the process forcing more innovation and competition in all areas.

    1. Iron Heart said on May 11, 2023 at 5:53 pm
      Reply

      Yeah the proper response is to upload to other platforms, but where? I only see Odysee having an actual chance there as e.g. Rumble has too much political content to be considered a general YouTube alternative.

      Manifest V3 will do nothing, Chromium-based browsers who are unhappy with it feature built-in adblockers and Mozilla seemingly wants to maintain the webRequest API for now. This will primarily hit Chrome users and if you are a Chrome user, chances are you are not very technical anyway, and you use what’s given to you (preinstalled).

      1. Andy Prough said on May 11, 2023 at 8:08 pm
        Reply

        >”Chromium-based browsers who are unhappy with it feature built-in adblockers”

        Does Brave’s built-in ad-blocker block in-video ads on youtube? Maybe that would be a good way to go after all.

      2. Iron Heart said on May 11, 2023 at 8:52 pm
        Reply

        @Andy Prough

        No, none of the adblockers I know of does that. That’s what SponsorBlock does.

  10. Fish said on May 11, 2023 at 4:08 pm
    Reply

    Nary a problem here to talk about. Still watching HD yt without nasty uninterruptions. Over Pale Moon, Sleipner, LibreWolf or Mullvad browser. Anytime. Same as ever. Sans ads nor any prompts. Maybe the simpler way the better, I’m not sure. Nothing much to say.

    1. Fish said on May 11, 2023 at 4:10 pm
      Reply

      “interruptions”, not “uninterruptions”, I’m sorry…

  11. John G. said on May 11, 2023 at 12:50 pm
    Reply

    Some sites have ads with no major issues at all. I meant that not all ads are bad, because some sites are working mostly for their incomes. Indeed there are ads that are good and that inform you about some legitimate offers and discounts (e.g. my online supermarket is full of ads of products with discounts, and if I enable uBlock Origin they disappear, so I could lose the offer and also be unable to save some money). In the other hand there are some sites with annoying ads, very intrusive, that are the worst ones. Those sites and those ads are the real problem. We can not forget that there is nothing free in this world, and the alone free things that someone can get probably is because someone is paying indirectly something for them, like taxes and so forth. Indeed we also must consider that if we all were totally bludgers and misers, the whole internet will fall in bakrupcy and anarchy. The modern concept of a totally free services world for everyone is the biggest stupidity of our times. Rights are a human conquer, but rights are not free. You have the right to have a house, but you need to pay fot it. You have the right of having fun, and this is literally free, but the method to obtain the fun is not free. In other ironic words, you have the right to see Youtube with no ads, because servers are free, electricity is free, workers are free, computer maintenance is free and the enterprises and companys are working for free. Then they fired massive workers and we cry and yield because they are so f****** bad CEOs with no morality. Thanks @Ashwin for your always good articles! ;]

    1. Tom Hawack said on May 11, 2023 at 1:19 pm
      Reply

      @John G. I think you’re forgetting two points in your theoretical approach of advertisement’s legitimacy :

      1- > “Indeed we also must consider that if we all were totally bludgers and misers, the whole internet will fall in bakrupcy and anarchy.”

      You’re forgetting statistical distribution : we are never all to agree/accept or to disagree/refuse and when stats apply to a tremendously high number of items even a low ratio may bring a tremendously high number correspondences : advertisers know that (John Wanamaker once said, “I am convinced that about one-half the money I spend for advertising is wasted, but I have never been able to decide which half.”) and nevertheless the income, the ROI (Return On Investment) is worth it. The point is the lost half, not the other in their view. In mine it goes the other way around.

      2- Malvertising [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising] which is and remains a plague. Digital advertisement has its specificity need to say. In an ideal world I’d agree with your analysis, in an ideal world I’d repeat that indeed advertisement is not as such a counter-nature module of liberal economics, not even of mankind (you’ve worked on a product, you let it be known) but we are definitely and obviously not in an ideal world.

      1. John G. said on May 11, 2023 at 5:09 pm
        Reply

        @Tom Hawack, very interesting words of yours. About statistical distribution and malvertising, it may be explained with an old example: you have one grilled kitchen and I have none, however it means we both have half grilled kitchen. And I say again, the main problem is the thirty party ads, the intrusive ads, the malware ads, the fraud ads, and every other type of ads that are harmful for the user (i.e. all those adds than are not coming from the visited site). We can discuss about the real concern of ROI versus the clear info of products and ads from a site, for example with my online supermarket, all ads are legitimate, all ads are true ads with not harmful info, that means that all they are referred to the main and original site and have passed a welfare policy. As final example, here Ghacks has also ads, and I always browse this site with uBlock exclusion because I want that this site will generate money and it will be among us for several years. Thanks @Tom for sharing your always good thoughts and ideas! :]

      2. Tom Hawack said on May 11, 2023 at 6:25 pm
        Reply

        @John G. the problem here is that the advertiser will have spent a considerable amount of money for advertising chickens and that only you or I buy chicken, even if we share it afterwards, which he doesn’t givaea damn about. That’ll make him unsatisfied because half of the ad cost will have been useless. He’d like to know who’s the one who buys chicken, so he’ll get into tracking in order to spot the guy who buys chicken, focus on him and on him only and therefor pay for a far closer to 100% ROI than dealing with people who don’t buy chicken.

        Advertisement elsewhere than on the Web? What we often see in stores, supermarkets isn’t ads but promotions. Promotions is closer to reality, it’s clear about a price, a discount, an origin. Ads are different and you know that as well as i do. French humorist Coluche (RIP) stated in one of his hilarious sketches that a good advertiser could sell sand to Arabian countries. We’re far from supermarket promotions aren’t we?!

      3. John G. said on May 12, 2023 at 12:07 am
        Reply

        @Tom, I agree in generic terms, there is too much advertising and even more malvertising. Good phrase by Coluche, and it shows what is happening actually with W11, with Youtube and whatever, they all want to sell us the golden sands of freedom: pay first and enjoy later. Do pay watching ads or pay with money, or pay with your data, your metrics, your statistics and almost with everything they can sell of us. Money is the new law. Or probably it has always has been.

  12. Tom Hawack said on May 11, 2023 at 9:30 am
    Reply

    “Will you use YouTube without an ad blocker?”

    With or without I’ve ceased using YouTube some time ago or, rather, ceased using it directly : all of its pages, videos, channels and playlists are redirected to a ‘Piped’ instance :

    Piped @GitHub : [https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped]
    Piped @GitHub – Instances : [https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped/wiki/Instances]
    Piped Docs : [https://piped-docs.kavin.rocks/docs/]

    Be sure to fine-tune your Piped connection with the chosen instance’s Options.

    I also occasionally open an ‘Invidious’ instance :

    Invidious Homepage : [https://invidious.io/]
    Invidious Instances : [https://api.invidious.io/]

    YouTube as many other services may be redirected with at least these extensions (here with Firefox) :

    – LibRedirect :
    — LibRedirect Homepage : [https://libredirect.github.io/]
    — LibRedirect @GitHub : [https://github.com/libredirect/libredirect]
    — LibRedirect @AMO (Firefox extension) : [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/libredirect/]

    and

    – Redirector :
    — Redirector Homepage : [https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/]
    — Redirector @GitHub : [https://github.com/einaregilsson/Redirector]
    — Redirector @AMO (Firefox extension) : [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/redirector/]

    ——

    My preferences : Piped and Redirector.
    – Piped rather than Invidious because in my experience it’s more reliable.
    – Redirector rather than LibRedirect because
    — Redirector redirects anything, though LibRedirect does redirect to many alternatives natively but not to all.
    — I’ve ruled ‘Redirector’ to handle as well embedded YouTube videos.
    — I block system-wide YouTube servers but not of course within uBO which allows therefor the extension (LibRedirect or Redirector) to grab the YouTube url and redirect it. In case of failure system-wide YouTube blocking prevents access to YouTube servers.

    ——

    So, yes : I don’t visit YouTube pages anymore, in fact I avoid all Google services and replace them with alternatives, should they be independent should they host redirected Google services. Ever since, I breath.

    For those who’d wish to experience ‘Piped’ together with dedicated ‘Redirector’ rules, I can of course share the rules I’ve set for the latter and which make the whole process (basically far more simple than the above descriptions) a breeze. Unchain yourself if you accept my advice.

    1. Yash said on May 11, 2023 at 12:31 pm
      Reply

      Yeah please do share you rules when it comes to redirector since I haven’t tried it yet. Best to take guidance from a veteran redirector user.

      Currently I use Libredirect and I’ve set Piped on it, instances have been pinged and I only connect to reliable instances without cloudfare. It works for main website but also embedded videos on other pages. Still I will try Redirector for versatility.

      1. Tom Hawack said on May 11, 2023 at 2:35 pm
        Reply

        @Yash, hereafter the link to the YOUTUBE rules I’ve set for the REDIRECTOR extension.
        Of course not to be used simultaneously with any other YouTube redirectors …

        [https://paste.i2pd.xyz/?78991def9bffbc07#6PqnpzfLcu65K7FXJ94CtPkMX9ch3W6qpALRQdKBgrde]

  13. archie bald said on May 11, 2023 at 9:09 am
    Reply

    You can also use the DDG search engine for videos and watch them directly from the results display page. Most YT videos play fine for now.

    1. TelV said on May 11, 2023 at 9:44 am
      Reply

      But not full screen. I don’t link watching youtube on a postage stamp size window.

      Anyways, Floorp which is a Firefox fork is not affected.

  14. Cor Invictus said on May 11, 2023 at 8:43 am
    Reply

    Don’t use it – It stops all the adds permanently! 100% guaranteed!
    People, who stubbornly refuse to migrate to a privacy centric and non-censorship platforms, and keep uploading to YT, are not worth your time.
    Prior to the purges and complete descent into totalitarian censorship, this article would’ve raised a real concern. But given the current state of YT, I can’t see why should anyone give a damn.

    1. Someone said on May 12, 2023 at 2:10 pm
      Reply

      how to make money from YT ? I was an uploader for almost 6 years and I barely made more than 1000 views, some videos even had lower than 100 ! Adtube becomes job, brings you money, when the “minions” of google let you do. Small channels has no choice.

  15. owl said on May 11, 2023 at 8:30 am
    Reply

    Google has the odds stacked against it.
    Because they know all of the world’s web users (Google chrome and Google’s services: Google Search, Google Drive, VirusTotal, Google Maps, etc., etc.).
    You and you ….., So must realize that you must kneel down to Google and become a silent sacrifice (poor lamb).

    My family and I have learned our lesson from the Snowden incident and have not used all of the “Google services” since before. I have no interest in YouTube and am a stranger to it.

  16. Peter said on May 11, 2023 at 7:04 am
    Reply

    Youtube is not a service you pay for with ads, it’s a tool for harvesting the real product; your data. Adblocker stays on as long as this deprecated idea of financing through ads finally gets axed.

  17. just say no to advertisements said on May 11, 2023 at 6:29 am
    Reply

    > Will you use YouTube without an ad blocker?

    Does it also detect hosts file blocking too?

    I’m certain the good people at ublock origin will find away around this.

  18. Andy Prough said on May 11, 2023 at 6:17 am
    Reply

    >”If you want to ditch the Chrome ecosystem completely, the only choice is Mozilla Firefox.”

    It’s not the only choice. Pale Moon works on about 97%-99% of sites, and for the 1%-3% where it doesn’t, users can keep Librewolf or Mullvad browser on hand as a secondary browser. Additionally, Falkon, Seamonkey and Waterfox are all able to render the vast majority of sites. And there are others. I use Luakit on GNU/Linux, and I use a terminal browser with which I can play audio and video using the MPV player. I’ve never seen an ad while using MPV.

    >”Will you use YouTube without an ad blocker?”

    I haven’t been to fraud-tube in so many years I’ve lost track. If you are desperate for your fraud-tube videos, Invidious and Piped and lots of other redirect sites will play them for you just fine, not to mention the fantastic NewPipe on mobile. And that’s aside from the fact that you don’t even need redirects for most videos – odysee, Rumble, peertube and other video sites are already getting simultaneous uploads of the same videos from the same content creators as fraud-tube. I’ve also never seen ads when using odysee, Invidious, Piped, NewPipe or Peertube.

    1. basingstoke said on May 11, 2023 at 10:33 am
      Reply

      Yeah but are not most/all of those alternatives Firefox derived? Isn’t that kinda like saying “Hey, if you want Chromium, Chrome isn’t the only choice, you have Opera!”

      Invidious doesn’t always work last time I checked about 6 months ago, and the quality is a lot worse (I used it to watch videos that require signing in). NewPipe might be OK but what are you doing, running android emulator on desktop?

      Also, of all the “social media” sites, Youtube is still the least cancerous one by far, smearing it like this (and by extension, it’s users), seems really rude. Last I checked the whole venture is not profitable and almost never has been, so how is it fraud-tube?? You can adblock video overlays, “shorts” and “trending”, bring back dislike statistics, etc, and make it fairly standard user experience. If you think it’s comparable to other social media: Try using facebook, twitter, instagram, without signing in!

      The only thing your comment tells me is you must be some old guy who isn’t doing much – youtube is a resource like many others (can be comparable to stack-exchange/overflow, if you ignore entertainment), there is lots of educational content on there, the ability to have full-fledged conversations/discussions in the comment section with other viewers and the uploader is still brilliant many years later – there is no comparable site in my eyes (yet) with the same popularity and volume of users.

      If you never ever have to access youtube videos that tells me you’re probably not researching/learning/exploring things in the computing sphere – or if you are, it’s things so niche or old that nobody thinks a video on the topic would benefit anyone. (I guess maybe that is a typical Linux user’s lot in life?)

      1. Iron Heart said on May 11, 2023 at 5:57 pm
        Reply

        > Yeah but are not most/all of those alternatives Firefox derived?

        Yes, they are, because Andy is here to promote Mozilla products. If you call out his advertisements, you get the censorship hammer from Martin because you apparently violated one of the unwritten rules of gHacks.

        > Also, of all the “social media” sites, Youtube is still the least cancerous one by far, smearing it like this (and by extension, it’s users), seems really rude.

        He hates Google and attempts to drive people away from their platforms even if – as is the case with YouTube – there are no viable alternatives yet.

      2. Brotherhood of Google Fanboys said on May 16, 2023 at 11:28 pm
        Reply

        Agreed. Brother Iron Heart must be protected at all costs.

      3. Anonymous said on May 15, 2023 at 11:30 pm
        Reply

        -Yes, they are, because Andy is here to promote Mozilla products.

        and you are here to promote Google products

      4. Anonymous said on May 16, 2023 at 9:22 am
        Reply

        Oh, yeah.
        @Iron Heart, who doesn’t hide his true feelings that “Google is great” these days, will self-imply that is also “not Google’s fault”. Ha ha ha!

      5. Andy Prough said on May 11, 2023 at 7:50 pm
        Reply

        >”Yes, they are, because Andy is here to promote Mozilla products.”

        I actually don’t like Mozilla or Firefox much, I see them in the same way you do – too much Google funding, too compromised. I try to use Pale Moon nearly 100% of the time, as I see it as a browser that was hard forked before Mozilla made a lot of bad decisions. If I wasn’t using Pale Moon I would probably use Seamonkey, but I like the Pale Moon development model better, and it has the extensions I use.

        >”If you call out his advertisements, you get the censorship hammer from Martin because you apparently violated one of the unwritten rules of gHacks.”

        Is that true? I would hope that no one is ever censored from responding to anything that I’ve said.

        >”He hates Google and attempts to drive people away from their platforms”

        I don’t know about “hate”, I’ve actually known good people who worked for Google. I do disagree pretty strongly with nearly everything Google does. I think they could repent and become a corporation for the public good.

        As far as “driving people away” – I don’t think anyone pays attention to anything I say particularly. I’m like that weird guy in the back of the classroom reading Plato or Aristotle or Virgil while everyone else is trying to impress the popular girls. You seem to have much more sway than I do, at least in these comments sections.

      6. Tom Hawack said on May 12, 2023 at 12:00 am
        Reply

        @Andy Prough,

        Summarizing some of your sentences which call more particularly my attention in that they turned in my mind as I was having supper.

        – “I’m like that weird guy in the back of the classroom reading Plato or Aristotle or Virgil while everyone else is trying to impress the popular girls.”

        – “So all economic models and all political models are probably doomed to failure in different ways. Which goes back to being a stranger in a strange land.”

        – “I sometimes feel like Abraham, a stranger in a strange land (or Robert Heinlein’s Michael Smith).”

        I think I can understand that given it echoes or is perhaps related to introspection which I occasionally practice.
        I’m a fervent believer that psychology explains many things but at the same time not all.
        I’d first consider that feeling as a stranger in a strange world may be due to solitude, be it voluntary or not. But it might be as well a dreamer’s, an idealist”s, a poet’s, an hermit’s or an intellectual’s thoughts’ unavoidable frame.

        Maybe myself, somewhere between a dreamer and an idealist, at the end of my thoughts, do I have to accept that in fact I don’t participate to several considerations shared by perhaps practically everyone. For instance I ignore what patriotism means, I feel neither French nor American, I’d fight to defend a beloved, a friend and, maybe, the country of my citizenship but it’d have to be for good reasons. I don’t care having foreigners all around me, I don’t feel any invasion given i don’t feel the ground as being mine (but I wouldn’t what my place squatted), yet cosmopolitan in noway should that mean our world conceived independently of its regional identities, specific cultures. But why fight for them? I like the perfume of my neighbors’ foreign cooking, the colors of African natives’ clothing in my neighborhood, sharing my experiences and beliefs with those different than mine. But why fight for them? Dialogs disappear, by the way.

        Now that i think of it, let’s admit it, I do as well feel as a stranger in a strange land. Indeed.
        We mustn’t be the only ones, are we ever?

      7. Iron Heart said on May 11, 2023 at 8:57 pm
        Reply

        @Andy Prough

        Pale Moon flat out does not work on many websites. When it doesn’t, you promote Mozilla products or forks thereof, which totally depend on Mozilla. What is the point? That’s not related to the content of the article, it’s just your opinion. Google attempting Manifest V3 and Mozilla going along with it more or less (despite promises of supporting webRequest) should tell you how precarious the situation of extensions actually is.

        And suggesting that people go somewhere else is pointless when the creators they want to watch are on YouTube, you would have to convince them to move elsewhere first, IF you want to do anything about it. Any other suggestion is a bit deluded and unrealistic, right?

      8. Andy Prough said on May 11, 2023 at 9:29 pm
        Reply

        >”And suggesting that people go somewhere else is pointless when the creators they want to watch are on YouTube, you would have to convince them to move elsewhere first, IF you want to do anything about it. Any other suggestion is a bit deluded and unrealistic, right?”

        Well, I’ve said what I do, which is what anyone could easily do – just go and watch the same videos on some invidious or piped instance or on NewPipe on mobile, or watch them with MPV. I’m sure you probably do the same sometimes?

        Most of what I watch is already on odysee, so I don’t have to deal with youtube redirects very often.

      9. owl said on May 11, 2023 at 3:37 pm
        Reply

        @basingstoke,
        > The only thing your comment tells me is you must be some old guy who isn’t doing much – youtube is a resource like many others (can be comparable to stack-exchange/overflow, if you ignore entertainment), there is lots of educational content on there, the ability to have full-fledged conversations/discussions in the comment section with other viewers and the uploader is still brilliant many years later – there is no comparable site in my eyes (yet) with the same popularity and volume of users.
        > If you never ever have to access youtube videos that tells me you’re probably not researching/learning/exploring things in the computing sphere – or if you are, it’s things so niche or old that nobody thinks a video on the topic would benefit anyone. (I guess maybe that is a typical Linux user’s lot in life?)

        Indeed, your analysis is spot on.
        The problem is the act of users being easily guided by the tools used by the majority without considering other options.
        Scientists, researchers, and other professionals are so preoccupied with their field of inquiry that they are ignorant and careless about other things.
        This is where the wily Google takes advantage.
        The essence of Google, Snowden exposed, is that it is an “NSA execution unit,” and respect for citizens’ rights and human rights is destined to be completely ignored.
        Among other things, data collected by states (Nazi Germany, Russia, China, North Korea, South Korea, Vietnam, India, Turkey, Israel, Five Eyes, etc.) are “profiled on an individual basis, retained indefinitely, and routinely subjected to abuse (conscription, arrest for fabricated treason, etc.).
        If those concerns are not fully taken into account, there could be irreversible consequences, and that is why the converse of “easy, convenient, and common” (things are two sides of the same coin: there is a shadow) should be kept in mind.
        https://www.ghacks.net/2023/04/03/the-mullvad-browser-a-privacy-focused-browser-designed-to-reduce-your-fingerprint/#comment-4563254

      10. Andy Prough said on May 11, 2023 at 3:31 pm
        Reply

        >”Yeah but are not most/all of those alternatives Firefox derived?”

        Pale Moon forked off from Firefox code many years ago and is completely independent in its current form.

        Luakit uses webkit, which is not Firefox code. There are a lot of webkit browsers – Qutebrowser, Surf, Badwolf, Falkon, many others.

        Any terminal browser is definitely not using any kind of modern Firefox technology. It’s just browsing the web using text. With some, like links2, you can also load graphics from the web.

        MPV has nothing to do with Firefox at all. It is a multimedia player that can be pointed at most online videos and play them directly on your desktop. There are other players like this, such as SMtube.

        >”Invidious doesn’t always work”

        Use a different invidious instance. yewtu.be nearly always works. Or use Piped. Or just use a completely different video site that has many of the same videos from the same content creators, such as odysee and Peertube.

        >”Also, of all the “social media” sites, Youtube is still the least cancerous one by far, smearing it like this (and by extension, it’s users), seems really rude.”

        Sorry, I did not intend to be rude. As I said, I haven’t been there in a lot of years. From Ashwin’s article, it sounds like they are still just a scam – forcing users to view ads with malware and ads with trackers is horribly bad for security and horribly bad for privacy. Users should always have a choice if they want to risk exposing themselves to potential malware or trackers or not, and they really should not have to take that risk at all just to watch the kind of simple videos that are available online. But it sounds like you get some value from it, so good on you. Use good opsec.

      11. basingstoke said on May 11, 2023 at 4:52 pm
        Reply

        No further disagreements, although it’s really worth mentioning that 90-95% of youtube videos are NOT mirrored elsewhere on alternative platforms. I can’t stress this enough it looks like you’re underestimating the statistics – as someone that doesn’t use youtube, I don’t blame you, but as someone that does, it’s worth pointing this out.

      12. Andy Prough said on May 11, 2023 at 5:35 pm
        Reply

        >”90-95% of youtube videos are NOT mirrored elsewhere on alternative platforms”

        OK I was not aware of that. I only follow GNU/Linux content creators, and all of the big and little channels that I can think of upload their videos to multiple sites, especially odysee. So it must be that outside my narrow niche of interest that most creators do not upload to other sites.

        All I can say is that they should upload to multiple sites – they would expand their audience, which would ultimately increase their ability to make direct income, such as through a patreon or librepay donation site. And the multi-site uploading is automated, so there’s not much work to do after the initial channel setup.

      13. Tom Hawack said on May 11, 2023 at 11:51 am
        Reply

        @basingstoke,

        > “Yeah but are not most/all of those alternatives Firefox derived?”

        Firefox, or whatever browser, hasn’t anything to do with those alternatives. They are independent sites which either display YouTube videos/channels/playlists by acting as a proxy (or not), either host videos be they or not available on YouTube.

        Invidious’s rendering of YouTube videos depends a lot of the chosen Invidious instance, as well as the user’s choice to have Invidious act or not as a proxy : if not then there is a connection to YouTube servers from the user’s device, otherwise the proxy scheme applies and Googlevideo/youtube knows nothing of the user.

        In my experience ‘Piped’ is far more reliable, in fact it is flawless here, on the long-term.

        The problematic is not about the amazing amount of videos made available on YouTube, the problematic is about a company’s increasing zeal to correlate the availability of the videos it hosts to the requirement of advertiing hence to the refusal of ad-blockers, which is the very topic of this article, article which states :

        “From a user’s perspective, this poses a bigger issue. It’s about the freedom to use it the way you want to. Should you risk your privacy by disabling your ad blocker? No. If Chrome stands in your way, maybe it is time to step away from it. Manifest V2 isn’t going away just yet, but you may as well make the move now.”

        “It’s not like Google is a startup, it doesn’t need your funds to bear the server costs and survive.”

        Indeed. Correlating a Web page, service to unavoidable advertisement is the point of discussion I guess and IMO if this is arguable when it comes to a small place which wouldn’t survive without ads it is not, but not at all arguable with a company such as Google.

        There is no cheat, no fraud to find and apply dedicated tools to allow accessing YouTube videos ad-free, neither legal nor moral. After all YouTube allows its hosted videos to be embedded on whatever site, doesn’t it? from there on if it’s a user or a site which appears on YouTube logs, what’s the difference? The difference is usrs’ privacy and peace of mind with ad-filtered videos.

        Truth is that Google, as well as Microsoft by the way, is pushing the boundaries too far.
        Reading and reading again the article is advised.

      14. Tom Hawack said on May 11, 2023 at 12:30 pm
        Reply

        I forgot to mention this :

        As much as i do accept sites delivering ads as much I have never, do not end never will accept sites conditioning those ads to the very availability of their content. In other words in a free world sites deliver ads as they like it and users accept or refuse them. Period. But a site saying “Either you watch my ads either you watch nothing” is not acceptable. I haven’t encountered yet a site which would appear to me as broken or feature-less given I block its ads (until YouTube’s latest exotic test/decision) but should I that I’d boycott it. Many press sites adopt the scheme of partial articles with the requirement of being logged in (free or not but mostly paid registrations) : it’s their right, as mine is to never visit them on that ground.

      15. Andy Prough said on May 11, 2023 at 3:45 pm
        Reply

        >”I haven’t encountered yet a site which would appear to me as broken or feature-less given I block its ads (until YouTube’s latest exotic test/decision) but should I that I’d boycott it.

        That’s a good point Tom. I won’t be part of a mal-vertising web that forces you to accept malware-as-advertising, or sites that hide their content behind poorly coded javascript paywalls that will expose you to their built-in vulnerabilities.

        I don’t mind advertising itself – static ads and banner ads – sites can display those and they don’t bother me at all. I could use uBlock’s element picker to get rid of them, but why bother? But the ads that uBlock does block are, in my view, malicious, because they try to track you, and in many cases they are so poorly coded that they can easily be vulnerable to carrying malware. They are simultaneously a huge privacy risk and a huge security risk.

      16. Tom Hawack said on May 11, 2023 at 5:27 pm
        Reply

        @Andy Prough, I’ve just noticed an ambiguity when I wrote that “I haven’t encountered yet a site which would appear to me as broken or feature-less given I block its ads” to further evoke “Many press sites adopt the scheme of partial articles with the requirement of being logged in” : this means that I do encounter feature-less sites, even if not because I block their ads, only because I’m not registered (paid subscription most of the time) : that I do accept. I prefer paying for a subscription than by having to endure ads, the scheme is different, healthier IMO.

        You’re probably calmer than I am when you write “I don’t mind advertising itself – static ads and banner ads – sites can display those and they don’t bother me at all.”, I think that position is more balanced than mine, a position which progressively deployed by an increasing irritation of advertisement, at least in its actual form, that is often off-topic (lady in a bathing suit to advertise a life insurance for instance) and increasingly invasive. I must say I don’t differentiate ads depending on their support and be they ones on roads, walls, TV, Radio, press, Web … here it all sums to an addition of irritation which might very well be excessive as well : I happen to think about it, I could very well be overdoing it. Meanwhile I also happen to smile when thinking that if I could avoid advertisement everywhere as i do on the Web … life would be closer to harmony :=)

      17. Andy Prough said on May 11, 2023 at 6:00 pm
        Reply

        >”You’re probably calmer than I am when you write “I don’t mind advertising itself – static ads and banner ads – sites can display those and they don’t bother me at all.”, I think that position is more balanced than mine, a position which progressively deployed by an increasing irritation of advertisement, at least in its actual form, that is often off-topic (lady in a bathing suit to advertise a life insurance for instance) and increasingly invasive. I must say I don’t differentiate ads depending on their support and be they ones on roads, walls, TV, Radio, press, Web … here it all sums to an addition of irritation which might very well be excessive as well : I happen to think about it, I could very well be overdoing it. Meanwhile I also happen to smile when thinking that if I could avoid advertisement everywhere as i do on the Web … life would be closer to harmony :=)”

        Ahh, I understand. I don’t know anything about your personal life, but I’m a Christian who sees the difference between the two cities, the one holy and the other one worldly and driven by base emotions such as lust and greed and jealousy. I sometimes feel like Abraham, a stranger in a strange land (or Robert Heinlein’s Michael Smith). Worldly advertising in and of itself is little concern, as it has little to do with me, unless I am experiencing those base emotions myself.

        My main concern about online ads is that, the way I understand it, most of them are poorly coded, are using powerful javascript and other scripting, and are therefore potential vehicles for malware. And most are doing some form of tracking. And tracking data can be stolen (or purchased) and used in phishing attempts, so it’s also a security issue.

      18. Tom Hawack said on May 11, 2023 at 6:54 pm
        Reply

        @Andy, “[…] the difference between the two cities, the one holy and the other one worldly and driven by base emotions such as lust and greed and jealousy”. Well, you see, be we marveled by mankind or by God I conceive that advertisement destroys life proportionally to its invasive nature, I consider that a wall is nicer filled with fine art than with a gigantic panel, I feel that anything that destroys the beauty of this world destroys mankind and further above the Creator. I firmly believe in a uniqueness where goodness, intelligence and beauty all participate to the glorification of life and above to the oneness of God. This approach has often brought me to wonder about a civilization of freedom guaranteed by capitalization whilst this very capital builds itself on schemes which obviously are incompatible with a world we consider and strive to honor God ; business is, need to say, perhaps not a no-man’s land but obviously a no-God’s one. from there on, given I have faith in God and am not at all leftist I took the habit of never mixing holiness with basic instincts of consumerism.

      19. Andy Prough said on May 11, 2023 at 7:19 pm
        Reply

        >”I took the habit of never mixing holiness with basic instincts of consumerism”

        Very well stated!

        >”I conceive that advertisement destroys life proportionally to its invasive nature, I consider that a wall is nicer filled with fine art than with a gigantic panel, I feel that anything that destroys the beauty of this world destroys mankind”

        I agree, I’m just not very observant. For some reason my attention has always been drawn to nature, and not on the works of men very much. It helps that I live in the country, and have to make the effort of going into the city in order to see the odd things that people are doing to each other there.

        >”This approach has often brought me to wonder about a civilization of freedom guaranteed by capitalization whilst this very capital builds itself on schemes which obviously are incompatible with a world we consider and strive to honor God ; business is, need to say, perhaps not a no-man’s land but obviously a no-God’s one.”

        Well, as you know, we can’t trust any of the guarantees of any men at all, there is only one who is sovereign. So all economic models and all political models are probably doomed to failure in different ways. Which goes back to being a stranger in a strange land. I feel like I live within a social structure that is doomed to collapse, possibly very soon. I’m more interested in ways to survive the collapse, if it happens, than figuring out ways to make a profit off of it on its way down. But again, I’m sure I’m not saying anything new to someone like you.

      20. basingstoke said on May 11, 2023 at 2:05 pm
        Reply

        Tom, I am not sure how to interpret your replies:

        Andy’s original comment was a two parter: 1st part was about Browsers, 2nd part was about Youtube – my reply was likewise – first bit was in reference to browsers, second part was in reference to youtube “alternatives.”

      21. Tom Hawack said on May 11, 2023 at 2:50 pm
        Reply

        @basingstoke, as you may know or not English is not my mother-tongue and it seems I’ve misunderstood your comment, sorry for that. I was hopping quickly within several pages, read too quickly answered accordingly.

    2. Ashwin said on May 11, 2023 at 10:24 am
      Reply

      Good point about the other browsers. I have used a couple of those, but not recently. I guess you could add DuckDuckGo and Orion (macOS) to that list, though they need to improve their ad blocking capabilities.

      The problem is, all of these are niche options. I doubt a lot of people would switch to them from Chrome. I wish they would, but they probably won’t.

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