I should just read a book at this point
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2025
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I just use a frontend to remove ads + Extra Privacy too
I highly recommend creators to upload videos to another site as well.
true
Ive been using adblockers, piped and other tools for so long that i dont even remember what the last time was when i saw a youtube ad.
Same... And if they ever successfully make it impossible to avoid, I'll just stop watching YouTube
Hard to do if you watch directly from your TV using some dongle and don't know or can't modify your router to block ads.
SmartTube is on AndroidTV
Kodi can be installed through the play store, you can transfer files over smb and ftp and move the apk using it.
You're welcome.
Excuses:
I use a Roku or Roku TV
Don't, buy a $25 Android TV box from walmart.
I use AppleTV
Don't, buy a $25 Android TV box from walmart.
FTP? SMB? Apk? What are these, words?!
These terms can be searched for and learned about.
Why not just use Kodi?
You're ahead of the game, find a plugin pack and enjoy
Occasionally I try the YouTube watch together thing on discord with my SO, and it really shows just how completely unusable YouTube is without an ad blocker.
The only ads I see are on a local sports podcast. The advertisers are all local businesses. From restaurants to local credit unions. And those I'm fine with.
I was using uYouPlus+ sideloaded on my phone until it broke recently, now I’ve found using Brave browser for just YouTube is the solution
GrayJay, Vanced, or Pipewire is the way
Did you mean NewPipe? Pipewire is the Linux audio/video framework.
I meant iPhone :(
I mean, yeah. What did you expect ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Laughs in Ad Blocker. Still going strong.
Oh please no, it's the reason why I switched from Chrome to Firefox when watching YouTube
what's a youtube ad?
daily motion has way better video quality and a lot less censorship.
I forgot about that site. I knew it just as the host for TV series streams back in the day
I will continue to download all my videos to avoid ads. When they break the tools in such a way that this is no longer possible, I will stop watching videos from YouTube and seek entertainment elsewhere.
yt-dlp is the goat
Here is every single way I can think of to block YouTube ads:
uBlock Origin + Firefox
NewPipe on Android
Libretube on Android
uYou+ on iOS
FreeTube on *NIX and Windows
yt-dlp + mpv
YouTube Revanced
Invidious self hosting
Piped self hosting
And finally, last and definitely least
YouTube Premium
Donate to the creators who make content. Google does not deserve a penny of your hard earned money.
SmartTube for Android TV devices
Absolutely. And they update pretty quickly when YouTube breaks something.
I second Freetube. Not a perfect app (think it's Chromium based), but it gets the job done and they're pretty good about updating it pretty quickly whenever YT successfully breaks it.
You should add Brave on iOS to the list. Never seen any ad with Brave.
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Stop using it. I did and now I only use unofficial ways of watching the videos I want. And I download the ones I wanna watch again.
When ads get in the way I simply don't watch the videos. It's not like anybody ever really needs to watch any particular video.
Educational content is hard to come by outside of YouTube, so it would suck to have to avoid watching those videos because of ads.
But I'll do what I have to do in order to avoid ads for as long as possible. And I'll archive important content in the meantime.
I pay for nebula, they have a lot of educational content and the price is low enough that I don't mind it
Sounds good, but if I search "microwave repair" or "improve vo2max" , it comes up with zero results.
That's the sort of stuff we'd lose if creators don't move away from YouTube. 😟
WHY DONT WE HAVE A MAINSTREAM ALTERNATIVE YET
People get proccupied with emulating YT, which is indeed cost prohibitive. But that response assumes one is emulating all of it. What about only pursuing sections of it to cater to particular audiences? Serving 100% of YT's video might be too much even for Amazon (for example) but what about 1%?
Why couldn't Amazon host Booktube? And the manga/anime enthusiasts and other varietes of weebs to go along with them? They already own ebook retail. A VOD service to chip off some of YT's viewership would be a more productive investment than The Rings of Power...
A YT competitor needs a bit of scale, sure, but not as much as YT itself. A fraction will do.
I believe the main cost is in hosting all the videos. A lot of them are probably junk that were never meant to see the light of day. I certainly use it as an extra backup for many of my videos with no context and random UUID titles.
For everything else, a potential solution is to have everyone come in with their own videos hosted elsewhere and the platform just integrated with a bunch of APIs for fetching and serving those videos. For small time creators, the cost should be fairly low to none since a lot of platforms allow you to store a small number of files for free.
It's a very difficult business model to make profitable without an already massive userbase. In fact, I think YT was actually losing money for Google for a while after they bought it. I could be misremembering though.
Yes but not everything needs to make a profit, just not make a loss. Also it could be community supported with donations and stuff:)
By operating youtube at a loss for many years Google acted anticompetitively to kill competition or stop competition arising. Now that they've achieved that they can do what they like. Don't feel bad using ad blockers against this anti-capitalist company.
I never felt bad abt that for a second. Like the thought never crossed my kind XD FUCK YOUTUBE!
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Hosting and storage costs, few can afford to be an alternative to an absolutely gigantic video storage platform that costs obscene money to maintain.
I am causing a netloss to googs. I don’t pay for Google plus or whatever, and j don’t view their fucking ads. Win win if you ask me.
It was fun to thumb my nose at Google while it lasted I guess, maybe if they were less amoral then I'd be less belligerent toward them.
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