Youtube ads

[Redglyph]

A note of caution regarding AdBlock. Don't subscribe, or at least make sure you can get it cancelled by your credit card provider.

They offer several solutions, including a perpetual one-off, but it's actually only a 3-month subscription, which isn't specified on their webpage in any way. The support is unhelpful, give incorrect facts, and they're eluding my request of a refund, even though they guarantee it on their website.

 

[pibbuR]

I'm using Paypal for things like that, and at least I can stop future payments using that. Probably won't help you with refunds.

Speaking of refunds. I've recently had to cases (one of them being Acronis backup subscription) where a subscription renewed, and I had forgotten to cancel it. Although I in those cases I didn't have the right to refund, they did refund me after asking very politely. Better than Youtube it seems.

Speaking of subscriptions and auto renewal. In some cases I disable auto-renewal because the service offers far cheaper renewal charges when the renewal time approaches. Worth thinking about.


pibbuR who spend too much time thinking.

PS. I have auto-renewal on for my Scientific American subscription, but that one is dirt cheap. 39USD for one year (12 issues + access to all they've published). Unfortunately they haven't paid me to say this. DS.

 

[Redglyph]

Speaking of refunds. I've recently had to cases (one of them being Acronis backup subscription) where a subscription renewed, and I had forgotten to cancel it. Although I in those cases I didn't have the right to refund, they did refund me after asking very politely. Better than Youtube it seems.

Speaking of subscriptions and auto renewal. In some cases I disable auto-renewal because the service offers far cheaper renewal charges when the renewal time approaches. Worth thinking about.

I've had that problem once or twice. It wasn't a big deal but I berated myself for not paying enough attention to my subscriptions.

 

[basharran]

I was considering getting YT lite and than they cancelled that option. I hate the way they implement ads on their service so I dodge them. When I can no longer do that I will just stop using the service.

If you want to dodge ads on youtube you can use services like invidious. They get the video data from the YT backbone, but mostly at a lower bitrate (720p). Sometimes they don't work properly though, so I guess YT tries to combat them too.

On my tablet I use YT revanced with MicroG and this works like a charm when I'm logged in to YT with my account. Otherwise it will stop after 10 seconds on each video.

 

[soola]

So I’m on iOS using Safari with AdBlock Plus (free btw) and when I refresh the page when an ad starts playing, BOOM bypassed.

I can’t be the only person that has noticed this.

 

[SveNitoR]

I use Firefox with uBlock, and NoScript on both my Windows PC and my Android phone. No ads, but some annoyance to make certain pages work sometimes.

 

[Vaelith]

Ads don't even start for me, the play bar just flickers yellow for a moment and skips back to the video in the blink of an eye.

The day they block YouTube for adblock users it the day YouTube dies, so I'm not bothered about it. If anything, I'm excited to see what competition will pop up sooner than later, some of YouTube's policies and the searchbar algorithm are pretty shit and I'm quite tired of it even without ads.

 

[Stingray]

So I’m on iOS using Safari with AdBlock Plus (free btw) and when I refresh the page when an ad starts playing, BOOM bypassed.

I can’t be the only person that has noticed this.

I use iOS + Safari + 1Blocker and I haven't seen a hint of an ad on YouTube (web version obviously) in about a decade.

 

[Redglyph]

A little clarification regarding AdBlock. The confusion is coming from their strange double system: you can either make a contribution, which is what they call the honour system, or upgrade to Premium.

What you see when you install AdBlock or after it updates is the honour system, though it's not explicitly mentioned. It presents 3 options: one-off, monthly and yearly. I chose a one-off and got 3 months plus a few days of Premium-ish equivalent. Their support wouldn't explain, or maybe they don't understand the system themselves, but I think that when you contribute, you get a limited Premium period as a thank you (this period is unrelated to the period you contribute for). It doesn't look like it's something guaranteed - if you try tomorrow, you may not receive anything else than a thank you note. To make it more confusing, you can choose how much you pay for each formula, some choices being more expensive than the Premium. In short, it smells like a rip-off to get money from both sides (users and ad companies).

Their Premium is accessible through the settings menu, and the deal is explained more clearly. There's a monthly and a yearly formula, and you can choose between AdBlock and AdBlock + VPN (the latter being chosen by default). From what I've read in reviews, the VPN is quite bad, so it's not worth it, but the extra functionalities of the Premium are potentially interesting. Whether it's worth 2€/month is another matter.