this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024

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YouTube's server-side ads resulted in a black screen for ad blocker users (www.ghacks.net)

submitted 3 months ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

227 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Mashable reports that users ran into a black screen on YouTube, and that it stayed for about 6 seconds before the video began playing. The reports indicate it affected several browsers including Firefox, Edge, Vivaldi.

Some users joked that they would rather see a black screen than an ad. While that's certainly a better experience, it does waste precious seconds of our time. A simple workaround for the black screen on YouTube is to just refresh the page, hit F5 as soon as the page starts loading. uBlock Origin's filters were updated with a patch to resolve the problem, the add-on updates its filters automatically. If you are still experiencing the black screen issue, just open the extension's dashboard and manually update the filters. This tug-of-war is getting annoying, but it appears to me that Google's efforts are actively promoting the use of ad blockers, instead of attracting new subscribers.

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[–] DefiantBidet@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Ever since YouTube started this nonsense I moved to invidious and haven't looked back

[–] Ullallulloo@civilloquy.com 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This nonsense is about one step away from affecting Invidious too.

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[–] fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 3 months ago

I have a lot of love for invidious, but I love in fear of yt finding a way to nullify it with some fuckery.

Recently they started blocking ips of VPS providers... so I can't run an instance on a VPS, it has to be local.

[–] AcesFullOfKings@feddit.uk 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

relevant - "YouTube server-side ad injection faq" from Ajayyy, the developer of SponsorBlock

https://gist.github.com/ajayyy/f7b1807e13731c25cef4c2c057d022bc#file-faq-md

[–] _Sprite@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

the moment I see a damn grammarly ad on freetube I'm dropping $100 on real debrid

[–] BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)

When I stream YouTube to my TV, I get 15-30 seconds of unskippable ads with the ability to skip enabling at the 15 or 30 second mark. The full length of the ad is 90+ seconds (according to the timer that never goes down). Would this implementation work similarly? 6 seconds of a silent black screen is fine; 90 or more seconds because the skip button is also missing would be more annoying (or be a nice time for a bathroom break).

[–] polle@feddit.org 0 points 3 months ago

I recently had to watch YouTube with ads on my tv, because smartube stopped working and needed to wait a day for a new patch.The ads are insane and i stopped watching anything on yt. I can't imagine anyone consuming content this way.

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[–] gears@sh.itjust.works 0 points 3 months ago

I've been seeing the black screen on Firefox. Still better than an ad, but it would be nice to be gone lol

[–] hal_5700X@sh.itjust.works 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (10 children)

I'm seeing a lot of comments about Youtube frontends. Don't get me wrong. They're nice and all, but we need some alternatives. At this point in time. We have two of them Odysee & Rumble. If you're tried of Youtube's bullshit. Alternatives are the way to go.

[–] StarlightDust@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 3 months ago (19 children)

I think its important to highlight that Odysee and Rumble are both "free speech" platforms that neo-nazis love to use to platform their calls for violence.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 0 points 3 months ago

New platforms get the fringe content first, because the vanilla content can happily use the old incumbents.

[–] rami@ani.social 0 points 3 months ago

Here's a few more in a reddit thread.

I thought Odyssey was just gun nuts? When did the shitters get there?

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[–] dgmib@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (5 children)

I remember a time when ads weren’t crazy intrusive. They weren’t being shoved into every os and app and website.

There wasn’t 20 of them on every page, and advertisers weren’t trying to harvest my data to the point where they knew every last detail of my personal life.

And I didn’t mind having them in order to have “free” content. But they got greedy and now I’ll block them in every chance I get.

Maybe forcing ads into everything isn’t the answer.

[–] Brutticus@lemm.ee 0 points 3 months ago

I went to my banking account page, where I can make transfers and look at my money. My ad blocker had blocked a GIANT ad in the center of the screen.

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[–] cultsuperstar@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I wonder how this affects people that setup Pi Hole and VPN and all that.

[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I don't think DNS black holing was ever effective against YouTube ads. I use mullvad with a DNS filter for ads + uBO and still got served a few ad placeholders from YouTube in the past 10 days. I believe the actual ad was blocked by uBO, not the DNS filter.

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[–] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

6 seconds?! GASP

[–] TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee 0 points 3 months ago

I can understand, I would feel better watching a black screen than an ad trying to psychologically manipulate you in a personalized way.

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

I've been enjoying Odysee a lot. It doesn't have much content but it works great. Hopefully content creators start uploading there as well.

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 0 points 3 months ago (4 children)

I'm actually annoyed that NewPipe stopped working again and Invidious' download speeds are glacial

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