To increase its advertising revenue, YouTube recently decided to prohibit video playback if you use an ad blocker. But there is an extension that works around the problem. And it’s free!
You will have noticed this if you regularly visit YouTube: for several weeks, the streaming platform has required you to watch advertisements before even starting to play a video. And if it is a little long, the reading is still regularly interspersed with other announcements. These advertising sequences are not new: it is in fact thanks to them that YouTube finances its services when you use them for free, which is the case for most of the world. Only subscribers to the Premium plan, billed at 12.99 euros per month, are obviously exempt – this is even the main advantage of this fairly expensive package…
For years, however, it has been possible to avoid these ads – often annoying – by using an ad blocker in the form of an extension (or plugin) which is grafted into a web browser to add functions. And there are many extensions (for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge and others) which are responsible for blocking the countless ads that appear on web pages, and in particular on YouTube, the best known being AdBlock, AdlBloc Plus, AdBlock Ultimate, AdGuard, Poper Blocker or even Ghostery.
However, although YouTube was very tolerant towards them, the platform recently decided to block the blockers. As soon as it detects one of these modules, a warning appears on the screen and video playback is impossible until blocking it is deactivated. An understandable decision in that it is the viewing of the ads which compensates for the free service. And YouTube is not taking advantage of encouraging those who do not want to see advertisements to switch to its paid plan.
In fact, it is now practically impossible to watch videos on YouTube for free without advertising. Granted, there are a few workaround methods, including using the specialized YT Siphon extension, which grabs the feed for display in another web page. Effective, but not very practical on a daily basis.
Fortunately, an ad blocker still escapes the new measures imposed by the platform: it is uBlock Origin. Both very easy to use and very effective, this free and open source module exists as an extension for the main web browsers, namely Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera and even Safari. Simply install it in the browser and it will be immediately functional, without having to make any adjustments. And, for some unknown reason, YouTube hasn’t blocked it yet and it removes all ads, before and during video playback! Not bad, especially a software module still regularly maintained by its initial developer, Raymond Hill – who should be thanked.
DOWNLOAD UBLOCK ORIGIN (FREE)
Light and discreet, uBlock Origin absolutely does not interfere with Internet browsing. Above all, it effectively blocks all advertisements, still or animated, on all web pages, and even trackers, adding a layer of protection that warns when a link goes to another site. This is not the only advantage of this renowned blocker – and much appreciated by experts – which can be deactivated on the fly, when necessary, and which has many optional functions, to refine the settings on certain sites. Suffice to say that to try it is to adopt it! So, of course, nothing says that uBlock Origin will be on YouTube forever, but it’s better to take advantage of it as long as it is tolerated by the platform if you no longer want to “suffer” from advertisements with each video!