I’ve used Brave to skip Youtube ads, but now I’m getting hassled.
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Time to switch browser @ricardo81 
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I’m also getting blocked on YouTube. But, I just watch rubbish. So, when they consistently blocked Vivaldi, I just stopped watching YouTube. I guess that’s been a few years now.
Personally, I don’t mind advertising. But, there are three things about YouTube ads I don’t like. I don’t like hearing my CPU fan spin up for real-time bidding. YouTube ads don’t comply with the CALM Act. And, since I don’t have any cookies, I usually get served foot fungus ads or ninety-minute conspiracy theories.
If they just served contextual ads—based on the video I’m viewing—with a reasonable level of volume, then I would not need to block ads.
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Firefox has been my main browser forever, though Brave was useful for Youtube.
Same for me, the modern equivalent of watching night time soaps, but the ads are a killer. Patreon et al are great for paying good publishers but they’ll take their share too.
The in-line ads and sponsorships are ok for me also.
I constantly delete my channel/history but G in their underhanded additional tracking wisdom often remember my viewing habits.
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I haven’t seen a YouTube ad this decade, and I’ve been using Firefox with uBlock Origin. Haven’t ever noticed an issue!
Though admittedly I don’t watch that much YouTube.
I don’t see recommendations at all thanks to my uBlock Filters, so I don’t know what YouTube thinks I want to watch.
Is it so hard to run a loudness normalizer over it?! This is definitely among the worst things to have started happening since the big transition to streaming. No streaming service can keep their ads at a volume consistent with the show I’m watching.
I can’t speak to the quality of YouTube ads because the last time I saw one was probably in 2019.
In other news, Google Chrome is apparently starting to disable Manifest V2 for all users this month: Manifest V2 support timeline | Chrome Extensions | Chrome for Developers
Just as before, Enterprises using the ExtensionManifestV2Availability policy will continue to be exempt from any browser changes until at least June 2025. Starting in June, the branch for Chrome 139 will begin, in which support for Manifest V2 extensions will be removed from Chrome. Unlike the previous changes to disable Manifest V2 extensions which gradually rolled out to users, this change will impact all users on Chrome 139 at once. As a result, Chrome 138 is the final version of Chrome to support Manifest V2 extensions
Looks like the release will be out in 2 weeks. Google has delayed it enough times that I’m sure it’ll pass by with relatively little fanfare now.
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I don’t understand all that “everything must be free” sentiment. Just pay, like I do, for ad-free Premium (Lite) or accept the ads.
I despise Google, but it’s normal that they want to get funds, one way or another, for this hugely expensive service.
Somewhat related Let Me Pay for Firefox | Hacker News
Recently I paid for the Orion browser, and many years ago for the Opera browser. It’s completely natural for me.
Paid products are often better in my experience.
NB: I would pay for Mojeek, if it would allow me to adjust the ranking, like you can with Kagi.
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Maybe Mojeek could provide the same search service but through their API to basically allow paid for search. Something that grabs their UI as a default and serves via the API paid method.
iirc they do have some ranking tweaks available in the API and maybe some more that could easily be added in.
I pay for a number of free software packages I find useful, like GIMP, Krita, Firefox, Bottles, GNOME, KDE, Thunderbird, etc. I also paid for Kagi for a few years.
Money isn’t the problem for me. It’s the companies I’d be funding. Is it really ethical to pay Crunchyroll, for example? The same company that stole from fansubbers and Japanese studios, removed all the credits, and tried to go legit? I really can’t convince myself that it’s ethical. I regret paying for a few months of Crunchyroll before I knew about this (as well as the other stuff they’ve been up to).
I have no problem paying for Kagi because it’s a good service, but it did bug me that the money was going to Microsoft and Yandex for their APIs. I also don’t mind paying creators I like on Patreon, where Google doesn’t get a cut.
YouTube Premium might have been a decent offer if the download offline feature worked as expected: Watch videos offline with YouTube Premium - Computer - YouTube Help
Downloaded videos can be played offline for up to 29 days. After that, you’ll need to reconnect your device to the internet. Reconnecting will allow the app to check for changes to the video or its availability. If a video is no longer available for offline playback, it will be removed from your device during the next sync.
Instead the content is encumbered by DRM. I can get the download offline feature I wanted for free, and I don’t need to worry about Google disappearing the content I’ve downloaded later or having an internet connection more than once a month.
Money isn’t the issue for me; I just feel it’s more unethical to pay some of these companies. I don’t feel great about circumventing ads, but I don’t feel bad about it, either.
I actually really dislike the “everything must be free” sentiment myself. It’s the same sentiment that has led to ad-based business models in the first place. If YouTube put all of its content behind a paywall and completely got rid of ads, I think that would be better.
There would be far less chance of malvertising, which seems to be rampant on Google Search.
Companies would still be able to advertise directly on videos via sponsorships. And I find those types of ads to be better, anyway.
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Kagi uses the Mojeek API.
Kagi, to name one, uses these.