Yeah, uBlock Origin not working would take me from liking YouTube a fair bit to making it unusable.
I use Proton but keep legacy Gmail accounts around to ensure I still have access to accounts I may have forgotten about or people I knew a long time ago sending a stray email. The only other usage is logging into YouTube.
I use a Captcha solver extension.
I use uBlock Origin to block all their ads.
I don’t use their DNS.
I use DDG over their search engine and Firefox over their browser.
I don’t use Google Drive or their office suite (I think the latter is abysmal to use tbf).
I use DeepL over Translate.
I use NewPipe for YouTube on mobile and have a subscription to Nebula.
I no longer use Google Maps, opting for OSM instead.
I still use Android and unfortunately can’t unlock the bootloader but have degoogled as far as I know how, including never even registering a Google account with it (F-Droid + Aurora Store).
YouTube is far and away the biggest means by which I interact with Google, and that falls off a cliff if I’m forced to interact with a mess of their ridiculously shitty ads every time I have to use it. uBO has likely saved hundreds of hours of watching ads over my lifetime (and probably thousands of dollars from not being subconsciously influenced by ads), and I’m not paying a subscription fee to such an unethical company to get rid of the ads. This would bring me from YouTube as a timewaster to YouTube only as strictly necessary. Even though I don’t support them directly through ads, I do support them by supporting creators I like monetarily, by sharing links and maintaining the network effect, and by giving them plenty of metadata by interacting with their service. If they do this, they ensure that I continue to monetarily support competitors like Nebula and permanently lose a grip they’ve had on me since I was a kid.
To decrease the amount of spam. There is a misunderstanding, the same with anti-cheat. Captchas will always be solvable, there will always be people who cheat. The point is not to eliminate all bots / cheaters, but to only have to deal with a smaller number of them.
The point is that people think that it’s effective. It’s the illusion of security, which does actually keep some of the more stupid spammers and bad actors at bay.
It doesn’t stop the ones that are determined though, nothing does.
If it doesn’t I will make something that records the entire f****** stream and removes the commercials out of it the old fashioned way If I have to. Not my first rodeo.
Yt-DLP and it’s variation (Seal, YTDLnis, etc.), newpipe and it’s variation (Tubular, Newpipe Sponsorblock, etc) already allow you to do this without having to get manual.
“Seal downloader” from the Playstore and “Seal” from F-Droid are 2 very different apps. One is a a clone riddled with ads, the other one is FOSS goodness. You are free to guess which is which.
Video content never changes, but the order and content of ads do. Automated browser, record the video 2-3 times. Diff the frames and slice out the ones that don’t match between runs.
I remember back in the day, there was programs that would identify ads and remove them off on air programs. I would imagine something like that would be possible. Although at that point, just skipping the “platform” altogether might be a better solution.
My guess: Youtube-dl derivative then an ffmpeg script to detect black frames that usually sandwich commercials on TV and delete the video inside those frames.
Most likely, I just dedicate an old laptop, a 4k HDMI capture device, store off MP4 and feed it through comskip then take it h265 and store it off.
If I don’t do anything tricky with the browser they can’t detect that I’m doing anything tricky at all.
The only thing I’m a little concerned about is that they’re going to start doing advertising like broadcast TV did and put quarter screen commercials up for other shows in the middle of running shows.
I would happily watch ads if they were non-intrusive and non-interrupting ads like side banners that don’t cause popups, or product placement inside videos.
I would also pay for a platform where 100% of the money goes to paying for hosting and paying the creators.
Neither of these things are happening, so yes, I would rather donate to support piracy.
God I hope my adbock holds up…
If it doesn’t goodbye Youtube. I love the creators, but hate you as a platform.
Yeah, uBlock Origin not working would take me from liking YouTube a fair bit to making it unusable.
YouTube is far and away the biggest means by which I interact with Google, and that falls off a cliff if I’m forced to interact with a mess of their ridiculously shitty ads every time I have to use it. uBO has likely saved hundreds of hours of watching ads over my lifetime (and probably thousands of dollars from not being subconsciously influenced by ads), and I’m not paying a subscription fee to such an unethical company to get rid of the ads. This would bring me from YouTube as a timewaster to YouTube only as strictly necessary. Even though I don’t support them directly through ads, I do support them by supporting creators I like monetarily, by sharing links and maintaining the network effect, and by giving them plenty of metadata by interacting with their service. If they do this, they ensure that I continue to monetarily support competitors like Nebula and permanently lose a grip they’ve had on me since I was a kid.
Captcha solver add-on? Had no idea about that. If a captcha can be solved this way, why is still being used? What’s the point?
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/buster-captcha-solver/
To decrease the amount of spam. There is a misunderstanding, the same with anti-cheat. Captchas will always be solvable, there will always be people who cheat. The point is not to eliminate all bots / cheaters, but to only have to deal with a smaller number of them.
The point is that people think that it’s effective. It’s the illusion of security, which does actually keep some of the more stupid spammers and bad actors at bay. It doesn’t stop the ones that are determined though, nothing does.
+1 on the Nebula subscription. It’s worth every penny. That and Dropout are the only streaming subscriptions I still maintain.
If it doesn’t I will make something that records the entire f****** stream and removes the commercials out of it the old fashioned way If I have to. Not my first rodeo.
Yt-DLP and it’s variation (Seal, YTDLnis, etc.), newpipe and it’s variation (Tubular, Newpipe Sponsorblock, etc) already allow you to do this without having to get manual.
And I use YTDLP now. At some point they will make it inoperable. I’m honestly surprised they haven’t sorted it out yet.
Seal sold out. It’s trash now
“Seal downloader” from the Playstore and “Seal” from F-Droid are 2 very different apps. One is a a clone riddled with ads, the other one is FOSS goodness. You are free to guess which is which.
I will find text versions of everything I need to learn about and create my own video, and then watch it.
Wait a couple more years you’ll be able to feed the descriptions through AI and make really trippy videos
…how?
Video content never changes, but the order and content of ads do. Automated browser, record the video 2-3 times. Diff the frames and slice out the ones that don’t match between runs.
I remember back in the day, there was programs that would identify ads and remove them off on air programs. I would imagine something like that would be possible. Although at that point, just skipping the “platform” altogether might be a better solution.
My guess: Youtube-dl derivative then an ffmpeg script to detect black frames that usually sandwich commercials on TV and delete the video inside those frames.
If it happens, and you do, host it, and set up a donation box too.
Most likely, I just dedicate an old laptop, a 4k HDMI capture device, store off MP4 and feed it through comskip then take it h265 and store it off.
If I don’t do anything tricky with the browser they can’t detect that I’m doing anything tricky at all.
The only thing I’m a little concerned about is that they’re going to start doing advertising like broadcast TV did and put quarter screen commercials up for other shows in the middle of running shows.
So you want someone to broadcast, and you’re willing to pay for it, but not willing to support the content creators in any way?
I would happily watch ads if they were non-intrusive and non-interrupting ads like side banners that don’t cause popups, or product placement inside videos.
I would also pay for a platform where 100% of the money goes to paying for hosting and paying the creators.
Neither of these things are happening, so yes, I would rather donate to support piracy.