[gorhill]

A reliable way I found to confirm whether there is new anti-content blocker code released by Youtube is to visit uBlockOrigin's reddit sub[1]:

If there are well over 1,000 "here now" (near top right), this confirms the anti-content blocker code has been updated.

If well below 1,000 "here now", all is fine. At time of writing, it's fine.

* * *

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/

[hunter2_]

The number has climbed by almost 100 in the past couple of minutes. Interesting to see if the HN effect temporarily ruins your rule of thumb...

[drexlspivey]

We are going to break ublock origin if that continues

[hunter2_]

If what continues? People following a link from HN to Reddit? People updating uBlock when the reddit counter is >1000? I'm confused.

[daymanstep]

I’m pretty sure he’s joking.

[colpabar]

This is clever and I'm definitely using it.

Website idea: a downdetector-like site that uses reddit's "here now" numbers to give insight into whether something is going on with a certain thing.

edit: Has anyone else not really been affected by the new youtube adblock policy at all? I think I have seen the warning a single time, and I use youtube all the time. I only use ublock origin and privacy badger... on chrome. Maybe that's it.

[hunter2_]

> Has anyone else not really been affected by the new youtube adblock policy at all?

The megathread addresses this:

> I've never seen this message. Is this because of my browser being X or Y? No, YouTube didn't roll this out to everybody yet.

[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/184fivk/youtu...

[thaumasiotes]

It was rolled out to me. I saw several warnings that my ad blocker wasn't allowed, and on one day they blocked me from watching videos, except that they didn't block me from watching videos in Incognito Mode.

On all other days, I was free to watch whatever I wanted while logged in. They might complain at me about ad blocking, or not.

On all days, youtube-dl worked fine. (This matters because, contemporaneously with the anti-ad-blocking campaign, YouTube started sometimes reducing my video frame rate to 0 fps. Audio never suffered at all.)

It's not a strict regime.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

It is not, but it did prompt a discussion with my buddies. What do we do when/if it becomes strict? Solutions are kinda there depending on what you are willing to put up with. FWIW, I started archiving stuff with ydl.

[u320]

I have it rolled out to one of my two computers. Same IP, same google account (logged in). So it seems very random.

[raffraffraff]

My wife uses YouTube a lot more than I do. I watch occasional tech related videos or stuff that's been sent to me. She uses it for audiobooks, music, some podcasts. She subscribes to a bunch of channels. It's her account that's logged in on the TV. I've never seen a message warning about adblocker use on my account, whereas her account got temporarily disabled. She ended up paying for premium.

[lamontcg]

> Has anyone else not really been affected by the new youtube adblock policy at all?

not really. firefox + privacy badger + ubo. once a week or so i do get blocked but then i clear cookies, restart firefox and relogin and then it works.

[hunter2_]

I bet it's been used for stock/crypto trading for years already.

[growse]

Someone needs to write a reddit "here now" prometheus exporter.

[octacat]

and they would break their API again

[rc202402]

Use RSS

[dmw_ng]

Is there some place with a technical writeup of what YT are doing to frustrate circumvention so effectively?

[thaumasiotes]

Effectively? I've been using uBlock Origin the whole time. Whatever YouTube is doing, it cannot be accurately described as "effective".

[piva00]

I didn't even notice that my YouTube Premium Lite subscription had been terminated for about a month, YT decided to not offer that type of subscription anymore and I'm not willing to pay more for YT Premium, uBlock Origin is working flawlessly.

[solumunus]

I think they’re still doing split testing.

[thaumasiotes]

They're not doing anything effective. What does split testing have to do with it?

You might want to see my other comment, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38542185

[ehvatum]

“Can be bypassed” does not necessarily mean ineffective, when the goal is to change behavior.

Do people typically respond to the YouTube anti-blocking threat prompt by disabling their ad blocker entirely, or by enhancing their ad blocking?

[SiempreViernes]

I think they are just updating their measures frequently, so not really anything technical. In other words: Youtube is continuously spending a lot of money to put out new patches block the latest circumventions.

[brookst]

Not sure it’s a lot of money. Probably just an algorithm to generate variations of the anti Adblock code. At most, polymorphic code inspired by malware.

[guerrilla]

> At most, polymorphic code inspired by malware.

If it quacks like a duck...

[hunter2_]

Adware has always been a type of malware, even without polymorphic code or other evasion.

[Ekaros]

I actually wonder what is the balance between maybe a small team of software engineers finding way to block adblock vs generate revenue for periods when they are successful.

In the end it really is question that when they manage to block adblock do they make more money than they spend in effort.

[hunter2_]

This effort is confined to YouTube, but the return of someone uninstalling an ad blocker (the user's response could be more targeted, but some will fully uninstall) reaches Google more broadly.

[chii]

I'd imagine the user would not uninstall the adblocker, just disable it for YouTube.

[is_true]

haha, it worked! The only problem is the delay between the moment uBO starts working and the people realize