[Thorrez]

With Youtube at least, you can buy Youtube premium, so you don't have to sit through Youtube ads without needing an ad blocker (though you'll still have to sit through any ads the Youtuber directly adds into the video itself).

Disclosure: I work at Google.

[skyyler]

I use Youtube Premium, plus an ad blocker, plus an extension that removes shorts, plus an extension that skips sponsored segments.

Soon, I'm going to need an extension that removes the AI stuff I don't want and didn't ask for.

Using youtube in 2025 is exhausting.

[Thorrez]

Does the ad blocker do anything on Youtube since you have premium? It'll of course do things on other sites, but I'm wondering if it has any impact on Youtube.

[skyyler]

Yes. It removes ad elements that Google / Youtube don't consider to be ads, like channel stores and that sort of stuff.

[coffeecantcode]

Care to share these extensions?

[skyyler]

Ad block: https://ublockorigin.com/

Skipping sponsored sections: https://sponsor.ajay.app/

Remove shorts: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-youtub...

Return dislike: https://www.returnyoutubedislike.com/

Forgot to mention returning the dislike in my original comment.

At least I can use these extensions and get something resembling the service I want to pay for.

[coffeecantcode]

Bless you, appreciate the sauce.

[dspillett]

At £12/month YT Premium feels rather expensive for what we'd get out of it (though we have considered it for our Dad who uses it for music and train videos a lot) compared to other subscription services.

Also note that while it takes away the ads, it does nothing about the stalking (which bothers me much more than the adverts themselves) the results from which will be used to serve ads if you cancel in future (and in any case may be made available, directly or otherwise, to third parties, unless that part of the terms has changed).

[Thorrez]

US prices:

Netflix 1080p: $18/mo. Netflix 4k: $25/mo. No annual plan.

Youtube Premium, which offers 4k, is $14/mo, or $120/yr for the annual plan (which averages to $12/mo).

UK prices:

Netflix 1080p: £13/mo. Netflix 4k: £19/mo. No annual plan.

Youtube Premium: £12/mo. No annual plan.

It's interesting how in the Youtube Premiums discount over Netflix is smaller in the UK than the US, and how Youtube Premium lacks an annual plan in the UK.

>Also note that while it takes away the ads, it does nothing about the stalking

Does an ad blocker change that?

[dspillett]

> > Also note that while it takes away the ads, it does nothing about the stalking

> Does an ad blocker change that?

In many places, yes. Youtube? Less so, but it depends on which blocker(s) are in play.

A DNS based blocker won't help completely as some of the ad/track related requests are coming from their main domain or sub-domains that are used for other things so can't be blocked wholescale. It will block JS and other resources pulling from *.doubleclick.net though.

A browser/add-on based blocker may do much better by being able to more selectively block resource that are tracking related. It will also be able to block data passed via embedded videos in other sites. They can, and probably do, still track based on what you are actually watching via requests to the main domain, no ad blocker can do much about that without blocking the whole site.

[Thorrez]

When it comes to embedded videos, that reminds me of youtube-nocookie.com . If the website does an embed using youtube-nocookie.com , that prevents I believe what is being described as "stalking".

>The Privacy Enhanced Mode of the YouTube embedded player prevents the use of views of embedded YouTube content from influencing the viewer’s browsing experience on YouTube. This means that the view of a video shown in the Privacy Enhanced Mode of the embedded player will not be used to personalize the YouTube browsing experience, either within your Privacy Enhanced Mode embedded player or in the viewer’s subsequent YouTube viewing experience.

>If ads are served on a video shown in the Privacy Enhanced Mode of the embedded player, those ads will likewise be non-personalized. In addition, the view of a video shown in the Privacy Enhanced Mode of the embedded player will not be used to personalize advertising shown to the viewer outside of your site or app.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/171780?hl=en#zippy...