YouTube is putting its foot down. Users are being urged, and in some cases forced, to turn off their ad blockers to continue streaming videos without having to pay fees. The only simple way to get rid of the ads now is to pay for YouTube Premium, which many have dubbed a “premium ad blocker” produced by the platform itself.
It’s clear that people are not taking kindly to this forceful policy—some have even reported receiving the pop-up to turn off their ad blockers after they already turned them off. For those who choose to ignore YouTube’s pop-up requests, their video players are blocked until they allow YouTube to feature ads.
People hate the ads because they appear too frequently in the videos they watch, and some think YouTube’s ads are predatory and inappropriate. The gripe most people have with the system concerns the nature of the ads, as well as their frequency in a video. Many users feel that this move is driven by the platform’s greed. Some people claimed that if YouTube didn’t have ads that popped up every three minutes, they wouldn’t be installing ad blockers at all. Although people generally do not welcome this change, they’re hard-pressed to find alternatives. There are a few, but they don’t work for everybody.
Alternatives to ad blockers and YouTube Premium
The default ad blocker of Opera GX still worked at the time of writing, and it was able to prevent ads from popping up in videos. They appear at the start of the video, but they do not play and can be skipped immediately. Other users have resorted to desperate measures, such as getting rid of the ad blocker pop-up on YouTube.
Essentially, people can view this as a blocker of the pop-up that discourages ad blockers. This idea is a bit complicated, but many report that this method works for them. Some VPN services that include ad blockers were also reported to work against even the peskiest ads on YouTube to date, so they’re worth checking out if you’re reluctant to pay $13.99 a month for YouTube Premium.
(featured image: YouTube)
