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Google Advertising Chrome Youtube

YouTube Reportedly Bypassing Ad Blockers On Google Chrome 296

Posted by samzenpus from the watch-this dept.
An anonymous reader writes: YouTube users have lit up twitter today, angry about an apparent change of policy by Google, which now seems to be showing ads in front of videos on YouTube even when using Adblock. Neowin reports: "Google's workaround seems to be applicable to all similar extensions and isn't exclusive to just AdBlock Plus. The company has not stopped at just skirting the extension, however. Users with AdBlock enabled will now have to see full-length video ads with no option to skip them half-way through, a feature YouTube has offered for a very long time. The only way to get the option back is to disable AdBlock, or to whitelist YouTube."
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YouTube Reportedly Bypassing Ad Blockers On Google Chrome More

YouTube Reportedly Bypassing Ad Blockers On Google Chrome

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  • Back to Firefox (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Calydor ( 739835 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @02:13PM (#50472579)

    Yeah, that's how you kill your own browser off, Google.

    • Re:Back to Firefox (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07, 2015 @02:21PM (#50472639)
      It was obvious to me, from the beginning, that the purpose of Chrome is to bypass adblocker technology. It was not a coincidence that Chrome was announced not long after adblocking on Firefox really began to block out nearly everything.

      • Re:Back to Firefox (Score:5, Insightful)

        by E-Rock ( 84950 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @02:28PM (#50472691) Homepage

        We see Google in so many places that most people don't know that (financially) they're an ad company. All of the other businesses feed back into their money making line of business.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by TWX ( 665546 )
          It's probably also no coincidence that Firefox has swiftly headed in the direction of Chrome lately too. The rapid release cycle, the Chrome-like functions becoming standard features in Firefox, and the most recent developments toward Chrome plugins becoming usable on Firefox are all taking things in the direction of making Firefox itself less relevant.

          I actually never stopped using Firefox as my primary browser. I didn't feel a need to migrate to Chrome, and even my Android phone is old enough that it

        • We see Google in so many places that most people don't know that (financially) they're an ad company. All of the other businesses feed back into their money making line of business.

          Exactly. And this goes beyond Youtube. It even includes search. Many people think of Google as a "search engine" whose goal is to deliver the best results. It isn't. Perhaps it was 15 years ago when they were still fighting for dominance, but now having good, efficient search is only a secondary concern -- they mostly are an ad-delivery system.

          Which is the probably one of the reasons why Google search has gradually gotten significantly worse over the past 5-8 years. (At least in returning precise se

      • If the purpose of Chrome is to get rid of ad blockers, why haven't they gotten rid of any ad blockers in Chrome? One specific ad blocker isn't 100% effective with the Youtube app. Few people even use the Youtube app. This doesn't have anything to do with the browser, you know.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          If the purpose of Chrome is to get rid of ad blockers, why haven't they gotten rid of any ad blockers in Chrome? One specific ad blocker isn't 100% effective with the Youtube app. Few people even use the Youtube app. This doesn't have anything to do with the browser, you know.

          Easy - they need the research. If you're wanting to work around ad blockers, you need to figure out how they work, so having them in your catalog is a way to do that. Plus, if you don't have ad blockers, people will quickly realize it.

      • Re:Back to Firefox (Score:4, Informative)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday September 08, 2015 @05:08AM (#50476945) Homepage Journal

        You forget that early versions of Chrome didn't support ad-blocking. There was a bug report asking for necessary features to be added to the extension API (the ability to filter URLs and the DOM before network requests were made) and Google obliged. They actually did extra work to support ad-blocking.

        If you read some comments below you can see that this was just an unintentional thing, only affecting the YouTube app.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Chrome was the herpes of browsers anyways. Good riddance.

      Firefox is getting shady also, and loves injecting ads into my tabs until I unchecked "show suggested sites" under new tab controls.

      • Firefox has some shitty default settings, but at least you can change them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Megane ( 129182 )
        Seamonkey [seamonkey-project.org] is pretty good, like FF back in the 3.x days, but it was suffering for a months-delayed release (partly due to a bunch of FF security crap hitting in a short time) that finally dropped this week. And they're still a few Gecko versions behind FF. It's good to have auto-fill passwords working again.

        • Seamonkey [seamonkey-project.org] is pretty good, like FF back in the 3.x days, but it was suffering for a months-delayed release (partly due to a bunch of FF security crap hitting in a short time) that finally dropped this week. And they're still a few Gecko versions behind FF. It's good to have auto-fill passwords working again.

          Seamonkey is OK, but development is a little sketchy. I switched to Palemoon almost a year ago and Mozilla can go fuck themselves. It's not just a rebranded Firefox, it's a fork that retains most of what made Firefox popular in the first place.

    • Actually, if they are circumventing anything they're hacking your machine are arguable breaking the law. Installing an ad blocker certainly makes it clear what the machine owners intent is. :) I hope they get sued to hell and back.

      • Re:Back to Firefox (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jargonburn ( 1950578 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @02:41PM (#50472793)

        Doubtful. Pretty sure Google updating their product and changing functionality (the ability to block ads isn't an advertised feature :P) doesn't violate any laws. Not only that, but:

        A) You aren't forced to use their browser, at least, not by Google
        B) You presumably agreed to Google's terms and conditions / EULA when you installed/used Chrome
        C) The product is provided free of charge and you didn't pay Google a single cent for it.

        • "C) The product is provided free of charge and you didn't pay Google a single cent for it." ...directly.

      • Re:Back to Firefox (Score:4, Insightful)

        by CaptainDork ( 3678879 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @02:43PM (#50472817)

        No.

        Part of the install process for Chrome is you agree that Google gets everything and you get nothing.

        • Re:Back to Firefox (Score:5, Insightful)

          by fnj ( 64210 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @03:27PM (#50473157)

          Fix the fucked up legal interpretation that allows that kind of a so-called "agreement" to be considered enforceable. It is blatantly unbalanced and as such should be null and void under contract law. It is also not reasonable to expect the unempowered party to laboriously read and digest all the terms.

          Everyone who was ever given an employee agreement to sign which contained a provision that you give up your clear rights to work in competition, even when fired or laid off involuntarily: you did mark it with an initialed note taking exception to that particular part, right? And you informed the employer that you were doing so, and were hired anyway.

    • Re:Back to Firefox (Score:5, Funny)

      by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M ( 4212163 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @02:42PM (#50472805)

      Yeah, I'm not going to let a giant multinational company dictate how I use my browser.

      I'm going back to Safari.

    • If Chrome is doing it now Chrome-wannabe-fox will be doing it soon enough.

  • Or don't use Chrome. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Just switch to another browser.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 )

      Sadly I find Chrome to run much faster than FF and Chrome doesn't keep adding useless buttons and features every week. I'm still waiting for FF to implement multi process and multi thread support.

    • What other browser is available on netbooks? The only operating system sold on netbooks nowadays is Chrome OS. They don't make netbooks with preinstalled desktop Linux anymore, and even if you use Crouton to install a "normal" Linux distribution, a Chromebook's bootloader still prompts you "Press space to wipe all your files and reinstall Chrome OS" every time you turn it on.

      • Don't they make Android-based netbooks anymore?

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by tepples ( 727027 )

          Android has another problem: even if you have the screen space for four phone-sized apps, apps have to explicitly opt in to running unmaximized, and few do.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Better yet, don't use YouTube. This kind of thing is inherent when chokepoints are developed. You don't know which robber band is going to set up in the pass, but you know some robber band will. Centralization of control is a great evil, and should not only be avoided when possible, but should be actively circumvented when not possible. And if that means not using a site or an OS, that's what it means. There are just too many sociopaths out there who don't care how much damage they do as long as they g

  • Chrome is an advertising platform, nothing more. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07, 2015 @02:17PM (#50472609)

    Chrome is an advertising platform, nothing more. Expect similar (and more invasive) behavior if you buy Google's new wifi router. People seem to conveniently forget that Google is the world's biggest advertising company. Their sole reason to exist is to fuck you coming and going, by showing you ads on the front end, then compiling every bit of data they can about you on the back end and selling it around. Google is the pimp and you are the whore.

    I for one will not use a browser made by an advertising company.

    • Google is the pimp and you are the whore.

      I for one will not use a browser made by an advertising company.

      What about Firefox, whose entire existence depends on money from Yahoo (an advertising company) and previously Google.

  • begun (Score:5, Funny)

    by circletimessquare ( 444983 ) <circletimessquar ... m minus language> on Monday September 07, 2015 @02:18PM (#50472611) Homepage Journal

    the ad wars have

    • Re:begun (Score:4, Insightful)

      by vandelais ( 164490 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @03:57PM (#50473413)

      Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by OhPlz ( 168413 )

      On the net, they began way back with the stupid x10 pop over, pop under, pop all the fuck over your screen ads. No one had even imagined a popup blocker until that nonsense started, let alone an ad blocker.

  • LOL (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SuperDre ( 982372 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @02:19PM (#50472619) Homepage
    Well, I don't like the ads myself, but I don't blame youtube for trying to circumvent the adblockers, it's their right to do so..

    • Re:LOL (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07, 2015 @02:41PM (#50472795)

      Since when does visiting a site give the site-owner any rights at all? Jesus Christ, the sense of entitlement of some people!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Alumoi ( 1321661 )

        Since when does visiting a site give the site-owner any rights at all? Jesus Christ, the sense of entitlement of some people!

        My kingdom for some mod points!

      • Re:LOL (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Reaperducer ( 871695 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @04:01PM (#50473465)

        Their site, their rules. Don't like it? Go start your own Tube.

        Since when does opening a browser window give a site-visitor any rights to content for free? Jesus Christ, the sense of entitlement of some people!

        • The majority of content on YOUTUBE comes from people uploading their cat videos. Youtube actually doesn't make anything. As soon as they piss off enough users their site disappears. There are plenty of better sites out there, so they better be careful.

        • My computer, my rules. Don't like it, buy me a computer, pay my electricity bill and internet bill. I'm totally down with that. Otherwise, too bad. Or better yet, if you don't like people doing what they like with their computers because your site wants them to do something they refuse to, take your site down. Please do that. Hilarious.

          Here's the thing, I control what my computer does and the more irritating the advertising is, the more effort I'm willing to put into making sure it stops. My computer, my c

        • Re:LOL (Score:5, Insightful)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday September 08, 2015 @06:03AM (#50477073) Homepage Journal

          That's not how the web works. The site owner can offer to send you some HTML, CSS and other data. Beyond that they have no control over what you do with it. Don't want to display part of what they send you? That's fine, they don't have any right to control your browser.

          If they don't want you to have their content, take it off the public web.

      • Re:LOL (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Oligonicella ( 659917 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @04:06PM (#50473515)

        As long as they're not damaging the browser (app or person), they have as much right to deploy anti-ad blocking (or utterly shitty design) as you do to employ ad blocking. And no, their being successful at it is not damaging to the user. Perhaps you are under the mistaken belief that the site is there to benefit you instead of them.

      • Since when does visiting a site give the site-owner any rights at all? Jesus Christ, the sense of entitlement of some people!

        Since you signed away those rights when agreeing to the EULA of that website's browser. Don't like it, get a browser that wasn't designed by an advertising agency. Jesus Christ, the sense of entitlement of some people!

    • Re:LOL (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rudy_wayne ( 414635 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @02:41PM (#50472799)

      Well, I don't like the ads myself, but I don't blame youtube for trying to circumvent the adblockers, it's their right to do so..

      You are absolutely right. Youtube can do what they want. And so can I. One of the great things about Youtube is that I can live without it and Google can go fuck themselves.

    • Re:LOL (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ewibble ( 1655195 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @03:28PM (#50473167)

      That may be true and as a site they can do what they want. What is wrong is using there position as the producer of Chrome to do it. That is why no company should get to much control.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mark4ST ( 249650 )
      Hacking the settings on my computer is illegal.

  • That's only on chrome I believe (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07, 2015 @02:20PM (#50472627)

    what they've done here what Internet Explorer and mozilla always wanted. Now everyone will move away from Chrome. You cant fight the users cause you will lose. You have to win somehow by giving them what they want and this is not it. I've always used Internet Explorer so that's not a problem for me. I still don't see ads at all.

    Another stupid idea they might go with is blocking the others from seeing the video all together if we don't disable the adblock. That's what dailymotion and vimeo are hoping for. Then users will eventually move away and youtube will be a thing of the past. watch it go.

  • Only affects "Youtube app" in chrome (Score:5, Informative)

    by watermark ( 913726 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @02:20PM (#50472631)

    FTFA, this change only affects the YouTube "app" installed in Chrome. Uninstall the app and you're golden.

  • Even the user switching menu being permanently on and taking space from my tab bar is enough to have me wanting to switch.

    I will say too that it seems like YouTube also has ads when having DNS ad blocking turned on. (http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/zero/) This behaviour is not something I've noticed before a month ish ago. It also seems like background audio on iOS is not possible when using the YouTube webpage. Just more extinguish of the EEE.

    • Even the user switching menu being permanently on and taking space from my tab bar is enough to have me wanting to switch.

      I installed Firefox and stopped using Chrome at work a couple years back, when Chrome wouldn't let me remove a not-safe-for-work typo-squatting site from the suggestions drop-down.

  • My YouTube ad revenue went up (Score:5, Informative)

    by lhaeh ( 463179 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @02:31PM (#50472719)

    From the twitter posts in the linked article, it seems this started on the 5th. My most recent ad revenue data from YouTube is for that day, I made $11.68, normally I make $5-$8 per day. I've been seeing some spikes recently, but I assumed that was from heavy back to school advertising, maybe it could have been from this.

    Any other tubers out there notice something like this?

  • Seems like forks of the open-source version should be able to disable this.

  • Just drop the whole show and do something else - drink a beer or have a good smoke or tea - enjoy life without all those suckers.

    It may even work...

  • Hosts file (Score:4, Interesting)

    by plasm4 ( 533422 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @02:58PM (#50472911) Journal
    I've been copying and pasting this into my hosts file every couple months on top of using ad block. I haven't seen adverts in a long time. http://someonewhocares.org/hos... [someonewhocares.org]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by andyn ( 689342 )

      B-b-but w-who on earth would want to block Goatse and Tubgirl?

    • I use a different one [mvps.org], but the principle is sound and it works great; no Adblock needed. One change I'd make to yours is to uncomment some lines, like these:

      #127.0.0.1 google-analytics.com # breaks some sites
      #127.0.0.1 ssl.google-analytics.com
      #127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.l.google.com

      So it "breaks some sites". Haven't noticed that myself, and don't care if it does.

  • Those aren't the only options. The other option if to FUCK YOUTUBE.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Greyfox ( 87712 )
      Aand... make a video of you fucking youtube, which you could then post to youtube? I bet the ad revenue from that would be insane!

  • I've been noticing it's doing the same thing with Safari on Mac. If you have Adblock on, the ad videos are unskippable. Turn off or pause adblock and there's no video ads.

  • I find that just about every website I visit these days has some sort of incredibly invasive advertising on it. I really don't mind a few clickable links off to the side or a small banner, but what I do mind is the whole new level that advertising has stooped to on the internet. I remember in the mid-2000's how pervasive pop-up advertising became and it reduced the experience of the internet of a crawl. Now the overlay ad has become the new popup. Everywhere I go I find that I sometimes have to click off th

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