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Microsoft YouTube App Strips Ads; Adds Download
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft appears to be sticking a finger in Google's eye with the launch of its new YouTube app for Windows Phone. The app, ReadWrite has confirmed, strips out YouTube ads when it plays back videos and allows users to easily download video by way of a prominent 'download' button."
Give them a day. I'll bet it stops working tomorrow.
Nice.
It's about time Microsoft did something nice for users.
I thought Youtube's TOS said you can't access youtube if you download the videos in an unapproved manner. I remember Dolphin Browser having a "download youtube" option way back, but Google nixed it from the Android Market until it was removed. Obviously Google had the upper hand being in control of the market, but still can't they do.. I dunno, something?
And how?
Desperate much?
It gives YouTube the right to block it.
And by doing so, may block all of MS products.
Data scraping can work, as long as you have a team that can keep up with changes to the interface and counter various approaches to block the scraping-specific requests. Somehow, I don't think this will work for the long-term on Windows Phone systems - but then again, Windows Phone itself may not last too terribly long in this incarnation either, so it may be fine for its purpose, which is to latch onto low-information customers with shallow but momentary appealing features.
Ryan Fenton
To violating the terms of service, MS may be in legal violation of the DMCA for "circumventing".
Never seen one. The only explanation that seems plausible is that they're hidden in the time between opening YouTube link, muting the sound, switching to another browser tab, occupying yourself for about thirty seconds, and then switching back; you know, the standard process everyone follows.
I long ago abandoned MS due to a complete lack of compelling product features (sad seeing that things like Visual Studio were pretty ground breaking at one point). But this is a feature that shows a fundamental understanding of what customers want and an ability to deliver this feature. Not that this will change the world but maybe, just maybe, this will be a wake-up call at MS that delivering what people want not just what MS wants them to want is the basis of a business model superior to their present model of just riding on their laurels.
cclive and youtube-dl?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Getting the direct download link to the video is easy, every youtube app can implement this without any effort. And if you build your own player based on it, ads just disappear as a side-effect.
Popcorn a popp'n !
This looks to be premium entertainment. ;)
I saw that Youtube updated on my Windows Phone this morning, I think, but I didn't pay any attention to it. It's a *significant* improvement over the last version of it. Not only are there the download feature (and no ad), but it's got a nice way to browse through popular videos and a good filter. The last version, but didn't have any bells and whistles. This one is awesome.
I don't respond to AC's.
upon millions of users is the difference
As someone who makes a living publishing videos to Youtube, I can honestly say that if downloaders and avoidance of ads becomes mainstream I will no longer have an incentive to publish videos anymore and I suspect I would not be alone.
Simple as that.
Sooo can I get xbox live with ADs stripped out of also Microsoft? Seeing as I pay for the service!
I guess this little stunt won't help all the Win 8 users who lost support for Google Cal & Contacts. It's a pity they're both playing political "Cold War" with each other.
...correct me if I'm wrong, but I have a Firefox plugin that does exactly the same thing.
Are they banned? Are google changing their whole API for that?
Fair enough, Google want to block Microsoft at every turn, I understand that. But there's bullshit and there's bullshit. And this is bullshit.
Sorry android virus carriers
Supposed you want to wish your mother a Happy Dub Step Mothers Day with this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J0o65u73Nc
But you want to strip the adds and go fullscreen:
Easy, simply change the URL: delete "watch?v=" and replace with "v/"
http://www.youtube.com/v/9J0o65u73Nc
sarcasm
Microsoft must have some really smart developers to have figured out how to rewrite the YouTube URL using computer programming. I am going to run out and get a Surface with Windows 8 before Best Buy closes tonight. Microsoft might be adding more useful features soon and I don't want to miss out. It would be a shame to watch a 5 second YouTube Ad and support that rich Google company. Microsoft is sticking it to man! Wait, I thought they were the man. Hmmm... something has changed. I'm so confused.
sarcasm
A company and a society are judged and remembered by what they build and not what they destroy.
Send in the briefcase drill team! Warm up the bench. Choose your venues. Ready? FIGHT!
i know lets sue more people....that might not have anything to do with there drop like a rock life....
and all the toys in universe wont have me support a company that uses idiot patents to screw with anyone....
they are like ms in the same league for business styles and slowly they are failing and as the world closes the tax evasion loopholes you will see these looney tune companies smarten up cause they cant hide the insane profits they once had.
Careful! Changing the URL to another publicly accessible option is HEINOUS and HORRIBLE computer crime!
I so wish this was sarcasm, but the current precedent is that the above statement is true. Remember that guy who did the exact same thing with iPhone IDs to AT&T got convicted under the CFAA.
Microsoft is unlikely to comply with the TOS, its not in their nature.
I think Google will then encode the ads into the video stream, and make the video clickable. Sure you'll have lost the ability to close the advert early, because the video will contain it, and you've lost the bit of the video below the ad square, but you did anyway. And Microsoft has given them an excuse to do it.
For downloads, they won't offer the high resolution streams to Windows Phone devices, only the low res phone resolutions, and Microsoft will have enabled that too, by putting the download button in!
See this is a pissing match Microsoft cannot win, because they needed Google's Youtube far far far more than than Google needs Windows Phone users. The only reason they won't block them outright at this point is because MS would squeal anti-trust (which is perhaps their aim with these games, get an excuse to squeal anti-trust monopoly abuse since 75% of smartphones are Android these days).
for a long time, seamonkey with adblock, NoScript and a video downloader extension, to hell with advertising, that crap is everywhere, radio & television, billboards on both sides of the road, i cant open my eyes anymore without being bombarded with spamvertising, i am making my internet experience as addfree as possible because advertising is just about omnipresent everywhere else,
so i would like to say: "fuck all you advertisers right in your balloon knots i hope you all die miserable & painful deaths" (and that includes you too microsoft i seen too much of your advertising on TV already
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
That does not remove the ads...
more important than that
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CWxefp-K1U&feature=player_detailpage
Now its up to google to remove the fucking dumb ads in skype that microsoft trashed up the program with.
msn messenger sucked because it looked like fucking aol with all the ads.... and now skype is the same pile of white trash.
I would love to see how Google, after making everyone else's content available for free, is going to try to argue for protecting their own content.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
If Google doesn't decide to ignore this, I would suggest they license the rights to the Rick Aston video, detect if the connection is coming from this software and RickRoll anyone using it.
The total market however more than doubled in that time. Apple is still gaining market. It's just losing it's fractional share of unit sales.
If instead you measure the market in revenue, rather than unit sales. Then apple is rising in fractional market share. Moreover It's margins are also vastly higher. So in terms of profit it has a majority of the market.
There have been extensions for this, on various browsers, for years. I don't see how this is sticking anything to Google when any idiot user can install a few extensions to his browser and get the same result.
Not news. More like Olds.
For years downloading the flv file and then watching it in mplayer was the only way to watch youtube videos on Linux, because the Adobe flash player was unwatchable and drained batteries in minutes.
The download occurs as a result of viewing it. The download button really just saves the download as a file.
Don't agree to the terms, then no service. Still trying to force service? Well now you've violated the terms of service.
And guess what, as far as the courts are concerned, playing a video is the same as copying. And now you've trigged copyright law too. You just did something to circumvent copyprotection, well Google can now beat Microsoft over the head with DMCA.
Given that prosecutors in the US have gone berzerk on private persons with the most ridiculous "hacking" and "wire fraud" and whatnot claims, will we get to see the same sort of idiocy brought into position against Microsoft?
Actually, it would be nice to see that as it is unlikely that Microsoft would budge at a "plea deal, or $10000000 in defense cost or 25 years in the slammer" blackmail, and so maybe there would come to be some legal precedence against that sort of shit.
On the other hand, prosecutors are self-serving career-advancing cowards, so they probably won't pick a tough target like that.
Tell that to Ghengis Khan or Alexander (remember that Persian empire that stretched from India to Mesopotamia).
The good the men do is oft interred with their bones, but the evil that men do lives on.
A company and a society are judged and remembered by what they build and not what they destroy.
Seriously, are you Godwin-trolling?
Fine, let me oblige you: highways.
(If you don't get it: bless your innocent soul)
We are discussing TOS and not even a single star trek joke?.
So it will be like AdBlocker and Keep it! on a PC, right?
Lock in is a common argument, but the data does not support it. The reason they are failing is the market went mobile and their mobile software sucked. It's really ad simple as that.
As MS chose to distribute it, they have then agreed to it.
And if we can ignore any terms of service if we don't bother to read it, does that mean we can also ignore the EULA as it is the terms of service MS puts on Windows?
The real cash cow here is the 30% of every Apple Store sale that Apple rakes in for just sitting there.
That is what has been the driving force behind Microsoft and the development of Windows 8. They have been watching that 30% of every app sold, and they are salivating. Windows RT is the clue. The quantity of software sold for Windows computers is jaw dropping. If Microsoft can wrangle 30% of that whole market by forcing themselves in as the middleman it will be a HUGE tsunami of dollars.
As an observer to this my question is: Will enough people fall into the trap that they can convert the whole market? You have an OS that is only optimized as a handheld interface and it is being rammed down the throats of every person trying to buy the "updated version" of the most entrenched desktop OS in the world.
Maybe the revolt against the useless desktop interface will change the direction things appear to be heading but the direction of the majority of people makes no sense to me anyway.
And maybe the unbelievably lame and irritating commercial of stupid dancing kids pretending to do business will go away. They aren't selling a single unit to business with a commercial like that. They are just making them change the channel.
This removes the video ads that play prior to the main video. The onscreen popups may still appear. Someone else please verify.
Slashdot wants me to do all the work of coming up with a user name, thinking up a password, finding a place to write that password down, submitting all my content for free and then has the nerve to serve ads on their web site. And mods me down when I am the only one making any sense! Screw them, I'm moving over to Facebook.
I don't see adds with it either way. I guess my add blocking in Firefox is enough.
Oh no! Google will make 0.001% less this month!
I don't see adds with it either way. I guess my add blocking in Firefox is enough.
Do you also block subtracts?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Windows 8 tablets have, what, 2% of the market? It might be a while before Google even notices!
I'm sure this is one, and Microsoft is opening themselves up for a suit.
at least, that's what MS is saying de facto. And I guess that's also the opinion of the BSA which MS is part of.
How could a story of MS and google turn into a apple bashing in the comments.. ????
Great way to get your account locked/deleted...
Microsoft app strips ads; adds download = evil!
No-name dev app strips ads; adds download = hurrah!
They should implement the same functionality in a Windows 8 (Windows Store) app. Furthermore, if the user clicks a link to a youtube video in an email or app the OS should launch the app instead of the browser. Now that would be awesome.
Here's the thing - it's like the GPL. You never have to accept it, but if you don't you have no right to copy or modify what it protects and you run afoul of copyright.
Likewise you can ignore the youtube ToS - but then you have no right to download the content (youtube is using their limited copyright to allow you to stream/download, but only if you accept the ToS).
Can't wait to see if the **IA's decide this if the Win8 app w/download button has significant non-infringing uses, or decide it doesn't and call the lawyers....
Debian - the wellknown Linux distribution - did the same on the last stable version just recently released, Wheezy - http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/
The addon Adblock Plus is installed and enabled by default on the Iceweasel (ie Firefox) browser, with EasyList filter activated :
http://i.imgur.com/g0pMEaX.png - http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=693160
Even if I use some ads and tracking blockers, too (when there are animated banners, or sound, or to protect my privacy), IMHO it should be only the user who decides to put them, not the OS supplier, because it has an incidence on the web sites and numeric economy...
> You shall not download any Content unless you see a “download” or similar link displayed by YouTube
But ... I do see a "download" button, on every YouTube page, I think it's right next to the like and dislike buttons.
And I agree: Absolutely standard. Oh, and you left out the standard, built-in firefox sync. Or that I'm using 17ESR so that I have the same profiles even from my 10.5 PPC macs that don't officially support it but still work (TenFourFox).
I've had that download button from YouTube for years. Is that EULA implying that they'll remove it?
Sitck it to the man! now wait what?