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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.
If you don't have a youtube downloader in your browser, it's because you don't want one. And if you're seeing ads in youtube it's because you're not using adblock plus.
Youtube is supposed to paywall some premium content soon, which is fine. I'm not watching it anyway, so I'm not downloading it either. The kind of stuff I download from youtube mostly involves documentaries on subjects like Waco or what kids are eating, and I'm not also streaming it, so there's really no good reason for them to try to stop me.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Not to be mean to you personally, but we don't fucking care. Just like we don't fucking care that ABC doesn't like us recording shows on our DVRs and watching them later without having to suffer through the horrible, loud, insulting-to-the-intelligence ads. We don't care that Sony and BMG want us to buy entire CDs of music, rather than download songs, or worse yet, find other music to listen to.
So, if your profession is making videos, and your income is based on ads played during those videos on a communal website, you may want to think of a better revenue stream. This one isn't going to last, whether Microsoft can pull this off or not.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Theoretically...
There are ways to blackhole ad servers at the router, if you use DDWRT or openWRT, assming MS hasn't deeply rolled the ad server In with the live server.
This means that you could inject alternatives to adverts and movie files, based on the structure of the query, and the remote IP. Eg, you could put a "no" sign around a $, in place of static image ads, and a "static screen loop" in place of streaming video ads. Unless the MS dash does some kind of data hash checking, it would display the downloaded content instead of the intended adverts.
(Makes you wonder if you could force MS xboxes to display trojanized swf files, or trojanized EMF or TIFF files, for clandestine execution jumping fun....)
I haven't tested this, and it is clearly against MS's ToS, (which as worded, says you cant even have wireshark running at the same time your xbox is turned on, let alone meddle with the replies the box gets.)
Danger if MS does a super dick move, like double verify image checksums of adverts the console downloads, and if "known surrogates/malware" are detected, ban the console though.
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.
No, they really don't owe it to you.
How much do you pay Google anyway, and for what? Most people pay only by consuming the increasingly-obnoxious ads. I think the ads on youtube are atrocious. But I'm pretty sure they do not, in fact, owe you an ad-free youtube. What are you, majority shareholder?
I pay a lot of money for my Internet service. Doesn't mean they owe me grocery delivery, or any other random thing I'd like and that their service happens to enable in a tangential way.
Youtube can say whatever they want. Whether it is enforceable is another matter.
Saving a YouTube video for later playback on your own machine (i.e. not distributing) is simply "time shifting"... time shifting has been tried time and time again in the courts and it is settled law. What legally comes to your device can be saved and played back at a later date (aka "taping" and now "downloading") and Google can TOS till the cows come home but no TOS ever written and tested in court has ever abridged the right of anyone at any time to time shift.
In other words, download all you want. Rip it to DVDs/CDs. Play it back a million times. Put it on all your devices. There's not a goddamned thing Google, or anyone, can do to stop you... they can add stuff to their TOS from now until doomsday but it does not matter in the least.
Re-distribution is another matter of course.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
fine... open your wallet... takers are SOOOO annoying.
I fucking wish I could pay as little to watch a TV show or movie as a comparable set of ads would return in revenue for being in front of my eyeballs.
Instead, some dickhead thinks I should pay ~5-10 cents a minute to watch one episode of his TV show. Naturally, 1080p costs twice as much too.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
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.