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YouTube Reportedly Bypassing Ad Blockers On Google Chrome

Posted by samzenpus on 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."

12 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. Back to Firefox by Calydor · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

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    1. Re:Back to Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Back to Firefox by E-Rock · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Back to Firefox by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      I'm going back to Safari.

    4. Re: Back to Firefox by reve_etrange · · Score: 5, Informative

      This is false. The developer of NoScript says that they are working with him to make sure extensions may still alter native behavior.

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      .: Semper Absurda :.
  2. begun by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Funny

    the ad wars have

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    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  3. Only affects "Youtube app" in chrome by watermark · · Score: 5, Informative

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

    1. Re:Only affects "Youtube app" in chrome by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Which means it's probably not even intentional.

    2. Re:Only affects "Youtube app" in chrome by wimconradie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, I also just read that. Very misleading article and subject. The last paragraph says it only affects YouTube "app", so I feel it is a purposefully abuse of a catchy subject. At the uploader: Please change the subject!

    3. Re:Only affects "Youtube app" in chrome by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Informative

      It makes YouTube load faster by caching much of the HTML, CSS and images locally, and by having some of the Javascript pre-compiled. That's all Chrome apps are, just local caches for web sites that make them open faster.

      The extension API that is used by AdBlock doesn't allow extensions to screw with stuff cached in apps, for security reasons. Recently Google moved some of the advertising code from the YouTube site into the app, where it can't be blocked. So now AdBlock just removes the "skip advert" button, but not the ad delivery Javascript code itself because that bit is in the app.

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  4. Re:LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

  5. Re:LOL by Reaperducer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

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    -- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."