Can you remove ads from free YouTube app for iOS these days?
January 14, 2023 10:50 AM Subscribe
There are endless ads on YouTube (using my iPad or Android phone) these days. Can they be blocked? Or is it futile? There are ad blockers and I've tried a couple but I can't get them to work. I just read something that says YouTube has blocked ad blockers now for mobile devices (I have an ad blocker on my PC that works fine). What's the True Story about this?
Best answer: I use the brave browser on both ipad and android phone and do not have a problem with youtube. However, this means watching in the browser, instead of native app. Some of the slickness is lost and my ipad can't seem to keep me logged in for more than 10 days straight. But no ads.
posted by typetive at 11:47 AM on January 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by typetive at 11:47 AM on January 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: typetive, Brave is WONDERFUL! thank you!
posted by DMelanogaster at 12:00 PM on January 14, 2023
posted by DMelanogaster at 12:00 PM on January 14, 2023
The founder of Brave is a homophobic anti-vaxxer or at the very least a homophobic anti-Fauci douchebag. His name is Brendan Eich if you want to Google him.
posted by dobbs at 12:41 PM on January 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by dobbs at 12:41 PM on January 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
On Android you can use Firefox Mobile and install the uBlock Origin plugin.
posted by phil at 2:34 PM on January 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by phil at 2:34 PM on January 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
iPhone in-app browsers use a separate instance of Safari (a WebView) that is not subject to content blockers.
1Blocker, which I have no affiliation with but have used since content blocking became a thing on iOS years ago, in addition to Safari content blocking has a local VPN that filters all app connections, not just Safari content. It’s entirely on-device—it creates a VPN so it can filter out the requests to ad and tracker servers, but the VPN is on your device, not a remote server. I use that and do not get ads anywhere, including in-app browsers (which have problems of their own beyond content blocking—they can inject scripts into the page and track what sites you’re going to among other things).
posted by tubedogg at 4:46 PM on January 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
1Blocker, which I have no affiliation with but have used since content blocking became a thing on iOS years ago, in addition to Safari content blocking has a local VPN that filters all app connections, not just Safari content. It’s entirely on-device—it creates a VPN so it can filter out the requests to ad and tracker servers, but the VPN is on your device, not a remote server. I use that and do not get ads anywhere, including in-app browsers (which have problems of their own beyond content blocking—they can inject scripts into the page and track what sites you’re going to among other things).
posted by tubedogg at 4:46 PM on January 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
YouTube Premium eliminates the ads. You can set up a "family plan" and add people to your "Google family" to spread that ad free experience. It's like $12/month, which is a lot, but it is really nice to not deal with the ads if you use YouTube heavily. It solves the problem anywhere you are signed in, not just one device. Plus enabling Picture in Picture on iOS devices is handy. (BS that they locked that feature behind a paywall but alas).
I don't know if I would have bought this myself, but a friend signed up and added me to their family plan.
posted by JDHarper at 6:01 AM on January 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
I don't know if I would have bought this myself, but a friend signed up and added me to their family plan.
posted by JDHarper at 6:01 AM on January 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm using/testing Vavaldi and I haven't seen one ad on Youtube. But if a YT vid is embedded, I sometimes get unstoppable ads. Also, it's very easy to turn ad blocking on and off.
posted by james33 at 6:16 AM on January 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by james33 at 6:16 AM on January 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Can confirm that iThing ad blockers (Adblock Plus, at any rate) do absolutely nothing to block YT ads in the YT app. You click on a video, it opens in the app, and you're immediately hit by a SHOUTY AD FOR SOMETHING YOU DON'T WANT, which if you're me is panic-inducing and unpleasant enough that you immediately force-close the app and abandon the idea of watching the video.
I deleted the YT app some time ago for that reason - no point in having it installed if I couldn't stand to use it - and I was going to tell you that watching videos directly in Safari worked fine. But I just checked, and either they've recently changed something or the handful of videos I've seen there over the last year or so have coincidentally happened not to be carrying advertising. I searched, I clicked, and bam! SHOUTY AD FOR SOMETHING I DON'T WANT.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 6:58 AM on January 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
I deleted the YT app some time ago for that reason - no point in having it installed if I couldn't stand to use it - and I was going to tell you that watching videos directly in Safari worked fine. But I just checked, and either they've recently changed something or the handful of videos I've seen there over the last year or so have coincidentally happened not to be carrying advertising. I searched, I clicked, and bam! SHOUTY AD FOR SOMETHING I DON'T WANT.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 6:58 AM on January 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Vinegar app (app store link) works with Safari and I haven't seen any Youtube ads since. It's $1.99 and works perfectly.
posted by NoiselessPenguin at 7:14 AM on January 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by NoiselessPenguin at 7:14 AM on January 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Depending on your device and iOS version you may be able to jailbreak and install tweaks to block YouTube ads, but it's a rather fiddly process and these days the window for a workable jailbreak is quite narrow. This may change if/when the EU forces Apple to allow sideloading third-party software but that's still a few years off.
posted by Rhaomi at 11:29 PM on January 16, 2023
posted by Rhaomi at 11:29 PM on January 16, 2023
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I've noticed that in-app content doesn't seem to go through the blockers, even when they use embedded browsers.
The militant option might be to set up a PiHole at home, which would block the ads before they reach your device, regardless of what is asking (browser or app). I have no experience doing that myself, and it has different tradeoffs to doing it with a browser extension so there might be a learning curve involved. It wouldn't solve any on the road problems.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 11:00 AM on January 14, 2023 [1 favorite]