How to Turn Off YouTube Commercials?

[Siam_Sam]

YouTube has started this annoying thing where it will plays an ad in the middle of something. Showing one before the start of a video is one thing, but suddenly commercials have begun playing not only between songs on an album I’ve called up but sometimes right in the middle of a song!

I’ve tried unchecking Annotations in the cog while logged in, and that doesn’t work. And anyway, I can’t even find a cog unless I’m logged in. Is there any way to keep these commercials from playing? I’m not talking about pop-up ads, I mean real TV-style commercials suddenly playing.

[buddha_david]

AdBlock.

[CoastalMaineiac]

@Siam_Sam

YouTube has started this annoying thing where it will plays an ad in the middle of something. Showing one before the start of a video is one thing, but suddenly commercials have begun playing not only between songs on an album I’ve called up but sometimes right in the middle of a song!

I’ve tried unchecking Annotations in the cog while logged in, and that doesn’t work. And anyway, I can’t even find a cog unless I’m logged in. Is there any way to keep these commercials from playing? I’m not talking about pop-up ads, I mean real TV-style commercials suddenly playing.

I’ve been a user of AdBlock Plus for years. I didn’t even know YouTube had video ads for the longest time, until I watched a video from a friend’s computer.

If you are using Firefox or Chrome, it’s a free download.

[Siam_Sam]

Thanks. I’m using Firefox. I have some sort of ad blocker, but I guess it isn’t AdBlock per se. I’ll try that.

[Little_Pig]

@CoastalMaineiac

I’ve been a user of AdBlock Plus for years. I didn’t even know YouTube had video ads for the longest time, until I watched a video from a friend’s computer.

If you are using Firefox or Chrome, it’s a free download.

Thanks CoastalMaineiac!

[njtt]

Wow, online advertisers really seem determined to shoot their feet off. Ads playing in the middle of a song! I have resisted AdBlock up to now (though I use Flashblock, which seems to be teh only other way to prevent Flash animated ads), but at this rate I, and I should think many other people, will soon have to resort to full on AdBlock.

[Kenm]

@njtt

Wow, online advertisers really seem determined to shoot their feet off.

Like Google-YouTube gives a damn.

[Mangetout]

I would also recommend CleanTube (firefox extension, not sure if available for other browsers) - enables you to turn off whole sections like recommended videos etc.

[njtt]

@Kenm

Like Google-YouTube gives a damn.

You’re suggesting they don’t care whether people see their ads? :dubious:

I’d think that that is the one thing they very much do care about.

[Siam_Sam]

Thanks. AdBlock appears to have done the trick.

[aldiboronti]

I too was puzzled when people started mentioning YouTube ads. Once again I find myself indebted to Adblock Plus.

[Kenm]

@njtt

You’re suggesting they don’t care whether people see their ads?.

No, that Google doesn’t care how much people hate the ads, since ads and stalking users across the net are its raisons d’être.

Probably the next step will be to increase the number of ads, but that they would be avoided by registering and logging on. That way, Google can stalk users whether they are hit by ads or not.

I run Adblock in the iCab browser on my iPad, but Adblock doesn’t prevent ads from running on YouTube videos when they start. They can be skipped after three or four seconds, but I expect that to end only with registration.

Those ads don’t appear on my desktop computer, so it may not be Adblock that prevents them. More likely it’s Google and that it cares more about stalking mobiles because by now it knows where most of its stationary computer users are.

[njtt]

@Kenm

I run Adblock in the iCab browser on my iPad, but Adblock doesn’t prevent ads from running on YouTube videos when they start.

Apparently it works for several other people in this thread.

Google gains little out of being able to track you, if they cannot then show you ads.

[Siam_Sam]

@Kenm

Probably the next step will be to increase the number of ads, but that they would be avoided by registering and logging on. That way, Google can stalk users whether they are hit by ads or not.

I run Adblock in the iCab browser on my iPad, but Adblock doesn’t prevent ads from running on YouTube videos when they start. They can be skipped after three or four seconds, but I expect that to end only with registration.

I was getting the commercials even when I was logged into the YouTube site. AdBlock seems to be working so far. They just started for me a couple of weeks ago. They progressed – first one would play every now and then before the start of a video, then if I was playing an entire album, one would often start playing right in the middle of a song. Madness!

[Siam_Sam]

I think YouTube is trying to stymie me. Certain videos will freeze up permanently at about the same spot. The same videos, over and over, at the same spot, early on. I suspect, but don’t know, that it’s trying to force an ad on me, knows it can’t and so is freezing the video.

Not all videos. Just some. But consistently the same ones.

[Reply]

@Kenm

Those ads don’t appear on my desktop computer, so it may not be Adblock that prevents them. More likely it’s Google and that it cares more about stalking mobiles because by now it knows where most of its stationary computer users are.

It’s definitely adblock that does it. It probably just works differently on an iPad.

On Android, you can root the phone and block ads at the hosts file level, which seems to work. Not sure about iPad.

[Siam_Sam]

@Siam_Sam

I think YouTube is trying to stymie me. Certain videos will freeze up permanently at about the same spot. The same videos, over and over, at the same spot, early on. I suspect, but don’t know, that it’s trying to force an ad on me, knows it can’t and so is freezing the video.

Not all videos. Just some. But consistently the same ones.

Geez, what’s up with Adblock? I installed it as reported upthread, and it worked great. But then I started having the problem in the quote box above.

Finally a couple of weeks ago, the Internet stopped completely. We called our provider, they came out and checked the building and our connection. They declared everything was okay and that the problem must be the computer. Okay, it’s an old computer.

So I used the wife’s laptop in the meantime. All is well. Then today I installed Adblock on the laptop. Suddenly the Internet stopped working. I uninstalled Adblock, and the Internet returned. Hmmm.

I came over to the PC here and just now uninstalled Adblock. Voila! The Internet is back in full force. But now no more Adblock.

What is going on???

[Siam_Sam]

Gah! The old PC has lost the Internet again, so I’m back on the laptop. I uninstalled Adblock last night, and the PC accessed the Internet after that. After initially starting okay this morning, it quit again.

But the Internet did crap out on this laptop when I installed Adblock and returned when I uninstalled it. And I may not have completely uninstalled it on the PC since there’s still an Adblock symbol up on the browser albeit grayed out. (The PC didn’t seem to want it uninstalled when I first tried, and it was a chore to get it removed.)

Has anyone else had this problem with Adblock before? And now I have ads back.

[j_sum1]

I use adblock plus on chrome. It is installed as an extension (Go to settings, extensions, get more extensions.) I am not sure that it is the same product as adblock. But it works just fine.

If you are having difficulty in getting rid of something that hasn’t uninstalled properly, I think CCleaner does that.

[Siam_Sam]

Thanks. Will try that.

EDIT: Of course, I can’t download anything on the PC now because of no Internet access. I’ll try to download it here, then maybe use a flash drive to take it over there. This sounds tricky to a non-geek like myself.