YouTube shuts down ad-blocker loophole, tightens restrictions

A hot potato: YouTube is once again cracking down on those who use ad blockers. The Google-owned company has been implementing measures to combat third-party extensions for years, and it has just closed a loophole that allowed the likes of Firefox to circumvent these protections.

YouTube’s fight against ad blockers began with an experiment in May 2023, when it started warning users that ad blockers were not allowed on the site. Since then, the campaign has evolved to the point where YouTube prevents ad-blocker users from playing videos.

Despite YouTube’s efforts, there have been loopholes allowing apps such as Firefox and various extensions to continue bypassing ads without YouTube detecting the practice.

Unfortunately for those who had been exploiting these workarounds, YouTube now appears to have closed them down. 9to5Google reports that many users are once again seeing warnings stating that ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube, and that they are violating YouTube’s terms of service.

According to the many Reddit posts discussing the latest change, not everyone is being affected – at least not yet. It appears those in Southeast Asia and Europe are still managing to avoid YouTube’s ads using the same ad-blocking methods. It could be that YouTube is slowly rolling out the update globally.

This crackdown is just the latest one from YouTube. Expect a new way to avoid ads to appear in due course, at which point the company will find a way to stop it, continuing the unending game of whack-a-mole.

It was only in March that YouTube introduced a new anti-ad-blocker policy to push viewers back to watching ads. It affected those using Opera GX with the uBlock Origin extension. There were also some instances of Firefox users seeing the warnings at the time.

YouTube offers users two options in their warning banners: disable the ad-blocker or try YouTube Premium for an ad-free experience. The standard premium subscription is $14 per month. There’s also Premium Lite, which offers ad-free viewing for most videos (though they are coming to Shorts), for $8 per month.

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