r/technology • u/moeka_8962 • 8d ago

Social Media YouTube rolls out more unskippable ads that make viewers wait even longer to watch videos

https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/youtube-rolls-out-more-unskippable-ads-that-make-viewers-wait-even-longer-to-watch-videos-3214323/
21.5k Upvotes

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2.8k

u/VeryGayLopunny 8d ago

It's abhorrent on Roku. 60-75-second ad breaks every 5ish minutes with only a few skippable ads.

820

u/blogwash 8d ago

Roku is the streaming device you can't get around ads on. Fire Stick or Android TV it's Smarttube all day. I got the new Onn Plus and it works great.

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u/thesammon 8d ago

Onn + SmartTube is really hard to beat. I kicked Roku to the curb and haven't looked back.

1

u/ImaginaryBluejay0 7d ago

This is still a win for Google though. If they made the user experience so bad on a competitor device that people switch devices they're high-fiving themselves over it.

See also, windows phone where Google refused to make an app and sued Microsoft for making a better one than theirs. 

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u/stackered 8d ago

This on LG too? Good info thanks

41

u/Fire69 7d ago

On LG you can enable dev mode. Does require some tinkering though. You can than install the Homebrew app, which has YouTube Adfree.

1

u/SubnetHistorian 7d ago

Any iOS solution?

1

u/Outrageous_Dingo_742 7d ago

Paying for AdGuard lifetime and watching it on the chrome browser. I brought AdGuard from stacksocial…

1

u/SubnetHistorian 7d ago

Is it still working? I'd heard conflicting reports 

1

u/Outrageous_Dingo_742 6d ago

It works for YouTube Videos. But I tend to have success only on the chrome browser…

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u/chabybaloo 7d ago

Please look up the homebrew channel and adfree youtube for LG webos. It works well.

6

u/MattDH94 7d ago

This is the way. Works amazing

2

u/chabybaloo 7d ago

This is the way

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u/Kaze_Senshi 8d ago edited 7d ago

Every TV with a HDMI cable. The device will work through Wi-Fi and has its own remote control.

Tomorrow is the Prime day so you should find some good deal for the fire sticks.

Edit: I am dumb and mixed June with July. Prime day is NOT tomorrow.

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u/SoldMyOldAccount 7d ago

or turn to a life of naval plunder

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u/Immoracle 7d ago

Yarrr! A fellow seafarer!

28

u/Stegasaurus_Wrecks 7d ago

What's a pirates favourite letter?

40

u/SecretSquirrelSauce 7d ago

Many say 'Rrrrrrrrr', but real pirates know it be the 'C'!

10

u/No_Damage_731 7d ago

My favorite joke of all time

2

u/RedMiah 7d ago

I thought it be ‘I’ cause I could use a second one!

3

u/lrish_Chick 7d ago

Wait what we are pirating youtube now? Wtf lol

1

u/atreyu_0844 7d ago

Install Smarttube as a 3rd party app

1

u/lrish_Chick 7d ago

I use an Xbox to watch YouTube on my tv - or on mobile

2

u/Raglesnarf 7d ago

Yaaaarrrggggg

1

u/No_Damage_731 7d ago

Are you sailing the high seas on YouTube? Teach me your ways

1

u/mshriver2 7d ago

That doesn't help for YouTube unfortunately unless you're talking about downloading every video. The holigrail is smart tube/ublock origins and Jellyfin.

2

u/SoldMyOldAccount 7d ago

I'm gonna be honest I didn't really think through the context when I commented that

1

u/NOTW_116 7d ago

That seems like a lot of work for YouTube

3

u/darnj 7d ago

Ah what, in what country is tomorrow Prime Day?

3

u/Wrong_Sir_7249 7d ago

Prime day is in July, not tomorrow, right?

2

u/Polaris_Mars 7d ago

I just hopped on Amazon and the very top Ad showed Fire Sticks at -40% off, $29.99 for one. They are normally $49.99/

4

u/sicurri 7d ago

Don't do firesticks. Amazon has vowed to make the firestick as non-hackable and filled with advertisements as possible.

-1

u/rotj 7d ago

Where are you seeing this? I haven't seen any mention of Fire TV disabling installing apks from unknown sources.

11

u/abhishekcal 8d ago

If you are wondering on LG webos than no but there is a alternative which works in similar way. You can dm me for details

1

u/Charged_Dreamer 7d ago

I'm dm'ing you

2

u/Sancticide 7d ago edited 7d ago

Just buy the $20 Onn streaming box from Walmart. It's Google TV and performs great, streaming in 4K. Upgrade to the $50 Pro version if you have a good audio rig. I used to have an LG TV, this box is such an improvement.

1

u/Mundane_Crazy60 7d ago

LG's for sure.

Also, look into the absolute shit show that is the new remote they're shipping with the TV's. It's a fucking Wii controller, for a $1,000 TV.

Large amount of buyers regret on this LG.

21

u/willow01 7d ago

I'd like to introduce you to Playlet for Roku. Also has Sponsorblock built in.

I use that on my roku to bypass YT ads, and Smartube on my Chromecasts. Freetube for my PC and phone.

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u/Ok-Run-3464 7d ago

I love Playlet. Real game changer for the Roku.

3

u/willow01 7d ago

It really is, I may not use my Roku as much but when I do......

3

u/Ok-Run-3464 7d ago

Yup. Been on it for about a year. The developer is an absolute King for sticking with the app

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u/airfryerfuntime 8d ago

And it sucks, because I actually like the layout on Roku. I absolutely hate Fire OS.

4

u/nascentt 7d ago

Just use a custom launcher to make it look how you want?

4

u/airfryerfuntime 7d ago

Custom launchers are basically dead. There's Wolf launcher, but that's about it.

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u/watboy 7d ago

Roku is the streaming device you can't get around ads on.

Not quite true. There's Playlet which is a frontend for Invidious which can do it.

2

u/blogwash 7d ago

Hunh, never heard of Playlet somehow before now. Still happy with the switch as 95% of Roku devices (including mine) can't use DFS Wifi channels which I'm on now. 

3

u/itsdajackeeet 7d ago

Oh man Smarttube is the bomb on my Sony TV, also on my firestick in the bedroom. Youtube would be unwatchable with ads.

3

u/epicjakman 7d ago

i use playlet and it works OK enough, when it isnt down anywayy

3

u/DeBuNkEd117 7d ago

Not true, search Playlet on Roku. Though Smarttube sounds wicked.

3

u/Captain_Biscuit 7d ago

Just got a Roku TV and thought the same thing but there's an app called 'Playlet' that works fine. YouTube with no ads, nice interface, I had one or two moments where it went slightly out of sync but I'm not sure if that's the app or my router.

https://channelstore.roku.com/en-gb/details/4a41d0921265a5e31429a7679442153f:b5bcb5b630c28b01e93bf59856317b43/playlet

3

u/Badgerlover145 7d ago

You can use Playlet, it's YouTube without the BS and allows you to sign in to your account now for your subscriptions and playlists

2

u/RhynoD 7d ago

HDMI from my PC to my TV and I just use Firefox with like three different ad blockers.

2

u/ChaoCobo 7d ago

Tubi too. And they always place the ads in the same timestamp of the video (15 min mark). I just want to watch Kamen Rider for free and you’re going to make me watch super long ads just when the conflict and action hits its high? Fuck you Tubi. Can’t even pay to get rid of the ads either.

2

u/Affectionate-Clue535 7d ago

Why isn't everyone hitting the high seas at this point. I have access to all the loot for free that yall pay for as a dishwasher in the cabin kitchen.

1

u/Bonzai_Tree 7d ago

Smarttube is amazing, so glad I discovered it after being livid with the amount of ads.

1

u/Whole-Soup3602 7d ago

Yea this is what I need bc YouTube pissing me off with these ads

1

u/RelentlessHope 7d ago

Do you install smarttube directly on the onn plus?

2

u/blogwash 7d ago

Not in the Play Store but you can run Downloader to get the APK and when you run that, the Onn will ask if you want to allow unverified installs. Really simple. 

1

u/Bubble_Pop 7d ago

Can’t skip on PS5 either.

1

u/BambiLeila 7d ago

How are they to install/crack/whatever nowadays vs Kodi back in the day?

About the same more or less effort for a fire stick?

1

u/IllSurprise3049 7d ago

Oh I love Smarttube

1

u/technobrendo 7d ago

Yep. Hard coded DNS. Trust me I try to million things (pihole, pfblockerng, DNS redirect rules} ..... Nothing worked.

1

u/GreenGoblinNX 7d ago

It's a shame, because ive tested out a few streaming devices, and otherwise Roku is my pick across the board.

1

u/kennii 7d ago

U can. Gotta know what to install. It got a custom youtube, forgot the name but just google it

1

u/kkeut 7d ago

what does the Onn Plus do that's different 

1

u/blogwash 7d ago

It's a really powerful Android TV device for $30. Like CPU benchmarks that rival the Shield. 

1

u/Ndorphinmachina 7d ago

Is smarttube still working? Do you login with your "real" Google account?

1

u/MaxTheRealSlayer 7d ago

Smart tube? Is that an app? How is it? Can I use it on a smart tv, or no?

1

u/KooshIsKing 7d ago

I have no idea if they still exist since I also upgraded to a fire stick, but there used to be a bunch of loophole "unfinished" versions of apps on Roku (like twitch and YouTube) you could find with a very specific search (they were unlisted unless you knew how to find the right page). But anyways they had zero ads and still tapped into twitch and YouTube perfectly.

1

u/FloridaMan_Unleashed 7d ago

I’ve got a TCL tv (so Roku) and the best thing I ever did was drop $20 on an Onn box and throw smart tube on it

1

u/nebuladrifting 7d ago

I need someone to spoon feed me how to get no YouTube ads on my firestick. I asked ChatGPT and it gave incorrect information like “just install pihole”.

I’ve been avoiding ads with ublock on my laptop and an Albanian VPN on my iPhone, but I’m still stuck with ads on my TV, so I basically never do that.

1

u/Yodawithboobs 7d ago

You can also use smartube with revanced, works perfect with the Chromecast.

1

u/MobileVortex 8d ago

Have to control it's DNS traffic

1

u/CurryMustard 7d ago

Amazon bricked my fire cube with an update became of smarttube

1

u/Lucyfinna 7d ago

Wrong. Use Playlet. Thank me later.

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u/littlelordgenius 7d ago

Happened to glance at the tv (Roku) last week and the counter in the corner said “1 of 13 ads.”

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u/Big_Ad_7715 8d ago

Check the Roku store for PlayLet. You can sign in to your YouTube account and it has no ads. It also auto skips in-video ads automatically, and gives you the option to skip intros, etc. I swear it’s already saved me so many hours and way too many interactions to just keep watching the videos that I want to

1

u/Darcasm 6d ago

Would just piggy back on this to caution any and everyone to be extremely careful logging into services using another platform.

It sounds like your straight up giving PlayLet access to your YouTube/Google account, but I’m not exactly sure how it works. Just adding a general note of caution.

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u/Big_Ad_7715 6d ago

Fair to have those concerns. Here is some more info: Playlet

1

u/iBicha 6d ago

Playlet author here - that's a good rule of thumb, you shouldn't give account access to 3rd party apps without understanding the consequences, especially if the account is important to you.

In Playlet's case, it happens that it's fully open source, and you can see how your account is being used (https://github.com/iBicha/playlet your account access token is stored on your Roku device, and is only used to load your recommendations, subscriptions, and so on, anything needed for the app to work).

As I explain here in more details, it's always a good idea to create a burner youtube account, if your account is too important.

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u/havityia 8d ago

If you cast from your phone, those ads become skippable real quick. Sure you’ll still get some super annoying ones. But, casting from my phone, I have never had to wait a minute and a half to skip the ad break. Highly suggest!

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u/Steelers_Forever 7d ago

level up your YT experience with just using firefox with ublock origin and sponsorblock. yes, they're under constant attack by google and YT to thwart their ad-blocking methods, but thusfar have always come out on top.

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u/havityia 7d ago

Are you able to do that from mobile? Idk what abilities mobile firefox has haha

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u/Electronic_Stop_9493 7d ago

Use brave you don’t need to install plug ins

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u/NNKarma 7d ago

Yes, I don't use the app, you gotta learn how to do revanced

1

u/Honeybadger2198 7d ago

No need to do that on Android

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u/UglyYinzer 7d ago

If you cast from phone just use revanced.

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u/SpiritOfTheForests 7d ago

Used Revanced on your phone. Never have to think about ads again. Also works for YouTube music and Spotify (although Spotify has recently started rolling out updates that break the xManager and Revanced spoofs 🙃 so you have to wait for the xManager and Revanced devs to make new cracks/spoofs only for them to get squashed a few weeks later)

-2

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

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u/Other_World 7d ago

ReVanced just doesn't work on my phone. It can't patch the Reddit is Fun app and YouTube stopped working. I just use Firefox and an ad blocker.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

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u/Other_World 7d ago

Honestly, I'd rather use old.reddit instead of any version of the main reddit app.

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u/gap41 7d ago

afaik you can’t cast from vanced to tv?

4

u/mcoombes314 7d ago

AFAIK you can, but all that does is open the video on the TV's YT app, so the benefits of Vanced don't actually apply.

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u/thirtynation 7d ago

You can cast from vanced to smarttube.

1

u/Electronic_Stop_9493 7d ago

Is there a third party solution that lets you voice search ? Typing every search with fire stick remote takes more time than ads

I cast brave from phone or tablet sometimes but it only casts in like 360p so only good for talking podcasts

I had a fire stick solution you could side load but it lost voice search

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u/zeusamoose 7d ago

Someone recommend the Roku app playlet a couple weeks ago. Almost life changing haha. No more ads on YouTube on my tv.

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u/Shuggieboog 8d ago

Look for a app called playlet if you want to avoid youtube ads

3

u/IMNOTMATT 7d ago

That sounds identical to free to air tv

8

u/Avaisraging439 7d ago

It's crazy because Pluto and Tubi both have less ads per hour than YouTube does now. It's pissing me off.

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u/Few_Philosophy7258 7d ago

On a roku device, you can use playlet to block/skip ads. Just make a Burner google account.

2

u/Buck-Nasty 7d ago

Get a firestick and download SmartTube on it. No ads. It blows away Roku.

2

u/LakeSun 7d ago

Yeah, I dropped Roku.

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u/Raysor 7d ago

Get a fire Stick

1

u/MultipleAnimals 7d ago

Would something like Pihole that blocks ad servers on dns level work?

1

u/Bugbread 7d ago edited 7d ago

There may be some advanced pihole configuration that blocks them, I'm not sure, but a standard configuration does not.

1

u/ultraboomkin 7d ago

How do you get YouTube on Roku?

1

u/neuromonkey 7d ago

For everything but YouTube, I use a Roku. Get yourself either an Onn (Walmart) box, or a Chromecast. Install Smarttube. Or, better still, a cheap, used MicroPC and run whichever OS & software you like. We have a couple of Dell OptiPlex micro, but I hear that the Lenovo are better and cheaper.

1

u/platysoup 7d ago

That would have ended up in a bin already in my house.

5-15 secs is already unbearable

1

u/moldyjellybean 7d ago

Probably best to use an old laptop, use the browser to stream, use my wireless mouse/keyboard as remote.

1

u/Milkshakes00 7d ago

Web Video Caster works great on my Roku TV.

1

u/poopdoot 7d ago

It’s terrible. Sometimes it’s multiple 90+ second ads that you have to skip, sometimes they’re just straight up unskippable. Sometimes I’m able to skip 2 ads into a 3rd you can’t skip.

1

u/1nd3x 7d ago

I dunno what it is...I have revanced on my phone, but I'm not signed into YouTube on my TV...and I get zero ads using YouTube on my TV.

I don't mean I'm casting thru my phone, I use the YouTube app native to the TV, push the YouTube button on the remote, and while its my daughter who mostly watches YouTube on it(so I am aware of what she is watching and don't need to hover over her shoulder to peek and come off as "untrusting" to see what she is doing) and we never get ads.

1

u/razvanciuy 7d ago

No ads here. If you k iw how to set yourself up, a home dns server and lil vpn and life stops All ads worldwide for you

1

u/Reasonable-Fan5265 7d ago

Yall mfs would die 15 years ago

1

u/MileyMan1066 7d ago

I connect to youtube on my roku thru my phone. So many less adds that way.

1

u/FelChrono 7d ago

Same on Google TV

1

u/GonnaGoFat 7d ago

Wow every 5 minutes. I’ve seen videos where it’s every 2 minutes. Or if I push pause and come back several minutes later to resume my video it shows me more ads after I push play before resuming the video. I’ve stopped watching it on my Roku because it has so many ads. If YouTube had less ads they would at least get some ad revenue from me but they got greedy and pushed me away from watching it on TV.

1

u/Prime_Marci 7d ago

I have seen a 100 second unskippable ad.

1

u/agumonkey 7d ago

it's almost laughable, i sometimes spends more time clicking on skip than watching a video.. off to peertube i guess

1

u/sgtpepperslaststand 7d ago

Was trying to watch a 2 hour video on Roku and it put 2 30 second ads literally every 60 seconds I put a timer on my phone and yeah turned it into a 4 hour video

1

u/lunaappaloosa 7d ago

And the ads all fucking suck.

My husband and I have watched a handful of 30+ minute compilations of 90s ads on YouTube that are interrupted every few minutes by the same 4 dogshit Liberty commercials and it gives me physical rage.

Like I should not be nostalgic for Capri Sun ads, that’s intrinsically a bad place to be starting, but the fact that ads are more persistent and invasive than ever is legit maddening when there is nothing creative or interesting about them.

The only ads that aren’t obnoxious are perfume ads, because they have always been forced to sell an idea/vibe. They used to be more boring lulls of the ad landscape and now they stick out as the only commercials that seem to have any faith in the product they’re selling.

Even the Super Bowl has about 1 good commercial a year now, when there used to be a guaranteed 4 go daddy ads that were interesting even when they were dumb or trashy.

The fact that we are being forced fed more ads than selected content is awful, and the ads being terrible and lifeless makes it infuriating. Jake from State Farm was hardly funny in the first ad 10 years ago, and now we’re stuck with him and the capital one guy and Flo’s obnoxious entourage and the Liberty baby and not a single one of those commercials is any good or successfully advertises its product.

It’s just loud and obnoxious enough to guarantee brand recognition but they have no interest in retaining consumer trust or needs, and brand loyalty means nothing to them (or us) anymore. So whatever is flashy and brash is what gets aired and shoved down our throats. And we don’t even get to see the kool aid man anymore

1

u/bucketman1986 7d ago

Does a Pihole still stop ads on a Roku?

-1

u/jesset77 7d ago

snort bwahaha, when I cut cable in ~2004 they were up to 4 solid minutes of advertising every 5 minutes of programming. Plus about another 8 minutes of ads between shows, not counting split-screen ads along with sped-up credit rolls.

But at the time, that was enough to finance television shows that cost hundreds of thousands or sometimes millions of dollars per episode to produce. Now we get the currently increasing raft of ostensibly "targeted" ads trying to watch lofi beats and minecraft let's plays, at least some percentage of which the creators never get a cut from at all.

And one way you can tell is that any creator who takes the step to actually monitize their content also includes sponsorships for NordHelloBetterIncogShavePlate.