YouTube's new anti-adblock measures

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mcdeltat ◴[21 Jun 25 01:21 UTC] No.44333721[source]▶

I recently stopped watching youtube altogether and surprisingly haven't been missing it. And I used to watch a LOT (like hours per day) of youtube, mostly quality educational/scientific content. But ultimately you'd be surprised how much you don't need in your life. And side effect is no more ads. If someone sends me an occasional youtube video to watch, I'll take a look, but otherwise no engagement with the platform.

I'd highly recommend everyone try reducing their intake of passive entertainment like youtube and redirecting that time towards more creative or mindful pursuits.

replies(12): >>44333759 #>>44333869 #>>44333888 #>>44333939 #>>44333942 #>>44334056 #>>44334471 #>>44334568 #>>44334750 #>>44334783 #>>44334859 #>>44336871 #

1. memset ◴[21 Jun 25 02:16 UTC] No.44333942[source]▶

>>44333721 #

What do you do with all the extra time? How do you keep from sliding back?

replies(4): >>44333984 #>>44334145 #>>44334382 #>>44334997 #

2. alexjplant ◴[21 Jun 25 02:24 UTC] No.44333984[source]▶

>>44333942 (TP) #

I install the "Undistracted" extension in all of my Brave instances. In addition to having the ability to block arbitrary URLs it has many site-specific options like blocking YouTube recommendations or the LinkedIn timeline, all of which I ruthlessly enable. You can also set it to only work on certain days and times of the week. It's immensely useful.

I also pay for Kagi which has the ability to block certain domains from results. I'd imagine that blocking Instagram, Reddit, Youtube, etc. would also prevent rabbit-holing.

3. joshvm ◴[21 Jun 25 03:00 UTC] No.44334145[source]▶

>>44333942 (TP) #

Top tip from using only high-latency satellite internet for long periods: add a significant delay to every request to problematic sites. As soon as the dopamine loop is broken, you'll find the wait so frustrating that you won't bother.

replies(1): >>44334575 #

4. adzm ◴[21 Jun 25 04:00 UTC] No.44334382[source]▶

>>44333942 (TP) #

Wait you people have extra time?!?

5. safety1st ◴[21 Jun 25 04:43 UTC] No.44334575[source]▶

>>44334145 #

I love this idea, what sort of technical methods do you have in mind for implementing it?

replies(1): >>44337275 #

6. mcdeltat ◴[21 Jun 25 06:13 UTC] No.44334997[source]▶

>>44333942 (TP) #

I started reading again. Which has been quite enjoyable after the initial bump of "reading is boring compared to <favourite new video content>". Also putting more time into things I know I find more rewarding. And sometimes, just doing nothing much is nice as a brain break.

7. joshvm ◴[21 Jun 25 13:03 UTC] No.44337275{3}[source]▶

>>44334575 #

I imagine there are tools that will artificially slow down requests.

The lazy way would be to VPN somewhere as far away as possible and throttle your bandwidth. That would get you 250ms of round trip latency for free. In Antarctica we had up to 3000ms on a bad day. You learn to do stuff offline, build from source instead of download compiled binaries and use Kiwix. Nowadays it's less of an issue because you can ask LLMs questions and have them search for you and all you need to transfer is text. Much much easier than loading heavy websites.

This app looks fun: https://jagt.github.io/clumsy/index.html (randomly interferes with your packets)

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