- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
- YouTube is testing server-side ad injection to counter ad blockers, integrating ads directly into videos to make them indistinguishable from the main content.
- This new method complicates ad blocking, including tools like SponsorBlock, which now face challenges in accurately identifying and skipping sponsored segments.
- The feature is currently in testing and not widely rolled out, with YouTube encouraging users to subscribe to YouTube Premium for an ad-free experience.
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If it’s built into the video I watch in mpv can’t I just skip?
Yep, can I play it at 2x speed or skip ahead? If not, then it’s the ad. At the very least blank the video and mute the sound. I’ll enjoy a moment to breath and consider if there’s something better I should be doing.
Forced quite breaks of nothing instead of adpocalyps Is such an unironic wholesome idea. Our brains really need that more.
Next up: all web pages are full resolution bitmap files.
Here’s an image viewer example with 0 exposed HTML elements (all UI rendered through a single canvas) and 0 human readable code (all client side code compiled to webassembly bytecode). Trying to block unwanted content in this kind of site would be closer to cracking a video game or patching an android app.
Nah, computer vision for standalone image processing (I mean, not batch processing dozens to thousands of files at the same time) today is pretty lightweight and can be done easily on consumer laptops and smartphones. It is just a different technique and takes people with different skills to do it, but completely doable. Gor example, even face detection AI models can run on your laptop, if AI can learn to classify faces, objects and animals it can learn to classify ads.
I’m surprised DRM’d wevpges haven’t been a thing until now.
Google was working on a feature that would do just that, but I can’t recall the name of it.
They backed down for now due to public outcry, but I expect they’re just biding their time.
Web environment integrity
They’re trying. Give them some time. Users will lap it up like idiots instead of just saying no.
Removed by mod
(I think that’s their goal, either ads or no watch)
Shhh. It is a huge “fuck you” to google to not use their bandwidth or servers for free. Not the actual goal of this.
They don’t want you if you’re not watching ads or paying money. They don’t want to give you bandwidth for free.
I’ll just write a greasemonkey script that detects unskippable time and mute audio. Let’s play this game google, fuckin I dare ya.
this one? https://gist.github.com/BrockA/2625891
what a time to be alive…
Ha, nope. But i see I’m not alone. There is hope dear people.
Youtube 2026: you are no longer allowed to skip ahead in videos in order to blend the video and ad “experience” together.
I’m pretty sure ads will likely be different audio level or light level that would be detectable. If there is no option to detect the ad via API that would be one way to know when the ads begin and end.
The idea here is that ads will be unskippable, aka, you skip ahead 10-20 seconds but can’t. They’re will be controls that appear to catch this. If they incorporate ads and I can just fast forward, then who cares. This is google, they want to watch ads.
Even if it becomes impossible to block the ads out I will cover my ears, close my eyes and shout ‘lalala’ to avoid them.
If it becomes impossible to block ads I’m blocking the site, because at that point it’s unbearable
An appropriate response to this nonsense.
Or use it to implement a script that just downloads the video and cuts the ads out entirely for later watching.
Or, failing any of those, a script that pops up a reminder that YouTube has unskippable ads so you can back out and just do something else with your time.
Can you have it replace the video screen portion with cat videos from another source during the unskippable part?
At this point you can just replace the video with the same video using a timestamped link from just before the ad started. Under IPv4 they can’t tell if it is the same person/device requesting the same video. So unless they put the ad at exactly the same timestamp (which they won’t) you can just blank out the video when an ad starts and replace the stream with the same video using the timestamp to start the view where you left off.
But think of the cats!!!
Sure, popover video of cute cats and turtles eating strawberries
Instant millions of installs
Only other thing I need is a button to click to pause the video once the ad is over because I’m going to the bathroom.
Why should I pay or watch ads to listen to someone tell me I need to • like and subscribe • who’s sponsoring them • a life story
… before getting to the small percentage of possible useful information therein?
I’ve taken to using Ai to summarize video content just to be able to review if the video even contains an answer or information which is relevant.
I know I’m just one use case, that I don’t watch a ton of other content. It’s usually how to do something or fix something or configuration of something. I’ve sat through countless ads and videos which just wasted my time and left me frustrated trying to find information.
Panning for gold through endless kaka.
I’ve taken to using Ai to summarize video content just to be able to review if the video even contains an answer or information which is relevant.
That sounds interesting. Could you tell me how? Using OpenAI api to summarize transcripts or something?
I’ll probably get hammered for this, but then again, you’ll have to pay for API access anyway. I’ve been testing out notegpt.io (not affiliated). Exactly because of my reasons listed, and because I often have to research or do trainings, I needed ways to save time and ‘sift’ through lots of information. I used to just play videos in say 1.5 speed, but even then it’s sometimes hard to stay focused or you might miss something and have to stop and go back. Sometimes language is a barrier too. Not to mention the ads. So for my own sanity, I’ve been testing that out. It’s been pretty damn good actually. I can get by on the lowest tier and you can try it free too. Again it’s not for everyone, but I’d rather give them money than Google for their Anti-customer behavior.
Go right ahead. If they actually manage to do it, that will be the end of my YouTube watching. Except on extremely rare occasions. I don’t need it badly enough to deal with that.
Same.
I’m excited for YouTube to end my YouTube addiction lol.
Please, Google. Do it. Dare ya.
I genuinely spend too much time on that site, but I haven’t seen an ad in years. If that changes, then I guess I’ll have to change, too.
I went to watch a diy video at work with chrome and was like WTF is this shit, the ads were so bad I walked back across the shop to get my phone and pull up the same video and started watching it before the video even started on the computer. Who in the hell can actually watch shit like that? It’s insane.
Hope folks will actually stick to claims such as this when the time comes
Go right ahead. If they actually manage to do it, that will be the end of my YouTube watching.
…
Except on extremely rare occasions.
I’m sorry, I just find it funny that you walked back the “I’m done with Youtube” claim in the very next sentence.
Unfortunately it is such a repository of information that it’s nearly unavoidable anymore. It’s a reference tool. Need to fix your car? YouTube knows how. Need to write a piece of code with a tool you’re unfamiliar with? A random Indian man has posted a YouTube video explaining how. Need to find a hidden item in a video game? YouTube. There are many and varied reasons I’d pull up a YouTube video outside of the intended purpose of “watching YouTube” for entertainment. Many of these things can, technically, be conveyed through different media but often poorly and with a much lower rate of understanding. The sheer volume of knowledge and culture lost if Google ever takes down YouTube’s servers will be akin to the burning of the Library of Alexandria and that is not a joke. I don’t want to “watch YouTube” anymore for the most part but it is inescapable to me for several purposes as a reference material.
I don’t think it can be completely avoided, but it can definitely be trimmed down a hell of a lot. As an example, if you watch YouTube for an hour a day and they make a change like this and you start watching it for 10 minutes a week, that’s a serious reduction.
Ngl, I’m torn on this because I’m honestly not sure I could stop using YouTube.
I hate ads with a burning passion, though, so we’ll see which wolf wins out there.
If i can’t get around this using something like SponsorBlock, I feel like I’ll probably just set up some kind of pipeline to download videos and remove the ads myself (maybe using AI if it’s that bad) and just serve them over Jellyfin or something. Gonna be a pain, though.
I wouldn’t particularly like it, that’s for sure. But I would ultimately just bite the bullet and do it. At some point, you’re just pushed too far and it’s just not worth dealing with.
As we learned from the reddit app changes, the ending of Netflix account sharing, etc etc the people who will take this action are few enough not to matter. Regretfully.
It does matter because it inspires newer platforms that aren’t as shitty like Lemmy, PixelFed, Mbin, and PeerTube.
We’re about to have a great big shattering of the internet and I’m all for it. Collating the pieces will be a pain in the ass for a couple years but some handful of nerds out there blessed by the spirit of Ritchie will create a tool for it, and what’s left of our world will be a better place for it.
This one’s on my bingo card.
Question, if a square on your bingo card is titled, “collapse of society,” can I still use it for this?
I’ve been just recommending Lemmy out there as the new internet, which us what this feels like to me, IS like the old internet again!
I don’t know about you, but what I learned is we’ll build our own Youtube with blackjack and hookers.
Well I don’t know about the Reddit stuff not mattering—I occasionally still check on it for a couple of niche communities and the Reddit I used to enjoy has basically died, it’s like the place is filled with angry idiots now. Those people were always there before but usually buried under a load of downvotes where you could mostly ignore them; they now seem to be a majority of those left contributing over there.
They killed the golden goose in scaring off enough of the people contributing most interesting posts and comments (who were doing it entirely for free!) that the lunatics have taken over and shat on everything
Everyone I’ve spoken to about it has noted that it’s become a very different place. I’ll still use it for reviews and getting tips for serious things like privacy and some basic DIY. But a lot of that advice will be obsolete in a couple years and very few people are replenishing it. Who’s going to give a shit about the best home theater setups of 2023 in two years?
That doesn’t matter to me. When a company does shit like this, I won’t use it and will actively avoid it. People can do what they want and if they want to be abused constantly that’s on them. I don’t really care. I make my choice and I stick with it. Change will never happen with companies, they don’t care unless they actually get charged more then the money they make from their abuse and we all know that will never happen .
People will accept anything to not be inconvenienced in a purely consumer society.
It’s Idiocracy
Bruh, in Idiocracy, they at least wanted to do the right thing, even if they were too dumb to do so.
How sad is it that Idiocracy overestimated people?
Each of these exoduses moves the bar a little bit. We only lose if we give up. Eventually the bad decisions will catch up to them, as long as we keep pushing.
Here is the thing though. Those of us that are willing to try advanced projects and talk about them, we’re the real influencers.
YT has chosen to pander to the children and adolescent of mind, likely because those in charge are of a similar depth. The platform will be like cable television eventually; totally irrelevant.
I’d like to believe that to be true
I will say, I don’t know what they’ve done but it’s been fucking up my casual circumvention nicely. Now I just get forced into almost 10 minutes of ads every time, and the ad bars shows up underneath videos, the end cards at the wrong time…
I wouldn’t mind sitting through an ad or possibly another one mid-video.
Small issue with that for me is that their ads are privacy nightmare but what isn’t these days…
Biggest issue is that their ads are ridiculously annoying and so inappropriate. They just don’t even try. They are sexist, fraudulent, and often times plain illegal.
So unless they change these issues, I won’t watch them without ads blocked.
As much as I hate that prime added ads to a paid service (absolute horse shit), the way they’ve implemented it so far is one of the better methods. They’ll do a single ad at the beginning that’s like “this show is brought to you uninterrupted by Samsung”. Then no more ads until the next episode.
YouTube is trash with it.
For now. That’s how YouTube was originally too, and ad free before that.
Seriously. YouTube is at its current place because it actually didn’t suck ass.
You’re ok with paying to watch ads? Hard pass for me.
I agree and I also wouldn’t mind so much if the ads were in proportion to the length of the video and at natural breaks. I don’t want to watch a 30 second ad to see a 15 second video.
Now here’s a thought - what if the real workaround Google are using here is targeting only non manifest V3 users?
That would reduce the cost of doing this, since chrome users are already forced to swallow ads and could just be served as normal.
Firefox also implements manifest v3, just without the user-hostile restrictions.
Good to know.
Damn, this could stop Invidious, Piped and Newpipe from being able to block ads.
That could also make them okay with those existing, since they’ll now play ads. Third party clients wouldn’t be such a threat anymore to their bottomline, and people can get the privacy benefits of going through those proxies.
people can get the privacy benefits of going through those proxies.
Exactly. This is why it will still be a threat to data hungry Google.
Lol this would mean that every website running a looped video in the bg will now haved ads play. Nice.
It might take a lot more effort, but I don’t think this will be the end. Google is required by law to label ads as such, giving these tools an opportunity to detect and skip them.
Is there a loophole where they could delay the ad marking like 5 seconds into a longer ad so you’d have to watch at least 5 seconds before an extension can detect it? Is the law specific about it having to be marked as an ad for the entire duration?
That would mean running an unmarked ad for five seconds, which would create an interesting legal question. But YouTube also buffers content a good chunk of upcoming content, so there’s enough upcoming video material to check.
It will be after the inevitable lawsuit happens about 0.0002 seconds after they fully roll this out.
What law (and jurisdiction) are you thinking of?
My understanding is that this would be covered with a blanket note on the page if it detects you aren’t running Premium.
At the very least I’d say that UK/Germany would be a good bet. Though the idea of just plastering the note over the whole video might do the trick, considering that’s what some German channels already do if they are sponsored to stay on the safe side.
You still aren’t referencing a law. You are just saying you don’t like it.
I ANAL and am not a lawyer but: There ARE laws about saying if a video contains paid advertisement. That is why basically every single video on youtube has the “contains sponsored content” tag.
There is no law saying that the specific seconds of the video need to be tagged. Which makes sense. It has been a minute since I watched network TV but I don’t recall giant “AD” on my screen any time Hikaru Shida wasn’t.
I do recall a giant “Werbung” screen ahead of all a-blocs on TV.
Germany has the “Medienstaatsvertrag” §8.3, which requires advertisements to be easily recognizable as such and also adequately separated through audio or visual cues.
In Germany, you can’t just show advertisement in a YouTube video without marking it. Same rules for sponsorship…
sometimes the best move is not to play
How bout a nice game of chess?
If only I had a client with support for fast forward… Oh right. I do. Neat.
Some people said that skipping is blocked during the ad. But if that is the case I am sure either the timestamp is predictable or somewhere on the client side you could find the information about the timestamp.
My client pre-downloads videos, so I can fast forward and rewind at will.
That’s neat, it’d be identifiable in a fashion similar to missile logic. You know where ads are based on where they aren’t. Actually skipping it would be difficult but muting and doing something else for a predetermined period has been a workaround since radio.
Google’s own Shaka sdk (video playback with ads) gives ad markers in the initial video manifest so that they can be marked on the timeline, so hopefully it’ll be trivial. Usually (but not always) with SSAI, the ads are spliced into the stream just before being sent to the client. That way if a user has just recently watched an ad pod, the server can choose to ignore that marker for a better UX in hopes that they don’t bounce if ads are too frequent.
It sounds like this would be easy for tools like SponsorBlock to label and skip segments as ads. However, it would be tough on smaller channels where people might not be labeling them as such.
Nah, it would be very hard. Presumably this only works if they can insert ads on the fly so they can cycle ads based on region and time. Static ads on videos would have been easy to do and easy to bypass.
If you don’t know how many ads there are or what they look like or how long they are it becomes very hard to do timeline nonsense to avoid them. It also seems like it’d be expensive to do at the scale Youtube needs it, but maybe they figured it out. That would suck. We’ll see, I suppose.
A solution would be for an extension to download the entire video 2x and delete the difference. But if you want to watch on 4k you’d need a connection that is pretty fast (although still in the range of what many people already have). However if they find a way to throttle the max speed on the server side for each client based on the quality there are watching, that would kill this possibility. You could block their cookies and throttling by IP on IPv4 would not be a possibility for them, but when everyone is on IPv6 idk.
But also processing the video on the fly to delete the difference in real time would be heavy, though at least I think it is possible to access the GPU with browser extensions via webGL but I am not sure if for HD and 4k that would be realistic for most people.
A solution would be for an extension to download the entire video 2x and delete the difference.
I don’t think that would work. It would be trivial for YT to put different ads in different time slots which would leave a differencing engine with no way to tell what was content and what was ad. However that thought gave me another one; the core problem is the ability to differentiate between content and ad. That problem is probably solvable by leveraging the NPU that everyone is so desperate to cram into computers today.
Nearly all of the YT content I watch, and it’s a lot, has predictable elements. As examples the host(s) are commonly in frame and when they’re not their voices are, their equipment is usually in frame somewhere and often features distinctive markings. Even in the cases where those things aren’t true an Ad often stands out because its so different in light, motion, and audio volume.
With those things in mind it should be possible to train software, similar to an LLM, to recognize the difference between content and ad. So an extension could D/L the video, in part or in whole, and then start chewing through it. If you were willing to wait for a whole D/L of the video then it could show you an ad free version, if you wanted to stream and ran out of ad-removed buffer then it could simply stop the stream (or show you something else) until it has more ad-free content to show you.
A great way to improve this would be by sharing the results of the local NPU ad detection. Once an ad is detected and its hash shared then everyone else using the extension can now reliably predict what that ad looks like and remove it from the content stream which would minimize the load on the local NPU. It should also be possible for the YT Premium users to contribute so that the hash of an ad-free stream, perhaps in small time based chunks, could be used to speed up ad identification for everyone else.
It wouldn’t be trivial but it’s not really new territory either. It’s just assembling existing tech in a new way.
This assumes the exact same ads will be injected in the same time markers for every viewer, every time. I doubt any of these will be true.
Edit: I got this backwards…
A less expensive method could be to retrieve the subtitle twice, or the subtitle from a premium account and check where the time offsets are.
Usually ads have a significant volume above the content they sorround (which, by the way, is the thing annoys me the most), so you would only need to check audio for that, which is lot less load than processing the video.
Guessing you’d get a lot of false positives that way, but I like the ingenuity.
My kiddo watches stuff on youtube where the person on screen gets suddenly loud which could really mess with detecting ads by changes in volume. Apprently that is a widespread thing too.
deleted by creator
Sponsor block has entered the chat
Problem is the ads are not widely rolled out so user timestemps would be off depending if there’s an ad OE not
That’s ok, I don’t need to visit YouTube at all!
Besides the rare DIY video I’m never on there at all
