Did YouTube's offensive kill ad blockers? Here are the stats
adguard.com
YouTube tried to block video playback for ad-blocking users last year. Some even thought that this global effort would lead to the demise of ad blockers. But that did not happen.

TL;DR version:

  • From June to August, the number of active users of the AdGuard Ad Blocker extension for Chrome dropped by about 8%. But in late August, the trend reversed. The temporary slump in user growth was offset by the increased demand in the second half of the year.

  • After a brief period of turbulence that lasted about a month, we saw the trend stabilize. And while the daily number of uninstalls was still higher than before YouTube’s crackdown, it remained consistently lower than the number of daily installs.

  • After media reports and YouTube’s own statements implied that ad blockers were doomed, and especially after more and more users started noticing that their ad blocking extensions were not working properly on YouTube, we did indeed see a spike in uninstalls. However, at the same time, the number of installs also increased significantly! It may well be that the way ad blockers’ woes were amplified in the media inadvertently boosted their popularity and helped them woo new users.

  • The takeaway from all of this is that ad blockers — first and foremost, ad-blocking extensions — were rocked by YouTube’s onslaught, but survived. And, moreover, the interest has rebounded, as is evidenced by the growth in the number of active users.

  • DefiantBidet@lemmy.worldEnglish
    28·
    9 months ago

    YouTube slowing itself down to unusable made me write a local extension that takes any YouTube watch link and opens it in yewtu.be my life has been better since. Fuck you tube’s stance. You’re gonna make the experience terrible I’ll watch your content via another client.

    • Chee_Koala@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      9 months ago

      Very cool! I’m walking this same route, but with LibRedirect and Invidious Instance Selector Firefox addons. Maybe libraries can do community video-hosting and moderation? But please, no more businesses

    • PopMyCop@iusearchlinux.fyiEnglish
      4·
      9 months ago

      Have you tried LibRedirect? It works for quite a bit more than just youtube. I personally love it for the fandom mirrors.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      32·
      9 months ago

      I’m not familiar with yewtu.be, but couldn’t you accomplish the the same thing with a simple Host File entry in your operating system? Get the IP of yewtu.be (by pinging it which I just did to get 104.244.72.25), create an entry that says:

      youtube.com 104.244.72.25

      So when your OS goes to find youtube.com, it gets directed to the IP of yewtu.be