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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   23441 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025

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Adblock and it's mobile equivalents like AdGuard/NewPipe mean you never need to subscribe to YouTube etc.

NewPipe breaks often. I use it but it's buggy and needs updates often to get past the latest attempt by alphabet to stop it.

Ublock origin and the like don't get past the often pretty long "loading" period when the ad would have been playing.

It's often enough that when it happens, you're not surprised, but not so often that paying for a subscription makes any sort of sense.

And on the off chance it was taking them a while to update the alternative players, I never experienced the issues ublock / Brave's builtin blocker.

I do most of my YTing on my pc though, so a phone app is always of partial use to me.

So do I:

I mostly stick with FreeTube.

One minor issue that you may or may not have any idea about:

I've set the Firefox addon LibRedirect to open youtube links in freetube. When it does so, a new freetube window is not created, it'll 'overwrite' the current first/main window, regardless of any video already playing there. Any way to remedy that?

Sorry, clicking youtube link is such a rare scenario for me that I'm completely satisfied copy-pasting them like a caveman.

FreeTube seems great. Thanks!

This is possibly worth its own top level post at some point but AdGuard is currently fighting what looks like state actor attempts to censor archive.is (it's not clear which state if any is actually responsible, but they at least claim to represent French regulators). AdGuard responded pretty well in this case but the general method of spamming CSAM reports to censorship-friendly regulators scales much better than most private internet infrastructure middlemen can handle.

They’re getting progressively more aggressive on this front, though. It’s a cat and mouse game, so you may be right. Lately it sounds like they’ve been doing backend delays that force the duration of the ad to complete before you can view the video.

For those that just want to use the iOS app or use their TV’s built in app, it’s easier to stomach the $25 dollars a month. But I know a lot of people that won’t out of principle.

uBlock Origin still works for me. I get the delay occasionally but not all the time.

I'm fine wirh backend delays forcing the end of the ad, it's better to stare at a blank screen than have typical advertising slop served to you.

How about just VPN to a country where Google doesn’t serve ads?

If you believe your time is worth money, it might be worth the tradeoff to not have to bother. My main thing is I use iOS where you can’t get vanced YouTube apk or whatever. Until recently, my whole family was under a premium plan until they started gating location of family organizer.

I use YouTube 100x more than HBO Max or anything else. I feel the current price point is worth not hassling with VPNs / ad blockers and knowing I’ll never see an ad on any device.

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