Did YouTube finally kill adblocking apps like SmartTube? - Tons of unusual 403 / forbidden errors

[Hectic Heckler]

This isn't feature worthy.

You should tell Null how to run his website some more. That'll help.

 

[Twinkletard]

my youtube adblock on firefox works fine

 

[Baguette Child]

Doremi, a downloading software I've used successfully for some time, has now been broken by this. Both adblockers I've tried in Opera no longer function on Youtube. Fortunately there's only a couple people I still give a shit about on there left so quitting won't be so hard. I refuse to put up with the anti-consumer bullshit Google is pushing.

 

[Glowie]

There was already a commit to fix the problem (SmartTube) that was successfully rolled out about 12 hours ago in version 1427, followed by another API change on YouTube's side which broke it again.

https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube/commit/2f3bfee911b5f6898471e7021d4e9913b49a4476

Also similar problems in all the third-party adblocking apps

View attachment 6173068

I hope it's just a mistake, but I'm not so sure.

As the great philosopher Auric Goldfinger once said, "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."

I was wondering what went wrong when Newpipe was kill when I was watching 16 hour longplay on newpipe.

Newpipe Devs disappear for year and latest version is .75.

Vanilla YouTube that it displays click bait shit "Pluto Hit Uranus yesterday "Yellowstone park erupted yesterday!"

Only literal as bait make money now, going for 3rd party apps that aren't used by people who can't enable developer mode.

 

[Otis Mallebrok]

What I don't understand is why ads are so valuable.

They are not. Not anymore at least.

Advertising in newspapers used to be big business, then television advertising, and then banner advertising. But those are all worthless now, and the same will happen to youtube ads. YT will end up like MTV, Discovery Channel and Rolling Stones. RIP

 

[Jorch]

I've been using this script for months no ads, everything works fine.

https://github.com/TheRealJoelmatic/RemoveAdblockThing

 

[GhaeicSD]

I was wondering what happened to Newpipe yesterday, good to know it wasn't on my end or Newpipe's. Now thanks to Google I found out about Grayjay and have multiple options of avoiding their predatory shit, all of which are better than YT.

Just like clockwork, the corporations try to force people to stop not giving money to them, and provide every moral and pragmatic justification to not only avoid giving them money, but also actively steal from them. Great job guys, keep it up.

If anyone has to use YT on the real website, AdNauseum is highly recommended by me. Not only does it block ads, but it costs the advertisers' money to attempt to show them to you. Fight fire with fire.

 

[jertzog]

Damn, so it's Newpipe's turn to get fucked. I go out of my way to shut up about it specifically because I want as few people as possible talking about the platform. Hopefully their devs are making progress.

 

[Retreaded Tire]

I just use opera, still works for me on iPhone and Android

 

[Sapphixys Shitty Panties]

So this is why JDownloader kept cucking me this morning. Goddamnit...

 

[LiquidChrisRespecter]

I found logging in and out of my TV smart tube app solved the issue.

Even while the 403 was happening, livestreams remained unaffected so I could still listen to my radio channels.

 

[trash cat]

SmartTube released another update which fixes the 403 error but only up to "full HD" resolution (1080p). Just tested and can confirm everything from 144p to 1080p60 works fine. Resolutions above that are currently disabled.
https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube/releases/tag/22.38s

Thanks. I can also confirm SmartTube has started working (read: you can play videos again) on Google TV after updating to version 22.38

However... The codecs and resolutions are messed up, as you mentioned.

The latest problem seems to be caused by the loss of the vp9 and av1 codecs.

This leaves the only remaining codec as avc (aka h264) which only supports resolutions up to 1080p on YouTube.

SmartTube 22.38 on Google TV:

• Plays videos again / catches 403 error
• Resolution only go up to 1080p
• Only avc codec (aka h264) available
• No VP9 codec
• No AV1 codec
• What happened to them?

NewPipe 0.27.0 on Android

• still broken, won't play videos.

It definitely seems like Google is systemically trying to freeze out the third-party apps without breaking any of their main YouTube infrastructure

 

[moocow]

Tangentially related, i recently got a free week of Amazon Prime and saw that they put ads in their more popular shows and films, it's ridiculous.

The most amazing thing to me is how brazen they are about serving up ads even to paying customers who have supposedly paid not to see ads.

I'm old enough to recall the original sales pitch about cable television: part of the alleged benefit of cable TV service was that since you were paying for television (rather than just grabbing it from an antenna for free), you could enjoy ad-free programming because part of your monthly subscription went straight to the channels you watched.

Then, apart from premium channels (which you have to pay extra for anyway), every fucking channel provided by every cable provider turned out to have ads anyway. Right from the beginning. And everybody just kinda "forgot" about it almost immediately.

"YouTube Premium" (or whatever it's called) promises "no ads" in exchange for a monthly fee, but I don't believe it one bit. I'm sure they don't do a damned thing about content-embedded ads (calls to action, intermissions to shill for NordVPN or whatever, etc.). I also suspect they still do ad pre-rolls anyway (since uploaders can set that up themselves without Youtube's direct action).

It reeks of yet another service that you can pay for that yields nothing but profit for the people you're paying.

 

[Pargon]

The most amazing thing to me is how brazen they are about serving up ads even to paying customers who have supposedly paid not to see ads.

I'm old enough to recall the original sales pitch about cable television: part of the alleged benefit of cable TV service was that since you were paying for television (rather than just grabbing it from an antenna for free), you could enjoy ad-free programming because part of your monthly subscription went straight to the channels you watched.

Then, apart from premium channels (which you have to pay extra for anyway), every fucking channel provided by every cable provider turned out to have ads anyway. Right from the beginning. And everybody just kinda "forgot" about it almost immediately.

"YouTube Premium" (or whatever it's called) promises "no ads" in exchange for a monthly fee, but I don't believe it one bit. I'm sure they don't do a damned thing about content-embedded ads (calls to action, intermissions to shill for NordVPN or whatever, etc.). I also suspect they still do ad pre-rolls anyway (since uploaders can set that up themselves without Youtube's direct action).

It reeks of yet another service that you can pay for that yields nothing but profit for the people you're paying.

I have YT Premium because I was grandfathered it when it was rolled into Google Music. I see no ads whatsoever, only whatever sponsorships the creator recorded and included in the video.

ETA: I in no way expect it to stay that way. Amazon broke the seal on “limited ads” for Prime. All of the other vid services are going to swiftly follow suit. I’ll drop it at that point.

 

[Akerman]

It's particularly entertaining because this platform grew in part because of how annoying, obnoxious and odious TV advertising was. Funny how the pendulum swings.

It's also the same reason cable grew initially, until they put ads on there as well. It is guaranteed that if this effort succeeds and Premium is the only way to remove ads, then they will find some way to worm ads back into Premium too.

 

[Picnic_Boy]

At this point, advertisers don't even pretend to attract customers. They just want consumers to believe their presence is inescapable.

 

[Absurdist Laughter]

Friend, I don’t know what security and privacy concerns you think aren’t present when you have to send your device across country or continent to bring it back to operational capacity but that’s not the topic of the thread so I’ll let it drop.

But you need to read more.

You know, I can paraphrase Louis Rossmann opinion too, doesn't mean I'm going to agree with everything stated. We live in the year 2024 where some pajeet in the slums of India is a more capable tinkerer than the modern day Western IT technician. That's what they do in third world countries, what excuses do we have in a first world country?

Here, we have the curse of abundance and availability, if you need or want something you can have it in a day or two delivered to your door. The ease of accessibility has resulted in the West's habits of consumerism rather than pragmatism. It has also brought about a creative complacency where people would rather buy new than fix something that is broken. Creative complacency also results in less creations thus less innovation. That's what Apple leans into and only a small portion of their users actually complain about right to repair. These same people who complain about it should also be able to make a system that is better in every way to an Apple computer without spending Apple price. In addition, these people should also be aware of Apple's notorious policies on repairing their products. Apple is a company that leans into the consumerist aspects of the West and isn't targeting knowledgeable people who are technologically savvy. They are targeting creatives (editors, graphic designers, etc.) not some neck beard who wants to overclock the m2 chip. Complaining to Apple to change their right to repair policies is the equivalence of Trannies forcing Coke to allow gender affirming care to minors in their healthcare plan. Similar base logic with just different input and outputs, both disagreeable to an extent.

I wouldn't have a problem with Google's actions if it was stated from the get go but they are only creating policy and action now that they are losing money. Where, at least with Apple, the right to repair policies have been in place quite a bit longer and have remained steadfast. YouTube and Goggle have been wishy washy at best and malicious at worst. Not to mention, openly antagonist to the people that make them money in the first place. If right to repair is the least of my worries in a company, that company is pretty alright in my books.

I have YT Premium because I was grandfathered it when it was rolled into Google Music. I see no ads whatsoever, only whatever sponsorships the creator recorded and included in the video.

ETA: I in no way expect it to stay that way. Amazon broke the seal on “limited ads” for Prime. All of the other vid services are going to swiftly follow suit. I’ll drop it at that point.

I don't care if you were grandfathered or not, you're still giving an Objectively evil company money willingly and yet you have a problem with Apple because they won't let you add in RAM. We could talk about the child labor Apple uses/used/uses or a myriad of other cut corner margin cutting and questionable business practices but no, right to repair is the hill the collective "we" has chosen to fight on. What? Living up to your name, Paragon of Retardation.

 

[Sam Losco's Wife]

You should tell Null how to run his website some more. That'll help.

Ok! @Null this isn't feature worthy.

 

[AssignedEva]

I can envision a way to remove ads from a stream using post-processing. Provided that video fragments are delivered in a deterministic manner, you could create a database of hashes of known good video fragments / ad fragments, and cut the ads out of your video file to accomodate baseline reality.

I said this before - we used to have these:

If you could get a 90s VCR with "commerical skip technology" that could recognise and fast forward through ad breaks, I am sure some sort of software can be made by a devoted autist that at the very least could stream + record a YouTube video and remove the adverts before showing it to you.

I have some channels I like to follow and frankly, I don't have an issue with watching ads. But the multiple unskippable long adverts before and even during videos was what got me converted to using workarounds, alongside Spotify. It was like watching American cable television where after 20 seconds of an episode you'd get 5 minutes of commercials. Too much.

If it ever got unworkable I might consider joining a couple of Patreons and watching on there, but frankly I've already got more pirated films and TV shows downloaded on a hard drive than I'll ever watch, and if YouTube goes away I won't be hurting for entertainment. And we already schedule offline time to make sure we don't become so Internet rotted that we stop reading books.

 

[xXthrowawayaccountXx]

I already watch the ads it's only fair that YouTube get compensated for providing us all with so much free entertainment.

Is your thing here to just have the worst take possible, every time?