One of the internet’s simple pleasures is watching YouTube with an ad blocker. You can watch as many videos as you want without constant interruptions from obnoxious, occasionally unskippable commercials. But ads are how YouTube makes its money, so it’s not too happy when people use ad blockers to get avoid them.
Last year, the company started taking a more proactive approach to the situation, showing some ad blocker users a pop-up suggesting they disable their ad blocker or subscribe to YouTube Premium. After that, the company started blocking video playback entirely. (That said, even today, I don’t see the pop-up on my work profile with uBlock Origin.) YouTube is far from the first site to issue such an anti-ad blocker message, but this was definitely a first for this free video platform.
Here’s what YouTube wants you to do
Hopefully, when you see this pop-up from YouTube, it’ll only appear as a temporary window, with an (X) you can click to close. However, you may see a warning that blocks you from watching YouTube completely. At this point, the main thing to do is to eliminate the trigger for YouTube’s ad blocker popup: Disable your ad blocker.
That’s not excellent news for those of us who like to keep our ad blockers enabled while browsing the internet. Not only do ad blockers keep the web focused and clean, they can protect us from malicious ads. Still, YouTube is beginning to get more aggressive about discouraging ad blockers, and if yours is causing the pop-up to impede your ability to watch YouTube at all, your options are limited. (It even applies to browsers with built-in ad blocking features like Microsoft’s Edge, which might trigger the YouTube pop-up when using the “Strict” tracking prevention setting.)
However, you don’t need to stop using your ad blocker entirely. Instead, you can whitelist YouTube, telling your ad blocker to disable itself only while on YouTube’s website, but remain on for all other sites. You’ll find this option in your ad blocker’s settings, or it may appear as a quick action. For example, you can click the power button in uBlock Origin to disable the blocker on the current site, then reload to have it take effect.
Finally, and it might not come as a surprise, but what YouTube really wants you to do is subscribe to YouTube Premium. An active Premium subscription means no ads (and, by extension, no ad blocker pop-ups). Of course, that costs $US13.99 a month, which is pretty steep for a site whose content would be free otherwise, especially when other streaming services are raising their prices.
How to get around the YouTube ad blocker pop-up
There’s no reason to believe YouTube is going to slow down its attacks on ad blockers, which means the situation is only going to get worse, not better. As such, any workarounds that help you today might not work in the future, and there’s a very real possibility that any ad blocker use will be blocked at some point.
Still, not all of us are dealing with YouTube’s strict new rules yet. Personally, I can watch YouTube ad-free without almost any issues. The only time I got hit was when using Adblock Plus last year. That seems to suggest that this strategy from YouTube is account-based and blocker-based.
If your account and/or blocker are targeted by this pop-up, however, there are some solutions to try.
Don’t turn to YouTube clients
My first suggestion to skirt the browser-based ad blocker problem was to use a third-party YouTube client that delivers content ad-free. Unfortunately, YouTube is going after these apps, too. The company is targeting any third-party client that uses a built-in ad blocker, saying that the practice goes against the terms of service for using YouTube’s API.
That means the likely end for solutions like the Vinegar YouTube extension, or the multitude of options on Android, from NewTube, SkyTube, and LibreTube. That said, if your ad blocker doesn’t use YouTube API, it might be able to get around these issues. That’s why AdGuard says its exempt from these new policies, and that watching YouTube through its app on iOS or Android should still block ads.
Go incognito
As the ad blocker pop-up appears to be account-based, one way around it for now is to watch YouTube in incognito mode with your ad blocker enabled. I just tried this again with uBlock Origin in Chrome, and I didn’t trip YouTube’s alarms.
Most ad blockers (and extensions in general) are, by default, not enabled for incognito mode, so you’ll likely need to dive into the extension’s settings to make sure it appears for you. For example, for uBlock Origin in Chrome, head to Settings > Extensions, then scroll down and enable the toggle next to Allow in Incognito.
Try a new ad blocker and/or browser
One easy solution to try is switching up your ad blocker and/or browser. According to Android Authority, uBlock Origin in Firefox is effective. Why Firefox in particular over other browsers isn’t clear, but this might be a winning combination for now. That said, I can use uBlock in Chrome on work account just fine, as well. We also know AdGuard is still working, for now. Mixing up which tool you use to watch YouTube may make the difference.
Use this filter for uBlock Origin
If you use uBlock Origin and you’re seeing the pop-up, one Reddit user has a solution: Try adding the following filter to your extension:
youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.openPopupConfig.supportedPopups.adBlockMessageViewModel, false) youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.adBlocksFound, 0) youtube.com##+js(set, ytplayer.config.args.raw_player_response.adPlacements, []) youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.hasAllowedInstreamAd, true
You can do so by opening uBlock Origin, heading to its settings > My Filters, then click a new line and paste the above in. Hit “Apply changes,” then head to YouTube to see if it works.
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