Technology

I keep noticing people in this thread recommending UBlock Origin, with others replying that they eventually got a popup to turn off their adblocker.

This is usually followed by replies mentioning they just click X (or add a UBlock filter on the popup), and go on with watching Youtube. No problem, right?

According to Ublock Origin's Redd*t Post, that is just the first warning stage; eventually the presentation of their anti-adblock message becomes more intrusive until you receive the "The in-player message. Playback is stopped."

I should know. I get that message on any Youtube video (while logged in), and it doesn't go away for several hours.

That said, my workaround (extremely hacky) was to find the RSS feeds for all of my channel subscriptions, and then add them to FreshRSS. That section of my RSS feed essentially acts like a Youtube subscription page, but not tied to an actual account.

On my computer: I watch them in a private browser Firefox profile I've dedicated solely to Youtube (and has all of the extensions already installed, of course).

On Android: I watch them using NewPipe.

Edit: In addition, I store my "watch later" links using Linkding, which was easy to setup. While I do see reply suggestions on how to get rid of the popup, I think it's better (for the long term) to have an independent way to consume Youtube. While Youtube currently implements a 4 stage system, they could always add another stage or make the current one more strict.

I think my approach requires more set up work (and probably introduces more friction) compared to reply suggestions, but overall is more resistant to future updates to Youtube's nagging system.