YouTube users running an ad blocker can no longer watch a video thanks to Google's latest move

If you tap to start a YouTube video on your phone or tablet and the first thing you see is the end of the video, you don’t need to make a rush appointment to see a neurologist. Skipping the entire video doesn’t mean that you were too drunk or stoned to remember viewing it. It simply means that you probably have an ad-blocker running on your device. You might recall that last Halloween, we told you that YouTube was stepping up its attack against ad-blockers hoping that users would sign up for a premium version of the app that shows no ads.

Last October, YouTube noted that not only did the use of ad-blockers violate its terms of service, but it also keeps creators from getting paid for their hard work. In January, Google took a different tact and greatly slowed down the load time of YouTube videos unless the ad-blocker was removed. Now we are about to welcome the month of June and Google’s next step, as we mentioned above, is to skip a video selected by a user to the very end if an ad-blocker is detected. When the ad-blocker is removed, YouTube will show the complete video.

Video shows how YouTube content is going straight to the end for those using an ad blocker

Redditor SDHD4K shared a video (a very brief video) that shows how a YouTube clip he wanted to watch goes straight to the end because of the ad blocker he has installed on his phone. Not all YouTube viewers running software designed to block an ad are not able to view a video. Some Reddit subscribers are finding that while a video they want to view will play on YouTube, it will do so without any audio until they remove the ad blocker. Adjusting the volume slider returns sound to the video for a second before the clip is once again muted.

New Youtube adblock weird behaviour – video automatically skips to the end
byu/SDHD4K inyoutube

Google is not playing and considering that ads running on YouTube helped generate $8.09 billion for Google parent Alphabet during the first quarter, you can understand why the company is taking such a hard line. YouTube ad revenue from January through March of this year not only rose 21% on an annual basis, but it contributed roughly 10% of Alphabet’s total revenue during the opening three months of 2024.

Google wants you to sign up for YouTube Premium which does not show ads

But as we noted, it is more than just making sure that Google gets paid for making all of these videos available to viewers. It is also about rewarding content creators who can monetize their hard work and have an incentive to entertain you. It is also about Google attempting to get you to pay for an ad-free YouTube Premium subscription. After a free one-month trial, you will pay $13.99 for a one-month Individual subscription, $22.99 monthly for a Family subscription which allows you to add up to five family members, or $7.99 monthly for a Student subscription which will require verification of your status as a student.

There is a workaround mentioned by Android Police and it seems to work on both mobile and desktop versions of YouTube. If you use a VPN and set the country to Albania, you won’t see any ads since YouTube’s advertising platform does not yet support the Albanian language. Just remember that your data speeds will decline when you run a VPN.

While you might consider a YouTube ad to be annoying, there are 86,400 seconds in each day so having to use some of them in order to watch a YouTube video is not a big deal in the scheme of things.

YouTube users running an ad blocker can no longer watch a video thanks to Google’s latest move

Video shows how YouTube content is going straight to the end for those using an ad blocker

Google wants you to sign up for YouTube Premium which does not show ads

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