TECH NEWS – Although our own example shows Google’s video sharing service doing something else interesting, WCCFTech reports that YouTube has started to get on the nerves of users who block ads in other ways.

A new chapter in the never-ending cat-and-mouse game may be about to begin. The more ads that appear on YouTube (which in some places means more government-paid hate propaganda, even before videos aimed at children…), the more people decide to block them with an adblocker like uBlock Origin. The more people use adblockers, the more Google tries to prevent it (our first suggestion: don’t use Google Chrome or Chromium-based browsers, choose Mozilla Firefox).

First, Google slowed down video buffering to make it harder to view uploaded material, but anyone with a higher-bandwidth Internet connection will have noticed nothing of the sort. So now YouTube is trying a more aggressive solution: skipping videos to the end with adblockers turned on, encouraging users to watch the ads or subscribe to YouTube Premium. (If Google is already using our data for God knows what, isn’t that a bit much?)

Before the buffering slowdown, Google tried to block videos from playing after three videos if you were using an adblocker, but there was also a simpler version of this pop-up message that YouTube does not allow the use of adblockers, but it seems that the public just ignored it. Hence the jump to the end of the videos, so if you happened to experience this, it’s not a bug, it’s something the site is doing on purpose. Scrubbing around the video fails and does not load.

What we have seen in the last few days is that the player will load, but the video title and comment section will not, and then the video may play for one frame and then automatically stop. This could also be a workaround for ad filters. In any case, the battle between Google and users continues. Maybe they should filter what is advertised.

Source: WCCFTech