YouTube Glitching Again For Adblocker Users

Some users are reporting finding it almost impossible to watch videos on YouTube while using an ad blocker. It's likely the latest attempt by YouTube to crack down, but seems to only work on specific ad blockers.

Over recent months, YouTube had displayed a warning message to people who used an ad blocker, telling them the video would not play until they switched it off. YouTube maintains that using an ad blocker actually violates its terms of service.

The company also argues that ad blocking hurts both creators and users, the logic being that without ad revenue, creators have less incentive to make videos, leaving users with less to watch. It also offers a premium service that does not include ads, though critics say this is overpriced and includes many other features they aren't interested in.

While some people simply refuse to watch advertising, many critics of YouTube say it's the execution of ads rather than the principle. Particular complaints include ad "breaks" not being proportional to video length and some videos being cut-off mid sentence to show ads.

Mute and Frozen

Now some users of the Adblock tool are reporting that whenever they watch a video, it skips immediately to the end. Attempting to replay the video has a similar effect, while trying to start midway through the video simply causes an endless buffer.

Some other users have noticed videos only have audio for the first half-second before going mute. This only appears to happen when an ad blocker is active.

YouTube Blames Performance Push

YouTube has now put out a slightly odd statement that neither directly confirms or denies the suspicion this is a deliberate crackdown:

Ad blockers violate YouTube's Terms of Service, and we've been urging users for some time to support their favorite creators and allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad-free experience. An unrelated push to improve YouTube's performance and reliability may be resulting in suboptimal viewing experiences for ad blocker users.

What's Your Opinion?

Do you use ad blockers when watching YouTube? Are such crackdowns a sensible move from YouTube? Would changing the way ads are built into videos satisfy adblocker users or do you think some people simply won't watch ads at all?