What to Do If YouTube Warns You About an Ad Blocker
YouTube plus an ad blocker is a fantastic experience. You can watch video after video to your heart’s content, without constant interruptions due to loud advertisements that are sometimes impossible to skip. But YouTube makes money from advertising, so they’re not too happy when people use ad blockers to avoid them.
Lately, the company has taken a more proactive approach to the situation , showing some ad blocker users a pop-up window asking them to disable their ad blocker or subscribe to YouTube Premium. It’s a slow rollout (I haven’t seen the popup myself yet when using uBlock Origin), and YouTube is far from the first site to issue this kind of anti-ad blocking message, but it’s definitely the first site for this free video. Platform.
How to deal with YouTube ad blocker pop-up
Hopefully, when you see this popup, it will only appear as a temporary window with an (X) that you can click to close. However, you may see a warning that completely blocks you from viewing YouTube. At this point, the main thing to do is to eliminate the trigger for the YouTube ad blocker pop-up: disable your ad blocker.
This is not good news for those of us who prefer to turn on ad blockers while browsing the Internet. Not only do ad blockers keep the internet clean and focused, but they can also protect us from harmful advertising. However, YouTube is starting to discourage the use of ad blockers more aggressively, and if your pop-up is preventing you from watching YouTube at all, your options are limited. (This even applies to browsers with built-in ad blocking features, such as Microsoft Edge , which may cause YouTube to pop up when using the “Strict” tracking prevention setting.)
However, you don’t have to give up using an ad blocker completely. Instead, you can whitelist YouTube by telling your ad blocker to turn off only when you visit the YouTube website, but turn on for all other sites. You’ll find this option in your ad blocker settings, or it may appear as a quick action. For example, you can press the power button in uBlock Origin to disable the blocker on the current site, and then restart your computer for it to take effect.
If you’re willing to spend the money, YouTube Premium is the easiest way to watch YouTube without worrying about ads or ad blocker pop-ups. Of course, it costs $13.99 per month, which is quite expensive for a site whose content would otherwise be free, especially when other streaming services raise their prices.
You can also try to get around the browser ad blocking issue by using a third-party YouTube client that delivers ad-free content. If you’re in the Apple ecosystem, the Vinegar YouTube extension blocks ads on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, and also offers features like background playback. On Android , you have a variety of options to choose from , including NewTube, SkyTube and LibreTube, as well as SmartTube for Android TV.
However, if you want to continue using your browser’s YouTube ad blocker as always, there are a few technical tricks you can try. GadgetsToUse has a guide on how to add scripts to uBlock Origin as well as the Brave browser, or how to install an ad blocker to block this pop-up from appearing in browsers like Chrome, Edge, and Safari.