"Dodgy" YouTube Ads

Has anyone else had any unsavory adverts in the YouTube app? I have Premium myself but my Dad just alerted me to this…

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As an Android user, allowing adverts that scare Android users into thinking they’ve got a virus is a pretty bad idea for Google.

I’ve refreshed the feed a few times and there are various scam “You’ve got a virus” ads… I thought Google had to verify what ads get pushed?

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Yeah on iOS I get a lot of predatory loan ads and get rich quick schemes. Pretty scummy.

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Not YouTube, but last week I had to check I was getting a decent deal on something while in the supermarket, but the advert fed through MySupermarket was so obnoxiously awful that it rendered trying to use their webpage impossible (and it was one of those fake ‘You have won something!’ adverts too).

Shame I can’t adblock on my phone like I can my desktop.

Whilst there’s an Adblock Plus for Android, I would suggest trying Brave (which is Chromium with Ad blocking, and blocks tracking, blocks fingerprinting, block 3rd party cookies) it’ll get rid of the crap.

I use Adguard which is Android wide adblocking. It was £17 for lifetime I think.

Comes with caveat of filtering your phones internet though so there’s a privacy thing to consider.

I pay for YouTube Music + Premium too so haven’t seen any of these ads unfortunately. You can report ads, but it’s not a very simple system.

You can if your an Android user, the Firefox browser allows add-ons such as Ad Block Plus.

I think iOS has ad blocking apps available too?

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Yes, loads of ad-blocking options on iOS. I like 1Blocker X. You can also use the Brave browser as mentioned above.

iOS ad blockers block content in Safari - but not within apps like YouTube.

Edit: actually they can block ads within browser windows within apps, come to think of it

I have a slight moral objection to ad blockers.

I totally get that on some websites the number of adverts positioned in obnoxiously prominent positions is irritating but there are no free lunches and if I’m reading an open access online news article, I should expect some level of advertising to pay for that article to be there.

I can’t help but feel that if ad blockers weren’t a thing then those running websites might not be tempted to “over advertise” as they’d be making enough revenue from every visitor, rather than only those without ad blocking software.

Just my 2 cents though!

Yeah, difficult one really. Personally see ad blockers as the lesser evil than ads though, especially if used in combination with something like Patreon.

Personally spend about £50/month on Patreon, happy to put a few £ towards creators - probably make more than they would via me watching those ads.

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Thanks for the advice about adblocking on Android. Last time I looked into it all the options (and there weren’t many) said I’d need to root my phone to make them work. I’ll check out Brave later, see if that’s decent.

I have a whitelist and I’m not afraid to use it. Though it can be tricky getting the balance right if a site hasn’t already made it to the whitelist, I grant. My preference is for whitelist requests that are less obtrusive and don’t prevent me from using the site in the meantime - I do get quite cross at sites which block you from being able to load the content you want until you whitelist them. I want to have some confidence that whitelisting isn’t going to quickly lead to browser cancer.

Hah, not a chance. If those running websites didn’t “over advertise”, ad blockers wouldn’t have been invented in the first place. I’ve been on the internet since 1993 or thereabouts, I remember the horrendously bad old days of animated banner adverts with music, of pop-up adverts - and worse, pop-under adverts. And sometimes, if you went to the wrong place, the constantly redirectly adverts where each one would open another one and nothing short of shutting down Netscape would stop the spam.

I have no doubt whatsoever that if ad blockers were suddenly overnight not a thing, then we’d head right back to those days as all the worst people in advertising take full advantage.

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I don’t know if you were around for the early years of the commercial ad-supported internet, but this theory was disproven then! Even before ad blockers existed, certain sites assaulted you for simply trying to browse them. I second @HoldenCarver’s account of the pre-adblock internet. It was worse.

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I guess maybe I’m too young and naive then :joy:

Thanks - I wasn’t really aware of the history around this :+1:

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I usually whitelist sites with only one ad spot like Macstories and a few others. However it’s those sites which cram as many ads in as possible that I don’t like.