What must we do to be saved?
 

So - that's it, then. All the explanatory examples in the critical forums, all the Great Performances in GT, are now inaccessible behind a YouTube paywall.

It seems I must either disable my ad blocker (I couldn't bear to do that), allow YouTube ads (I've seen them, they would destroy me) or pay thirteen pounds every month for the privilege of watching occasional ad-free me-tubes. The third option is out of the question.

I don't have a TV but pay my licence fee so I can see (on my laptop) all the BBC's output and I pay less than four quid a month to ITVx for access (ad-free) to an amazing amount of other material.

I do use YouTube occasionally to demonstrate "how-to" stuff in household maintenance work and plumbing/electrical troubleshooting and that's more or less the only reason I'm hestitating on the brink of telling it to do one.

I'd welcome others' thoughts.
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Thank you Shaun - but will it/they not still want me to disable my adblocker etc.? Is that dependent on where I actually "am"?

Hi Annie,

I'm not sure if this is what Shaun is suggesting, but the idea is that you get your VPN to use a server in a country like Albania, Moldova, or Myanmar where YouTube doesn't run ads. YouTube thinks you're there and doesn't show you any. It seems to work: I've just tried Albania, and no ads so far ...

Currently I'm not having problems with YouTube when using the Brave browser, which is a very secure browser with built-in adblocker, whereas on Chrome I'm forced to switch off my adblocker or be locked out. That may well change as YouTube finetunes its adblocker detection. Still, you might try using Brave. It looks and works very much like Chrome.

Another method you can use is to download the YouTube video and watch it on your computer. There are many sites that will download YouTube videos, such as:

https://publer.io/tools/youtube-video-downloader

Now this may take you as much time to do as you'd spend watching ads, especially for shorter videos, but if you want to watch something ad-free, it works -- and you can do something else while it downloads.

I've heard of other workarounds, for example, a script that speeds up ads to the point where they're gone in a blink. Because the ads aren't actually blocked, YouTube doesn't recognise this an adblocker. The arms race is on ...

-Matt

I removed my response, as I completely misread your post, Ann -- apologies!

I'm not seeing any comment here by Shaun.

ps-- never mind., just saw Shaun's explanation

Thanks, Matt. I am very much on the arse end of a learning curve here. This morning I didn't know a VPN from a VPL and now I know enough to understand what the letters stand for and am in awe of the technology, though still bewildered by the terminology. Who knew that "data" can mean a variety of completely different things according to context?

I'm unaware of how Chrome fits into the equation since it is outwith my experience but I'll see if I can access Brave and give it a try. I'll definitely experiment with downloading- that may be an excellent answer for the things I need to watch - like the electrical and plumbing videos. I'm also wondering whether I can whitelist individual videos on a need-to-see basis. I shall find out.

I like the sound of the whizzing-thing - a sort of online fast-forward button. It would be good to let YouTube in unhindered and then blitz its advertising, but that feels faintly unethical. After all, it's a business and needs to show a profit. Am I a bad and greedy person who should just lie back, think of England, and be advertised-to without complaint?

I had not heard of the Brave browser before. I just downloaded it, and it looks very good. It imported all my Chrome settings and it looks a lot like Chrome, but my first impression is that it is a bit faster (maybe because it is not yet loaded with cookies), and the first few YouTube videos that I watched did not demand that I disable my ad blocker.

Ann, allowing the ads would not be all that bad. They rarely put ads in the middle of the video. It's just something that happens at the very beginning, and the ads are usually not more than ten seconds, which is annoying but not really all that bad if you then get to watch a video that may be twenty minutes long.

I have to poke in and say there a limitless amount of great things on YouTube. Lectures and seminars, interviews and readings with current and long-gone writers and artists. Classic documentaries and newer documentaries, ballet, opera, old movies and movies from everywhere, all sorts of music recorded around the world from as long as music has been recorded. It’s bottomless. I would give up access to any other streaming channel before I would give up YouTube.

John, which solution are you adopting - allowing the ads or paying the fee?

I think I'm going to try the former for a while (thanks, RogerBob) provided I can work my adblocker to let their ads through and still block everyone else's.

You should be able to do that. I use Adblocker Plus and it's very easy to tell it to allow ads on certain sites while blocking all others.