The Google Adblockalypse

[HawkbitAlpha]

Y'all might have noticed recently that Youtube has been rolling out increasingly aggressive measures to bring the hammer down on browser adblock extensions, including shutting down video playback entirely for people who use them. We've had discussions around here over the last couple of weeks on how to fight back against this, but the message still seems to be moving slowly. So, instead of continuing to just tell individual people what's going on, I'll tell you everything I've gathered recently.

First order of business: as far as I can tell, the only adblock extension that's still putting up a fight against Youtube is uBlock Origin, which is more advanced than the classic Adblock or AB Plus. That being said, Youtube's system is advancing along with it, and its anti-adblock continues to punch through UBO, forcing its devs to continually update the extension to keep up. At first, in late September, I was told that adding the following set of lines to UBO's filters list would hold Youtube back:

youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.openPopupConfig.supportedPopups.adBlockMessageViewModel, false)
youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.adBlocksFound, 0)
youtube.com##+js(set, ytplayer.config.args.raw_player_response.adPlacements, [])
youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.hasAllowedInstreamAd, true)

...but more recently, it seems like this no longer works. The new filter I've seen be posted is this one:

youtube.com#@##YtKevlarVisibilityIdentifier

After the first filter failed, though, I decided to abandon Opera GX, the browser I've been using for several months. Instead, within the last couple of days, I've moved back to my previous browser Brave, which contains its own internal adblocker that Youtube hasn't been able to touch (at least, not yet). If you're looking for a Chrome-based browser (which, both Brave and Opera GX are) with a powerful adblock system, get Brave, and equip it with uBlock Origin. Short of entirely switching browsers, you might also find some use for a new extension called Youtube Adblock by Friendly, which cheeses the system by just playing Youtube's ads at very fast speed.

At least, all of that is what I wish I could say and be fully done with it. Sadly, I can't, as we now have to talk about the big problem. Google is apparently going to war with the entirety of adblocking, and it's with that in mind that we need to bring up an impending bomb...

WEB ENVIRONMENT INTEGRITY:

Quote

Perhaps the most telling line of the explainer is that it "takes inspiration from existing native attestation signals such as [Apple's] App Attest and the [Android] Play Integrity API." Play Integrity (formerly called "SafetyNet") is an Android API that lets apps find out if your device has been rooted. Root access allows you full control over the device that you purchased, and a lot of app developers don't like that. So if you root an Android phone and get flagged by the Android Integrity API, several types of apps will just refuse to run. You'll generally be locked out of banking apps, Google Wallet, online games, Snapchat, and some media apps like Netflix. You could be using root access to cheat at games or phish banking data, but you could also just want root to customize your device, remove crapware, or have a viable backup system. Play Integrity doesn't care and will lock you out of those apps either way. Google wants the same thing for the web.

[...]

Google's document pinky-promises the company doesn't want to use this for anything evil. The authors "strongly feel" the API shouldn't be used to uniquely fingerprint people, but they also want "some indicator enabling rate limiting against a physical device." In the "non-goals" section, the project says it doesn't want to "interfere with browser functionality, including plugins and extensions." That's a veiled reference to not killing ad-blockers, even though the project mentions better advertising support as some of its goals. Chrome already has a "kill ad blockers" plan anyway (or at least "watered-down ad blockers" plan). It's called Manifest V3, which will change the way critical extension APIs work so they can't modify webpage content as effectively. Google also says it doesn't want to "exclude other vendors" from its DRM scheme.

What this means, in short, is that there's a very real chance that any browser based on Chromium can be completely crippled and unable to adblock in the near future. This includes Chrome, Edge, Opera (GX), and sadly, even Brave. In the event that this happens, the browser of last resort will have to be none other than Firefox armed with uBlock Origin, and I'm already installing it on all of my devices in advance.

I'm gonna keep using Brave for now and see how it holds up into the future - and dear god, I hope it continues to stand up against this push of BS by Google. In the meantime, if I come across any updates or useful info relating to this, especially with regards to the Youtube anti-adblock push (i.e. new filter strings), I'll be sure to post them here.

[HawkbitAlpha]

Well, this aged poorly almost instantly. Youtube is now also punching through Brave's internal adblocker. Thankfully, the Friendly extension is still working, at least for now.

[SBManiac]

Necroing this thread to point out that even though I have Firefox (been using it for years), and willingly allowlisted YouTube on UBlock to run videos with ads, I still get this fucking "Adblockers aren't allowed" message just because UBlock is installed on my browser in the first place. I literally had to disable UBlock just so I could use the fucking site again. To put it bluntly, this is bullshit.

Screenshots below to prove I'm not making this up:

Spoiler