Hi all,
It's been a funny time on the internet with GDPR bombarding us with requests for data sharing and cookies, YouTube demonetisation and Sponsors being baked into the videos now; frankly it's gotten to the point where ads are just everywhere and it's triggering my OCD.
Here's a list of ways around it, things and workarounds I had to research myself to get rid of everything. If you have any suggestions, feel free to comment bellow.
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NETWORK + DESKTOP
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Pihole or PFSense
+ DNS Blocking allows you to block ads on your entire network, LTT did a good video on this and if you are interested I would suggest searching YouTube.
+ It's as easy as setting up a raspberry pi with a bit of code, assigning it an IP and you're of to the races.
- Ads will display a Gray area with the message "ads.doubleclick address could not be found"
Simple DNS Ad blocking.
+ It's free and can be done in no time at all. Just set your Windows DNS to 1.1.1.2
- This works reasonably well but has the same drawbacks as PiHole
There's another workaround for that, see browsers and extensions.
Windows versions like LTSC, without Bloatware
+ Way less bloatware, almost no telemetry
- No Cortana (some might consider this a plus)
- No windows store (can be patched in through Powershell although some games and apps require a windows version more recent than what LTSC offers so those will have to wait until 2021 for the next update)
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Brave browser
+ The brave browser will filter out many scripts websites try to launch and stops auto-play, blocks cookies and many other things.
- It doesn't work with google sync so passwords need to be exported first and then re-imported. To do this you need to activate password export in the google chrome advanced settings. Once this is done, it works just like chrome except faster and it blocks a loooot of trackers.
These are some useful Extensions:
Ublock Origin
+ As a browser extension Ublock origin blocks ads, the way adblock used to do it before they began whitelisting ads for their customers.
+ This will get rid of the empty ad spaces that DNS blocking leaves behind.
Sponsorblock
Many sponsors are being baked into YouTube videos (raid shadowledgend, Nord VPN, Skillshare...)
We've heard them all, it is frustrating to skip forward, miss something, skip back again and keep watching. There's a fix for that too!
You should still support your favourite creators through merch, affiliate links, superchats etc. This is simply about how to get an undisturbed viewing experience!
+ The browser extension Sponsorblock once installed automatically zaps user submitted ads in YouTube videos and simply skips them! Great!
- It still displays a little pop up to let you know it just jumped past an ad in the video. If you wish not to see that, this can also be disabled in the extension settings.
I don't care about cookies
This little extension will get rid of the cookie/gdpr requests every website bombards us with.
It doesn't accept cookies, even if it did, Brave would not save them, rather it just deletes the request window out of the websites HTML
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ON MOBILE
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Network wide ad blocking through DNS blocking will also result in less ads on your mobile device. Unfortunately this has a few flaws. Smartphones change networks often, and even use Mobile data, and those being outside of your home network will still let ads through. Many apps then cache these ads until you open the app again. Personnaly this meant coming home, unlocking my phone and still seeing ads...
However, all hope is not lost!
VPN
Using a VPN, you can use DNS blocking again. This blocks ads system wide, even in apps.
+ Personally I use Blockada, it's free and easy to set up. Battery life seems not to be affected and most ads are gone (with some exceptions, we'll get into that.)
- It still leaves those empty grey boxes when the ad can not be found.
Brave and Opera
Custom Browsers like Brave and Opera do a lot of ad removal and can get rid of scripts.
+ Opera is even able to delete those pesky cookie messages, especially helpful on mobile where screen space is already limited.
- Although Brave is an awesome and fast browser, Opera wins this one in my regard since it blocks those cookie messages which brave cannot do.
Newpipe
An alternative YouTube player that doesn't display ads when used in conjunction with the other methods.
+ It's free and even let's you download videos. It's open source.
- It doesn't use google play functionality so it needs a bit of configuration, but it's definitely worth checking out
Instagram and Facebook
These badbois were tricky. I just couldn't see how to get rid of their ads. The ads are hosted on the Facebook servers so dns blocking those would render them useles.
Up until 2017 it was allegedly possible to get rid of all ads by flagging them as inappropriate for about a week, which would then somehow make it so Facebook doesn't deem you worthy of ads anymore. Maybe checking all of those requests was less profitable for Facebook. Anyways I'm currently still working on that.
+ It is however possible to use Opera and the website versions of those apps, and then to add them to the home-screen. This got rid of the in app ads
- Using Instagram on the web version means no more gesture control in the stories. A worthy trade-of in my opinion.
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That's all folks. I hope this was of service to you. I know this list is not complete, and I am sure there will still be ways to feed us ads, but I'm counting on you to tell me more in the comments bellow. At the risk of sounding cringe:
Make the internet great again!
