Brave Browser now blocks twitch ads by default

[TheawesomeMCB]

 

Summary

Brave Browser now blocks twitch ads by default. This feature was in the brave shield settings (and still is) but now it blocks ads on twitch by default.

 

Quotes

Quote

Brave now blocks Twitch ads by default on all platforms!

No extra setup needed. Just watch Twitch in Brave to skip the interruptions.

-@brave on X

 

My thoughts

Blocking twitch ads wasn't always easy without an proxy or other scripts. But now that the brave can block ads on the platform by default is insane considering that most ad blockers don't work too great with twitch. Something tells me twitch is not going to be happy about this.

 

Sources

https://x.com/brave/status/1935359694819729558

[leadeater]

Twitch is just going to block Brave, I would if I were them.

[Doobeedoo]

Oho. Though I don't have issue on other browser using ab.

[porina]

It has always been a cat and mouse game. Block, adapt, block, adapt, repeat. Many sites have some version of adblock detection, either popping up a message requesting you disable it, or just outright interfering with the site unless you turn it off. If you can block ads, you can also block anti-adblock. Anti-anti-adblock, and so it goes on.

 

Twitch's video ad injection system is pretty bad, since you will miss content unlike for VOD. Inline banners are more tolerable but I guess far lower value for them. Basically I rarely go there now, and if I do more often than not is it to get drops on a minimal volume tab I'm not looking at. Any user generated streamed content I watch is on YouTube, with streamers who focus on that platform or multi-platform. Twitch is essentially walking dead to me.

[WereCat]

5 hours ago, porina said:

It has always been a cat and mouse game. Block, adapt, block, adapt, repeat. Many sites have some version of adblock detection, either popping up a message requesting you disable it, or just outright interfering with the site unless you turn it off. If you can block ads, you can also block anti-adblock. Anti-anti-adblock, and so it goes on.

 

Twitch's video ad injection system is pretty bad, since you will miss content unlike for VOD. Inline banners are more tolerable but I guess far lower value for them. Basically I rarely go there now, and if I do more often than not is it to get drops on a minimal volume tab I'm not looking at. Any user generated streamed content I watch is on YouTube, with streamers who focus on that platform or multi-platform. Twitch is essentially walking dead to me.

You can block the anti-adblock popups  

[Salted Spinach]

Yes its quite good along with the use of alternate front ends and apps

 

I run sandboxed instances of browsers including Brave that do not login to any account or store site data, behind VPN

 

Combined with hardening configuration to block fingerprinting, strict site isolation, user agent spoofing, canvas blocker, script blockers, and ad/telemetry blocking at the DNS and router level

 

Enjoying the completely sanitised browsing and content experience

[CasualExtremist]

1 hour ago, Salted Spinach said:

Yes its quite good along with the use of alternate front ends and apps

 

I run sandboxed instances of browsers including Brave that do not login to any account or store site data, behind VPN

 

Combined with hardening configuration to block fingerprinting, strict site isolation, user agent spoofing, canvas blocker, script blockers, and ad/telemetry blocking at the DNS and router level

 

Enjoying the completely sanitised browsing and content experience

What sites these days function after that sanitization process? Are you still able to consume media?

[LAwLz]

7 hours ago, leadeater said:

Twitch is just going to block Brave, I would if I were them.

That's easy to say, but hard to do in practice. 

The ads are also not the only source of revenue for Twitch (wouldn't be surprised if it was a minor share), so blocking Brave users runs the risk of actually lowering their profits.

 

You don't step over dollars to pick up pennies.

[leadeater]

10 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

That's easy to say, but hard to do in practice. 

Of course but when you create motivation...

 

 

10 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

The ads are also not the only source of revenue for Twitch (wouldn't be surprised if it was a minor share), so blocking Brave users runs the risk of actually lowering their profits.

Very much doubt that. Every time there is a problem on Twitch and advertisers pull out temporarily actual revenue the streamers get can sometimes drop to near zero.

 

As far as blocking Brave being a risk, that statement would only be true if it were blocking Chrome or Edge. Because all Floatplane users use Firefox right? 

 

If you like a streamer and actually pay for a sub then Brave not working wouldn't keep you away from the site, you'd simply use a different browser. Don't pre-order, don't buy loot boxes, don't by skins, don't buy early access always, don't waste money on "season passes" etc etc. Think we both know how all of those actually go.

[leadeater]

51 minutes ago, CasualExtremist said:

What sites these days function after that sanitization process? Are you still able to consume media?

Basically all good adblockers, extension or inbuilt, do a good job and preserve browsing experience and functions. Only websites that go massively out of their way to counter adblockers have issues and those are fortunately not common.

[TheawesomeMCB]

7 hours ago, leadeater said:

Twitch is just going to block Brave, I would if I were them.

How would Twitch even block brave? When you go to an website that asks what browser you are using brave tells the website it’s chrome 137. So unless twitch wants to block the most popular web browser I don’t see them doing it. But the workaround would be an useragent switcher on top of that. Plus with this logic YouTube would have blocked brave a long time ago

[leadeater]

9 minutes ago, TheawesomeMCB said:

How would Twitch even block brave? When you go to an website that asks what browser you are using brave tells the website it’s chrome 137. So unless twitch wants to block the most popular web browser I don’t see them doing it. But the workaround would be an useragent switcher on top of that. Plus with this logic YouTube would have blocked brave a long time ago

 

Quote

Brave uses the same User Agent request header as Chromium for web compatibility reasons on most platforms. We also expose Brave in the Sec-Ch-Ua header (except on iOS where client hints are not enabled). In testing, we found that some websites broke on encountering an uncommon User Agent.

If you want to detect Brave, please use the navigator.brave.isBrave() JavaScript API. Note that we make this API unavailable for websites that block or discriminate against Brave users.

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Detecting-Brave-(for-Websites)

 

100% can detect it.

 

Quote

(navigator.brave && await navigator.brave.isBrave() || false)

 

 

9 minutes ago, TheawesomeMCB said:

Plus with this logic YouTube would have blocked brave a long time ago

They are along with all other adblockers. And their efforts are only getting stronger, personally I gave up and purchased YT Premium, this month.

[wanderingfool2]

29 minutes ago, leadeater said:

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Detecting-Brave-(for-Websites)

 

100% can detect it.

The thing about that one is the "we make this API unavailable for websites that block or discriminate against Brave users."  So that tells me they could potentially add things like Twitch as an exception.  Although yea admittedly there would be other ways of detecting and then warning/blocking users who use brave.

 

Honestly though this goes back to what I've said before in regards to ads etc.  It's one thing when done for the security, but when it's intentionally circumventing ads for the sake of the user's experience I have a problem with it.  There is enough cases at the moment where it won't really be fought in court anymore, but I really do feel that many of the ad blockers cross that line where they are just blocking ads for the sake of not presenting the user with ads...but everyone knows that sites generally are funded by ads which means the programs are intentionally breaking the implied contract that visiting the site you will be presented with ads.  It's an unpopular opinion but I feel that those companies should be liable for damages when it's clear the intent is just so the users don't have to view ads vs for the viewers safety.

[StDragon]

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

 

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Detecting-Brave-(for-Websites)

 

100% can detect it.

 

They are along with all other adblockers. And their efforts are only getting stronger, personally I gave up and purchased YT Premium, this month.

If you want to detect Brave, please use the navigator.brave.isBrave() JavaScript API. Note that we make this API unavailable for websites that block or discriminate against Brave users.

https://github.com/brave/adblock-lists/blob/c67badc6f1e4409c93d56bd98fae3a1d39671d55/brave-unbreak.txt#L722-L723

Line 722 states "! Anti-Brave checks"
Line 723 includes twitch.tv

Now what Twitch could do is mandate a plugin or their own app. But they can't target a specific browser when the client reponse is spoofed.

Edited June 19 by StDragon

[Spotty]

Looks like Twitch has already made changes to prevent Brave's adblocking from working. I watched Twitch with Brave (v1.79.126) last night to see if their adblocking worked and I didn't get any ads, but I tried it again today and I've been getting just as many ads as I was getting before on Firefox.

 

 

13 hours ago, porina said:

Twitch's video ad injection system is pretty bad, since you will miss content unlike for VOD. Inline banners are more tolerable but I guess far lower value for them. Basically I rarely go there now, and if I do more often than not is it to get drops on a minimal volume tab I'm not looking at. Any user generated streamed content I watch is on YouTube, with streamers who focus on that platform or multi-platform. Twitch is essentially walking dead to me.

Ads interrupting the content wouldn't be as annoying if Twitch had a progress bar on the live stream to easily just scroll back a minute in case you felt like you missed something while the ads were playing. You can do it by going in to the vod (if the streamer has vod available), but it's clunky.

 

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

The ads are also not the only source of revenue for Twitch (wouldn't be surprised if it was a minor share), so blocking Brave users runs the risk of actually lowering their profits.

 

You don't step over dollars to pick up pennies.

You can't underestimate how much money Twitch earns off advertising. I've seen Twitch streamers with thousands of subs saying that ads are the main way they earn money through Twitch.

 

Twitch has a 55/45 split for ad revenue, while subscriber revenue ranges from 50/50 to 70/30, depending on the Partner level of the streamer. Twitch is taking 45% of the revenue for ads and between 30-50% of the revenue for subscriptions. 

 

Here's a streamer showing off their revenue breakdown for different revenue streams.

 

That's just one stream from one streamer, but looking at the numbers...

If the streamer is earning $762 on paid subs with a 70/30 split, Twitch is earning $322 off that. Including gifted subs ($595 for streamer) Twitch would be earning $255. In total from paid and gifted subscriptions Twitch is taking $577. If Twitch was taking the 50/50 revenue split for subscriptions that would be $1357 for Twitch from paid and gifted subs. 
With the streamer earning $4105 on advertisements with a 55/45 split, Twitch is earning $3358 from ads.
 

Also, you have to consider that a significant number of people subscribe to streamers or Twitch turbo to get rid of ads. Browsers blocking ads may lead to fewer people subscribing to streamers or Twitch Turbo, which will hurt Twitch's non-ad (subscription) revenue as well as their ad revenue.

[leadeater]

5 hours ago, StDragon said:

If you want to detect Brave, please use the navigator.brave.isBrave() JavaScript API. Note that we make this API unavailable for websites that block or discriminate against Brave users.

https://github.com/brave/adblock-lists/blob/c67badc6f1e4409c93d56bd98fae3a1d39671d55/brave-unbreak.txt#L722-L723

Line 722 states "! Anti-Brave checks"
Line 723 includes twitch.tv

Now what Twitch could do is mandate a plugin or their own app. But they can't target a specific browser when the client reponse is spoofed.

Yea and when you start doing that you are also using an adblocker so you're going to start getting blocked for that reason anyway.

 

It's not like I'm saying it's good or I agree etc etc. If you start blocking the way a business gets paid you will get kicked out, very simple. That's why if I owned Twitch and Brave came out like they did then blocking Brave is going to end up on the schedule of work.

 

Twitch preventing any and all circumvention of payment method is the most obvious thing here. It should be the most uncontroversial statement possible.

 

Brave created the will, Twitch will find the way. if you can properly detect all other browsers through additional checks but not Brave then anything that doesn't allow additional browser checks is Brave, ergo blocked. It's simply down to whether or not Twitch actually wants to block them, or just adblocking efforts which they already spend developer time on and just keep doing that effort.

 

But if anyone thinks making a statement like Brave did is wise, business framed, is wrong.

[StDragon]

22 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Yea and we you start doing that you are also using an adblocker so you're going to start getting blocked for that reason anyway.

Technically they can't under the current ad serving paradigm.

 

What they could do however is by muxing to combine an advert into the stream with a specific percentage of transparency (alpha blending). Maybe a portion of the screen, or a fade-in fade-out. Whatever the presentation, you couldn't block the ad as it would be part of the binary stream.

[jagdtigger]

10 hours ago, leadeater said:

f course but when you create motivation...

Then brave pulls a troll move and spoofs chrome user agent and whatnot, checkmate..... 

Edited June 20 by jagdtigger

[wanderingfool2]

3 hours ago, Spotty said:

That's just one stream from one streamer, but looking at the numbers...

If the streamer is earning $762 on paid subs with a 70/30 split, Twitch is earning $322 off that. Including gifted subs ($595 for streamer) Twitch would be earning $255. In total from paid and gifted subscriptions Twitch is taking $577. If Twitch was taking the 50/50 revenue split for subscriptions that would be $1357 for Twitch from paid and gifted subs. 
With the streamer earning $4105 on advertisements with a 55/45 split, Twitch is earning $3358 from ads.
 

Also, you have to consider that a significant number of people subscribe to streamers or Twitch turbo to get rid of ads. Browsers blocking ads may lead to fewer people subscribing to streamers or Twitch Turbo, which will hurt Twitch's non-ad (subscription) revenue as well as their ad revenue.

But then you also have to consider that you are looking at revenue instead of profits.

 

Oh also, Agent got paid for Twitch Turbo people...$1096 based on it.

 

Anyways, how much really would Twitch be making from all this though...~23,000 viewers....lets say each person consumes 3 mbps (I opened a stream, I get 7 mbps avg, but going with 3 here).  That's 69,000 mbps needed to host his stream.  Or ~8.6 GB/s...that means if he streamed 3 hours that day Twitch would have had 92880 GB of network traffic.  Sure it's pennies on the dollar there, but even assuming 1 cent per GB that still would be $928 of bandwidth cost...based on what I can see though if it was an average stream it actually would have been about 8 hours...which would put the cost to a few thousand.  There is a reason why Twitch is still losing a ton of money each year (along with the fact that the larger streamers are able to get the larger subs etc which balances out their viewship).  I do think they make money off of the top streamers, but it's the majority of other streamers they are losing their shirt on [where ad runs aren't quite as profitable etc]

 

  

2 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Then brave pulls a troll move and spoofs chrome user agent, checkmate..... 

There are ways to still sus out what people are using.  It also starts really stepping into a grey area in my mind when you start emulating to bypass a block...as now you are to an extent creating a tool intended to violate a contract

[jagdtigger]

6 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

There are ways to still sus out what people are using.  It also starts really stepping into a grey area in my mind when you start emulating to bypass a block...as now you are to an extent creating a tool intended to violate a contract

It is also a grey area to circumvent the blocks put in place by the user, its a clear sign they dont care about ads. And even if you force it on them it will be ignored and thus worthless (or even a net negative because they will intentionally avoid the product advertised). In such cases twitch would be committing fraud because they would charge the advertiser anyway....

 

Its time for sites and advertisers to face reality, ppl have ad fatigue and the more they push the more ppl block.

[porina]

54 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Its time for sites and advertisers to face reality, ppl have ad fatigue and the more they push the more ppl block.

I've long thought there would be an end-game to the adblock situation, at least for non-video streaming ads, where both sides kinda "win".

1, use a virtual window, and fully render the site as the creator intended. Spoof any "is window active" or similar browser features as necessary.

2, in the display window, copy and display only the "good" content. Pass through any interactions as necessary

 

From a site perspective, it looks like ads are being shown. From a user perspective, you don't see the ads. The mid ground is that you're still downloading and rendering the ads. It would take someone to work out what is good or not good content, similar to existing adblockers. And there is risk there can be unintended interactions when passing data between the display window and virtual window. Also this doesn't work for inline video ads if you can't somehow get access to the non-ad stream at the same time. For that, I have an idea that could be deployed at a platform level but it would be messy.

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Then brave pulls a troll move and spoofs chrome user agent and whatnot, checkmate..... 

Browser agent hasn't been used for only method of detection in a decade, spoofing is the literal reason why.

[leadeater]

6 hours ago, StDragon said:

Technically they can't under the current ad serving paradigm.

 

What they could do however is by muxing to combine an advert into the stream with a specific percentage of transparency (alpha blending). Maybe a portion of the screen, or a fade-in fade-out. Whatever the presentation, you couldn't block the ad as it would be part of the binary stream.

Twitch really just need to stop shooting themselves in booth feet, whoever thought requiring people to watch multiple minute ads to start a Stream view is reallllly dumb

[RejZoR]

3 hours ago, leadeater said:

Twitch really just need to stop shooting themselves in booth feet, whoever thought requiring people to watch multiple minute ads to start a Stream view is reallllly dumb

It's not just Twitch. Youtube is straight up cancer and I'm just baffled how this mega oversized corporation like Google is so stupid with it like they don't know how to make "Hello world" work. It's especially baffling how ads are always several levels louder than the content I'm watching, making whole experience absolutely horrid. How the F Youtube can't normalize volume of ads to viewed content with all the Ai bullshit they have, it's just insane.

[CasualExtremist]

18 hours ago, leadeater said:

Basically all good adblockers, extension or inbuilt, do a good job and preserve browsing experience and functions. Only websites that go massively out of their way to counter adblockers have issues and those are fortunately not common.

You might have missed what SaltedSpinach was saying. They don't just use an ad block browser, they do a full on purge of trackers, embedded code, etc. That was what I was inquiring about. Also, even stock Brave settings messes up on some of the online shopping platforms so I am not sure it can be considered "not common".