Whats the latest on blocking ads on YouTube etc on IOS and Android mobile devices?

Trying to help the wife and family solve the age old problem with ads.

Traditionally have been using adblock on pc. but with Chromecast and appleTV, I’m trying to find their respective solutions…

Thanks a lot

When did Chromecast start showing ads? I’ve never seen one show an ad and have four of them.

For mobiles that use wifi easiest solution I have used is pi-hole. I run mine under docker but dedicated hardware is cheap and easy as well (pi 3 b+)

For mobiles on cellular, don’t know.

On Android I’m using Newpipe instead of the YT app. Haven’t seen an ad yet.

2 Likes

Nono. I meant now that ppl at home cast on Chromecast or airplay youtube from their mobile on tablet devices.

Hence the need to find the adblock plus equivalent.

I notice adblock plus’s browser doesn’t come with cast to Chromecast function too…

Chromecast is tricky, it is hard coded to use Google DNS and ignores what your DHCP gives it, so that rules out an easy fix with pi-hole. You can do some hacks on your router to intercept all DNS queries and force redirect them to pi-hole. This assumes you have a programmable router like Mikrotik, Unifi, Open-WRT.

I typically use subscription services and ad-free sources, so I guess I hadn’t noticed.

2 Likes

That is actually the ONLY solution. A local Pi-hole and a DNS Masquerade created by Ubiquiti Edgerouter. (Edgerouter is the ONLY tutorial that actually makes sense.)

1 Like

Pihole doesn’t work on YouTube ads, so no.

There’s no way to do it on iOS unless you jailbreak, as far as I know. On Android you can sideload Newpipe, as someone else already posted, or Smart YouTubeTV on AndroidTV.

What about IOS devices then?

Feels like a lot of work… Im not that tech savvy!

The old problem is getting worse as well. There’s now double ads at the start, the usual middle of the video ads, and even double ads at the end of videos.

Then along with all that, if your in an applicable country, YouTube begs you constantly to get YouTube prime.

I think they might be running out of money or something.

As for a reliable way to get rid of them… I’ve no idea. New pipe is good, i wish it existed for iOS .

1 Like

That really is there fault and their business practices imho it was inevitable. Everytime a platform gets greedy shit like this happens

As for blocking your best methods are using adguard from what I found. Ive switched to cloudflare dns over HTTPS with a lot of trouble and with root… it works okay… Ive also done hosts based blocking it works alright but your best method especially without root is adguard @jonnyyyl11

Cloud flare has an app for their dns on iOS. Doesn’t do anything for YouTube though.

And to update on the ads I’ve had my first double ads in the middle of the video as well now. It’s getting insane.

Twitch is getting desperate too. And the worst enemy is “SSAI.”

If YouTube no longer works with a local Pi-hole, even with forcing the hard coded DNS away, they have won in preventing any way to stop them from being shown.

Edit: Apparently ads on mobile and Chromecast devices are coming from the same server as the videos now. So that means iOS is screwed if you use the official app. Android you can use F-Droid and Newpipe.

Wait, what is the problem with ads?
I use noscript to block malicious ads from drive-by infecting, and any tracing stuff I can.
But for YT, I just have a dedicated browser, and watch the ads that support the platform.

In my mind the adverts are a good thing, it’s trackers and data scrapers that aren’t, but blocking ads doesn’t stop the creepy spying

The problem is all solutions that could have worked now don’t work on mobile and Chromecast. Those 2 are guaranteed channels for ads now, and the amount of them as @eden pointed out has gone UP.

Plus the stuff you get is all the TV ads you’d rather watch on TV. And you get interrupted mid video. They’re doing everything it takes to annoy you to get eyeballs on it.

This is likely in response to YouTube recently announcing some YouTube movies will be made available for free, with interruptions. Google wants to make sure you’re interrupted.

I use Adblock Browser on Android and I’ve yet to have an ad when watching a video on YouTube.

I may be misremembering, but I’ve used DNS66 on my Android phone in the past and it blocked pretty much all ads in any app. I’m pretty sure it worked in the official YouTube app as well. I’d have to do some testing to find out.

the WORST, ugh!
at least normally I can skip both

1 Like

PiHole if you’re home (I don’t suggest you to expose it on the internet or to use a VPN to get to your home connection to block ads on your phone).
If you’re not home you can use the DNS made by AdGuard (app for iOS and on Android, if you’re on Android 9, you can punch them in into the wireless settings).

But, in all of this, I don’t recommend you to use any adblocker on Android because I’ve found out that using it decreses your battery life. I couldn’t really figure out what kind of domain(s) is blocked but constantly want to talk to a server but there is one or more that do that. Just recently a friend of mine that’s been using AdGuard DNSs to block ads reported me the same thing. The battery doesen’t go flat immediatly but you can notice that the phone doesen’t get you through a full day anymore like it used to, for example.

Again, host-based ad blocking like Pihole does not work on YouTube ads. People need to stop giving bad advice.

If you’re on Android you can just root and use Adaway, it is just a hosts file so it has zero battery impact. But that won’t help with YouTube. On Android, use Newpipe.

https://adaway.org/

https://newpipe.schabi.org/