{"id":1207966,"date":"2023-12-01T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T14:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1207966"},"modified":"2023-12-01T09:00:31","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T14:00:31","slug":"inside-the-arms-race-between-youtube-and-ad-blockers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1207966","title":{"rendered":"Inside the 'arms race' between YouTube and ad blockers"},"content":{"rendered":"

YouTube recently took dramatic action<\/a> against anyone visiting its site with an ad blocker running \u2014 after a few pieces of content, it’ll simply stop serving you videos. If you want to get past the wall, that ad blocker will (probably) need to be turned off; and if you want an ad-free experience, better cough up a couple bucks for a Premium subscription.<\/p>\n

Although this is an aggressive move that seemingly left ad blocking companies scrambling to respond, it didn\u2019t come out the blue \u2014 YouTube had been testing something similar<\/a> for months. And even before this most recent clampdown, the Google-owned video service has been engaged in an ongoing conflict \u2014 a game of cat-and-mouse, an arms race, pick your metaphor \u2014 with ad-blocking software: YouTube rolls out new ways to serve ads to viewers with ad blockers, then ad blockers develop new strategies to circumvent those ad-serving measures.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As noted in a blog post<\/a> by the ad- and tracker-blocking company Ghostery<\/a>, YouTube employs a wide variety of techniques to circumvent ad blockers, such as embedding an ad in the video itself (so the ad blocker can\u2019t distinguish between the two), or serving ads from the same domain as the video, fooling filters that have been set up to block ads served from third-party domains.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that YouTube is alone in these efforts; many digital publishers make similar attempts to stymie ad blockers. To some extent, YouTube\u2019s moves just get more attention because the service is so popular. As AdGuard<\/a> CTO Andrey Meshkov put it in an email, \u201cEven when they run a test on a share of users\u2026 the number of affected people is very high.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, according to Ghostery<\/a>\u2019s director of product and engineering Krzysztof Modras, it\u2019s also true that \u201cas one of the world\u2019s largest publishers, YouTube constantly invests in circumventing ad blocking.\u201d And that those investments have been effective. Many of the most common ad blocking strategies, including DNS filtering (filtering for third-party domains), network filtering (which Modras described as \u201cmore selective\u201d and better at blocking first-party requests) and cosmetic filtering (which can blocks ads without leaving ad-shaped holes in the website content) no longer work on the site.<\/p>\n

Now, Modras said, YouTube seems to be \u201cadapting [its] methods more frequently than ever before. To counteract its changes to ad delivery and ad blocker detection, block lists have to be updated at minimum on a daily basis, and sometimes even more often. While all players in the space are innovating, some ad blockers are simply unable to keep up with these changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keeping pace with YouTube will likely become even more challenging next year, when Google\u2019s Chrome browser adopts the Manifest V3 standard<\/a>, which significantly limits what extensions are allowed to do. Modras said that under Manifest V3, whenever an ad blocker wants to update its blocklist \u2014 again, something they may need to do multiple times a day \u2014 it will have to release a full update and undergo a review \u201cwhich can take anywhere between [a] few hours to even a few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough Manifest V3, Google will close the door for innovation in the ad blocking landscape and introduce another layer of gatekeeping that will slow down how ad blockers can react to new ads and online tracking methods,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For many users, the battle between YouTube and ad blockers has largely been invisible, or at least ignorable, until now. The new wall dramatically changes this dynamic, forcing users to adapt their behavior if they want to access YouTube videos at all. Still, the ad blocking companies suggest it\u2019s more of a policy change than a technical breakthrough \u2014 a sign of a new willingness on YouTube\u2019s part to risk alienating its users.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not that YouTube’s move is something new, many publishers went [down] this road already,\u201d Meshkov said. \u201cThe difference is [the] scale of YouTube.\u201d That scale affects both the number of users impacted, as well as the number of resources required to maintain these defenses on the publisher’s side. \u201cGoing this road is very, very expensive, it requires constant maintenance,” he added, “you basically need a team dedicated to this. There’s just a handful of companies that can afford it.”<\/p>\n

As ever, ad blockers are figuring out how to adapt, even if it\u2019s requiring more effort from their users, too. For example, Modras noted that \u201cthroughout much of October, Ghostery experienced three to five times the typical number of both uninstalls and installs per day, as well as a 30 percent increase in downloads on Microsoft Edge, where our ad blocker was still working on YouTube for a period of time.\u201d All of this activity suggests that users are quickly cycling through different products and strategies to get around YouTube\u2019s anti-ad block efforts, then discarding them when they stop working.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, uBlock Origin<\/a> still seems to work on YouTube. But a detailed Reddit post<\/a> outlining how to avoid tripping the platform’s ad-block detection measures notes that because \u201cYouTube changes their detection scripts regularly,\u201d users may still encounter the site\u2019s pop-up warnings and anti-adblock wall in \u201cbrief periods of time” between script changes (on the platform’s end) or filter updates (on uBlock’s side.) uBlock Origin may also stop working on Chrome next year thanks to the aforementioned Manifest V3. And if you\u2019re hoping to use it on a non-Chrome browser, Google has allegedly begun deprecating<\/a> YouTube’s load times on alternate browsers, seemingly as part of the anti-ad block effort. While 404 Media and Android Authority, which both reported on this issue, were not able to replicate these artificially slowed load times, users were seemingly able to avoid them through the use of a \u201cuser-agent switcher,\u201d<\/a> which disguises one browser (say, Firefox) as another (in this case, Chrome).<\/p>\n

Why do some ad blockers still work? The answer seems to boil down to a new approach: Scriptlet injection, which uses scripts to alter website behavior in a more fine-grained way. For example, Meshkov said an ad blocker could write a scriptlet to remove a cookie with a given name, or to stop the execution of JavaScript on a web page when it tries to access a page property with a given name.<\/p>\n

On YouTube, Modras said, scriptlets can alter the data being loaded before it\u2019s used by the page script. For example, a scriptlet might look for specific data identifiers and remove them, making this approach \u201csubtle enough\u201d to block ads that have been mixed in with website functionality, without affecting the functionality.<\/p>\n

Scriptlet injection also plays a role in an increasingly crucial part of the ad blocker\u2019s job: escaping detection. AdGuard\u2019s Meshkov said this is something that teams like his are already working on, since they try escape detection as a general rule \u2014 both by avoiding activity that would alert a website to their presence, and by using scriptlets to prevent common fingerprinting functions that websites use to detect ad blockers.<\/p>\n

Scriptlet injection seems to be the most promising approach right now \u2014 in fact, Modras described it as currently \u201cthe only reliable way of ad blocking on YouTube.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meshkov said that assessment is accurate if you limit yourself to browser extensions (which is how most popular ad blockers are distributed). But he pointed to network-level ad blockers and alternative YouTube clients, such as NewPipe<\/a>, as other approaches that can work. A recent AdGuard blog post<\/a> outlined additional other steps that users can try, such as checking for filter updates, making sure multiple ad blockers aren’t installed and using a desktop ad-blocking app, which should be harder to detect than an extension. (AdGuard itself offers both network-level blocking and desktop apps.)<\/p>\n

At least one popular ad blocker, AdBlock Plus<\/a>, won\u2019t be trying to get around YouTube\u2019s wall at all. Vergard Johnsen, chief product officer at AdBlock Plus developer eyeo, said he respects YouTube\u2019s decision to start \u201ca conversation\u201d with users about how content gets monetized.<\/p>\n

Referencing the now independently run Acceptable Ads program<\/a> (which eyeo created and participates in), Johnsen said, \u201cthe vast majority of our users have really embraced the fact that there will be ads […] we\u2019ve made it clear we don\u2019t believe in circumvention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, a YouTube spokesperson reiterated that the platform\u2019s ads support \u201ca diverse ecosystem of creators globally\u201d and that \u201cthe use of ad blockers violate YouTube\u2019s Terms of Service.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the battle between YouTube and ad blockers continues, Modras suggested that his side has at least one major advantage: They\u2019re open source and can draw on knowledge from the broader community.<\/p>\n

\u201cScriptlet injection is already getting more powerful, and it\u2019s becoming harder for anti-ad blockers to detect,\u201d he said. \u201cIn some ways, the current situation has spurred an arms race. YouTube has inadvertently improved ad blockers, as the new knowledge and techniques gained from innovating within the YouTube platform are also applicable to other ad and tracking systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even if most users grow frustrated with the new countermeasures and decide to whitelist YouTube in their ad block product of choice, Modras suggested that ad blockers can still affect the platform’s bottom line: \u201cIf users disable ad blocking on only YouTube and maintain their protection on other websites as they browse, the platform will quickly learn that they are still unable to effectively target ads to these users,\u201d since it won\u2019t have data about user activity on those other sites.<\/p>\n

Regardless of what YouTube does next, he suggested that other publishers are unlikely to build a similar wall, because few if any services enjoy the same chokehold on an entire media ecosystem \u2014 not only owning the most popular video sharing service, but also the most popular web browser<\/a> on which to view it. “YouTube is in a unique position as it is de facto a monopoly,” he said. “That’s not true for most of the other publishers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even against those odds, ad block diehards aren’t dissuaded in their mission. As Andrey Meshkov put it bluntly: \u201cYouTube\u2019s policy is just a good motivation to do it better.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/inside-the-arms-race-between-youtube-and-ad-blockers-140031824.html?src=rss
\n
\nSource: Engadget – Inside the ‘arms race’ between YouTube and ad blockers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

YouTube recently took dramatic action against anyone visiting its site with an ad blocker running \u2014 after a few pieces of content, it’ll simply stop serving you videos. If you want to get past the wall, that ad blocker will … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,110],"tags":[98],"class_list":["post-1207966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engadget","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-engadget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1207966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1207966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1207966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1207966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}