YouTube’s Latest Scheme to Defeat Adblockers

YouTube is currently engaged in a battle against ad-blockers, and it is continuously implementing measures to combat these tools, such as server-side ad injection. This latest approach aims to permanently prevent ad-blockers from blocking ads.

The creator of SponsorBlock, an extension that crowdsources the skipping of ads, announced today that YouTube is currently conducting a trial of server-side ad injection.

Server-side ad injection is a method of delivering ads directly from the server that hosts the content, bypassing ad-blockers and other client-side mechanisms.

Currently, scripts are used to insert ads on YouTube into the client-side content on the user’s device. However, these scripts can be detected and blocked by ad-blocking software.

With the implementation of server-side ad injection, YouTube will incorporate advertisements into the content prior to it reaching the user’s device, thereby increasing the challenge for ad-blockers to differentiate and block the ads.

YouTube is currently experimenting with server-side ad injection. This means that the ad is being added directly into the video stream.This breaks sponsorblock since now all timestamps are offset by the ad times.

— SponsorBlock (@sponsorblock@fosstodon.org) (@SponsorBlock) June 12, 2024

Although this strategy may successfully prevent ad-blockers, users on Reddit expressed concerns that it could potentially “ruin YouTube”. The implementation of server-side ad injection could potentially disrupt timestamped video links and chapter markers, and also make it more difficult to guarantee an ad-free experience for Premium viewers.

This action was taken after reports surfaced that YouTube was penalizing users of ad-blocking software by skipping entire videos. Many users experienced issues such as muted content or being taken directly to the end of the video when attempting to watch with an ad blocker enabled. However, these problems ceased when the ad blocker was disabled.

In April 2024, YouTube announced that it would be increasing its efforts to enforce restrictions on third-party apps that allow ad-free viewing.

According to the company, individuals utilizing these third-party apps may encounter problems with buffering or encounter the error message “The following content is not available on this app”while attempting to view a video.