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YouTube tests server-side ads to make your coveted blocker obsolete (www.yahoo.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology

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YouTube has been spotted testing server-side ads, which could pose a problem to ad blockers.

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[–] Fake4000 4 points 4 months ago (3 children)

The issue is that Sponsorblock uses timestamps of videos to skip segments. If the ads injected all have different durations, then SponsorBlock is now obsolete.

[–] AstridWipenaugh 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

It's not even that simple. If you skip ahead during an ad, the YT servers could just keep streaming you the ad content anyway. Their servers can ensure that the next 30s of packet data you receive is an ad no matter what, so the only way you can skip it is to wait it out and close your ears and eyes. Basically the same concept as ads on broadcast TV. Which means we'll have to do a TiVo for YT... Gross.

[–] NikkiDimes 0 points 4 months ago

Video streams don't quite work like that.

[–] Fake4000 0 points 4 months ago

Thats not how it works. If a server is streaming ads to you then it shouldnt be a problem detecting that and blocking out that server.

What Google is doing is baking in the ad into the video so that the video itself has the ad embedded into it. This way you cant block a certain server from serving ads. And if those ads baked in have different duration for each user, then SponsorBlock stop behaving properly as it uses timestamps to skip segments.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I had to drop sponsorblock as it was letting those ads in. Now just use unblock and I don't get those ads anymore.

[–] KrankyKong 1 points 4 months ago

What if sponsor block started collecting the durations of videos (if they don't already), then it could skip forward by the difference.