Users losing anti-tracking features as they disable the tools could fall prey to online hazards, and the more complex blocking tactics companies like his are being forced to introduce could lead to unintended security holes. Ghostery’s Modras worries about the consequences of Google escalating the war on blockers. If users find that to be true, it will push the fix to versions for macOS, Android, and iOS, says Kostiantyn Shebanov, Hankuper’s product head and business development manager. Hankuper, the Slovakian company behind lesser known blocker AdLock, released a new version for Windows this week that it believes goes unnoticed by YouTube. Newpipe doesn’t collect usage data, it says on its website. Discussions online show some recommending services such as, an open source YouTube look-alike that uses workarounds to run videos from the service without ads. Ad blocker developers say annoyance with YouTube has long been a top driver of downloads of their tools.Īfter encountering YouTube’s demands to shut off the blockers, users turned every which way last month. Besides ad filtering, many ad blocking tools carry features that prevent users from being tracked across the web. But Chrome, which Google says serves a mission to support an open internet where users can be secure and private, has given them fairly wide latitude to operate. The Google Play mobile app store, unlike Apple’s App Store, has banned ad blockers for about a decade. Google has had a complicated relationship with the ad blocking industry. The technology deployed by YouTube mirrors code Google developed in 2017 for a program it calls Funding Choices that enables news and other websites to detect ad blockers, he adds. YouTube’s Lawton says warnings appear regardless of whether users are logged in to the service or using Incognito mode.įurther, the warnings seem to be triggered when YouTube detects certain open source filtering rules that many ad blockers use to identify ads, rather than by targeting any specific extensions, Ghostery’s Modras says. It doesn’t affect people using YouTube’s mobile or TV apps, using YouTube’s mobile site, or watching YouTube videos embedded on other sites. YouTube’s test has affected users accessing the website through Chrome on laptops and desktops, according to ad block developers. “Where the issues come is when they feel the line is overstepped,” he says of users, though he declines to share any Eyeo usage data. But they are frustrated with ads that are intrusive, too numerous, or longer than six seconds without a “skip” option. Matthew Maier, who oversees Eyeo’s ad blockers, says its surveys show that most users aren’t against ads entirely. Various surveys and estimates over the years have suggested that around one or three out of every five internet users browse with ad blockers. But it’s unclear how many stumped YouTube users have chosen any of those routes, due to the limited tracking. Cologne-based Eyeo, which operates Adblock Plus, AdBlock, and uBlock, even enables AdBlock users to allow ads for just certain YouTube videos or creators. Some ad blockers can be deactivated for specific websites, and users can also disable them instead of completely uninstalling. To protect users’ privacy, many ad blocker providers don’t track usage directly, but Chrome’s extension store provides the basic installation and uninstallation statistics. Subscribers grew as people realized AdGuard’s paid tools remained unaffected by YouTube’s clampdown.Īnother extension, AdLock, recorded about 30 percent more daily installations and uninstallations in October than in previous months, according to its product head. But as at Ghostery, installations also surged as others looked for relief, reaching about 60,000 installations on Chrome on October 18 and 27. User complaints started flooding in at the 120-person, Cyprus-based company, about four every hour, at least half of them about YouTube.
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