Over the past few days, there have been an increasing number of reports about supposed YouTube outages. The number of reports rose sharply on fault-tracking platforms such as Downdetector, but this time there was no technical error. Apparently, the “issue” is simply that YouTube has tightened its measures against ad blockers once more.
Many users are suddenly only seeing gray elements instead of videos or thumbnails, and playback only works again when their ad blockers are deactivated. The Opera GX gaming browser, which blocks ads by default, appears to be especially affected—and the issue persists even when the feature has been deactivated, according to some users.
Different effects in different browsers
As various reports show, the current crop of problems on YouTube occur differently depending on the browser. In Chrome, many users can apparently continue to use YouTube with their ad blockers activated, especially if they aren’t logged in to Google. In Firefox or Edge using the uBlock Origin extension, YouTube seems to work without issues.
YouTube already started taking action against ad blockers back in the summer, for example by issuing warning messages or slowing down video playback. The “outages” that are now being observed are apparently a further escalation stage of that initiative.
How YouTube detects ad blockers
According to a report by Tom’s Guide, YouTube doesn’t directly detect whether an ad blocker is installed and active. Instead, the platform checks whether certain ad scripts are blocked when the page is loaded. YouTube also uses so-called “bait” ads—invisible code that, if removed, basically serves as an indication of ad blocker use.
That said, it’s still possible that YouTube recognizes when an ad blocker is installed via the public ID of a browser extension.
YouTube Premium as an alternative
If you don’t fancy the cat-and-mouse game between YouTube and ad blocker developers, you can opt for YouTube Premium. The subscription costs $13.99/month or $139.99/year and removes ads from videos, plus unlocks features like downloads and background playback.
We don’t blame you if you proudly block ads on YouTube, and maybe you’ll continue to do so out of principle despite the inconveniences. But if YouTube succeeds in its efforts, the war might end in favor of the platform, with YouTube Premium emerging as the “best” solution.
