YouTube goes black before playing content on accounts using ad blockers

July 26 (Portaltic/EP) –

Youtube has begun to incorporate pauses of a few seconds in which the screen goes black before playing the desired content among users who use ad blockers, mainly uBlock Origin.

Google has been trying to crack down on ad-blocking software since May last year, when it began implementing measures to prevent free YouTube accounts using such software from playing content.

Months later, it began to intensify these actions to further restrict the use of extensions such as AdBlock either AdGuard and extended its fight against these ad blockers to third-party apps.

Back in June of this year, it began injecting so-called server-side ads into accounts with blockers, a technique that renders ad-blocking tools useless. add the ad directly to the video stream.

Users of the platform shared this new YouTube measure through Reddit, although it was not initially implemented at a general level. Other people on this same forum have now commented that this change has reached their accounts.

Instead of offering a commercial, YouTube has incorporated pauses of a few seconds – some users point out that are up to 12 and 30 seconds duration – with the screen black, and then displaying the desired content.

This has happened among those who use the uBlock Origin tool, as reported by Android Police, who has recalled that YouTube Premium is the only way to get rid of ads on the platform.

YouTube Premium is YouTube’s subscription service that provides ad-free content and tools such as downloading videos and watching them offline or playing them in the background while using other applications.

The appearance of the black screens has coincided with an announcement by YouTube that it is improving its security standards. “to better protect” users and their data from cyber attacks, such as data theft or hijacking.

These functionalities, which will be implemented automatically, can generate “problems with extensions“, and has therefore recommended temporarily disabling those built into the browser that cause problems, without specifying which ones.

With this, he has recommended that users open YouTube in an incognito window with all extensions disabled in case they experience errors while viewing, as he has shared in his support page.