TL;DR version:
From June to August, the number of active users of the AdGuard Ad Blocker extension for Chrome dropped by about 8%. But in late August, the trend reversed. The temporary slump in user growth was offset by the increased demand in the second half of the year.
After a brief period of turbulence that lasted about a month, we saw the trend stabilize. And while the daily number of uninstalls was still higher than before YouTube’s crackdown, it remained consistently lower than the number of daily installs.
After media reports and YouTube’s own statements implied that ad blockers were doomed, and especially after more and more users started noticing that their ad blocking extensions were not working properly on YouTube, we did indeed see a spike in uninstalls. However, at the same time, the number of installs also increased significantly! It may well be that the way ad blockers’ woes were amplified in the media inadvertently boosted their popularity and helped them woo new users.
The takeaway from all of this is that ad blockers — first and foremost, ad-blocking extensions — were rocked by YouTube’s onslaught, but survived. And, moreover, the interest has rebounded, as is evidenced by the growth in the number of active users.
Why are people using ad blockers instead of using new pipe? I’ve been using it for a year or something with zero ads and issues
Not everyone is using Youtube exclusively on their phones, you know?
Seems like a worthwhile reason to get BlueStacks.
Why should I use an Android emulator to run an app on PC instead of the many browser front ends for YouTube?
or an adblocker and tampermonkey for that matter
People keep complaining about frontends and plugins failing and having to switch strategies, but newpipe works flawlessly.
It’s less work.
I’ve never had that issue with Piped or Invidious, though sometimes I’ve had a specific instance not load. There are literal dozens of instances though.
However, I’ve had numerous issues with Bluestacks and it’s a huge memory hog, not to mention it’s overkill to install an entire OS just for 1 singular purpose that can be done just fine on your native OS.
It’s a layer of abstraction that’s almost entirely unnecessary except for 1 use case: watching YouTube without ads.
It’s five clicks. That’s not a big issue for most people.
Calling it an entire os or a layer of abstraction doesn’t negate the simplicity of 5 minutes of set up and five clicks, and then it works perpetually.
It’s probably more trouble to set up some of these plugins and frontends.
Also once you have any emulator installed, you can use all of your favorite apps straight on your desktop.
It’s extremely convenient.
You know what’s more convenient?
https://piped.kavin.rocks/
Lol. You are ridiculous.
It’s more ridiculous that you find a single 5-minute period to access years of content ridiculous.
Not if you have to run an entire android emulator to access it.
Haha, an “an entire Android emulator”?
You click twice to install it.
Click twice to install any app.
Click once to use the app perpetually.
That’s not as much work as you’re pretending it is.
It’s more work than using an alternate front end in the browser… of which there are plenty of excellent options… all which are optimized for use on desktop. But you do you I guess.
Can you give me an example?
It took me 5 minutes and five clicks and I’ve been using it for a year on my phone and desktop.
I don’t consider something that simple and convenient work, so I’m curious what you mean by “less work”. Do you mean the front ends take 3 minutes to install instead of 5 minutes?
Obviously can’t be down time since you can’t have a less than zero downtime, but what do you mean by “less work”?
I’ll chose to interpret this comment as a joke, but if anyone wants a desktop app for YouTube, check out FreeTube. No ads, subscriptions without a Google account, Sponsorblock integration, videos can be proxied through Invidious if wanted.
Oh it’s okay, if your comment is a joke you probably don’t need to write it.
I meant your comment that I replied to. Suggesting emulating an Android app as the easiest way to watch YouTube on desktop is plain old silly.
It takes 5 minutes and works flawlessly, that seems like a pretty solid choice.
Because:
A) New Pipe is a phone app only.
B) People view YouTube on devices other than phones.
C) People view more websites than just YouTube, on which they also want to block ads.
the latter is why you just disable the adblocker on specific sites, instead of uninstalling it completely which leaves you open to all the malware infested ads and shit everywhere.
Disable my adblocker? No thank you. I can’t think of anything I’m not willing to abandon if it won’t work with an adblocker.
plenty of users are uninstalling at one site’s (yt) demand… instead of just whitelisting instead.
Ew
I’ve yet to get a new pipe link to work on phone or desktop. Not sure what I’m doing wrong.
I’m confused about “new pipe links”.
Newpipe is an app. Do you have trouble setting it as a default app for youtube links?
That may be it. There’s a bot on lemme thst responds to all YouTube links with piped links, and I’ve tried to follow those directly. I was unaware of an app. Thanks.
Oh, I didn’t know about the bot. So I guess that’s Piped (https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped) which is a frontend like invidious (https://github.com/iv-org/invidious) and usually when it doesn’t work switching instance should do the job.
Newpipe is a different project: https://newpipe.net/
On desktop you can also use FreeTube: https://freetubeapp.io/
You could grab BlueStacks or some Android sim and then use the app on your desktop, works like a charm.