No, really, it isn't working anymore.

[davidqkelly]

I absolutely love your work. It is the only extension that I am aware of that has worked. But honestly, as of today, it isn't working on Chrome anymore. Videos are getting stopped at the beginning, and in the middle of the viewing. I have to refresh to get the video to play again.

[JTH366]

I'm also a Chrome user, I've had the same issue for a week now.

[Grg76]

I have the same issue with Firefox. Videos getting stopped and i get the "ad blockers are not allowed...blablabla" message after an ad is played for 1-2 seconds. No matter where the ad is in the video. When i hit refresh, the the video is playing again until the next ad. I have disabled both UblockOrigin and Kapsersky extensions, but the issue stayed. However Fadblock is counting the skipped ads.

But even that is better than watching all the ads...

[saltprop]

I finally disabled it this morning because I got the 3 videos remaining warning from YT. Fadblock is the only adblocker I have of any kind so unfortunately it is being detected.

[dearhorse085]

same issue here. i even paid for it :(

[saltprop]

same issue here. i even paid for it :(

I absolutely did too haha. It’s been great for a while but the last couple months it seems YT is winning. Doesn’t seem like the Issues here get much engagement and the creator is super defensive on the google reviews. I don’t have any other adblockers so I disagree that’s the reason I’m being detected despite his replies :(

[dearhorse085]

same issue here. i even paid for it :(

I absolutely did too haha. It’s been great for a while but the last couple months it seems YT is winning. Doesn’t seem like the Issues here get much engagement and the creator is super defensive on the google reviews. I don’t have any other adblockers so I disagree that’s the reason I’m being detected despite his replies :(

cheers to that, here's hoping that he'll fix the issue eventually

[Zarradhoustra]

He saying it just works so I guess we all wrong and he must be right.

[seebeedub]

If I were Google I would "whitelist" the developer so he would never think anything was wrong while subjecting the rest of us to their demands. They obviously are detecting the extension. I contributed twice on github to the developer. It was nice while it lasted but at this point it seems detectable. Need to cache the video at high speed and then replay a local version at normal speed sans ads.

[JTH366]

Fadblock had not been working for a week or so, when using YouTube on Saturday morning Fadblock began to work again detecting and skipping each video, it continued to work until Monday evening when I went to bed.

When I tried YouTube today fadblock was detected immediately and I now have to disable fadblock to gain access to a video. Has anyone else experienced this? 0x48piraj are you aware?

[SheeepsAreNice]

He saying it just works so I guess we all wrong and he must be right.

Be fair to the developer. I'm one of those using it with practically no issues on Brave. When I do get a random pop-up (haven't had one for a week now), I clear all cookies, sign out and back into my Google account and all is good. If Google is flagging some accounts server-side, then there's nothing that anyone can do about that.

[jacanteros]

Need to cache the video at high speed and then replay a local version at normal speed sans ads.

how do you do that?

[seebeedub]

This doesn't make sense to me. If Google is "flagging some accounts server side" so what? Their whole business model is to track us so we can be sold to advertisers. They have always tracked us long before they got rid of their " Don't Be Evil" motto. Even if some of us are known ad block users, all we have to do is whitelist YT on the extensions or disable them, and then Google is nice to us. I understand if you have 3 strikes, Google might choose to ban you but that is not what we are talking about. So who cares about "flagging some accounts server side"? I understand if FBO detection was costly in some way Google might want to limit detection to known ad block users for now but still that should not be the plan for the future when detection is fully implemented and "flying under the radar" no longer works. If that is even what is happening. The developer says FBO is "undetectable". I am not convinced. Google could for example in the browser, issue a request for a little tracker jpg with identifying elements in the name at the start of the playing of an ad. It could then also issue another request at the 10 and 20 second point in the playing of the ad. On the server side the code could then calculate the timing of the requests and determine the speed the actual ad was playing in the browser. So even if the developer is correct and FBO itself is undetectable, to say the behavior of the ad in the browser is invisible to Google isn't logical. They don't need to know it's FBO, they just need to know someone is speeding up the ad. A programmer might quibble with the details here but you get the point they only need detect the behavior to know what's happening. It also seems Google isn't always jumping on the first detection to complain to us. They seem to issue their banner warning when they are pretty sure what we are doing. For example last night I enabled FBO for incognito mode and signed out of YT and played videos with FBO for about an hour before the banner warning appeared. So the point is when we test we need to give it some time and not declare the problem fixed based on only a few minutes of testing.

[xorbotx]

Fadblock was great while it lasted. For those having problems, you could try the Brave browser. I downloaded it a week ago, used default installation, didn't import any data from other browsers, didn't install any extensions (not even fadblock), didn't change any settings, didn't sign-in to youtube, and it blocks youtube ads by default. Now when I want to watch youtube I just open Brave, haven't seen any ads yet.

[saltprop]

Since we're discussing alternatives: I've seen people suggest FreeTube many times in the past but never used it because FBO was serving me perfectly for months (and I'm grateful for that time). Now that I've had to disable it, I did finally try FreeTube and I can recommend that to you all in the meantime. No account = no problems. Zero ads whatsoever.

[ckeene159]

Has been working fine since the last kerfluffle 2 1/2 months ago. Stopped working last night. Got the youtube "ad blockers not allowed" message and had to disable fadblock. :( I hope developer can fix it again.

[NoUserNameIWantIsAvailable]

i'm getting the same issues now. started yesterday for me. out of nowhere.

refreshing sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. even when refreshing works, it'll start the video from the beginning. and even then, it'll continue to happen :/

[seebeedub]

Need to cache the video at high speed and then replay a local version at normal speed sans ads.

how do you do that?

I think FreeTube is basically doing that.

[0x48piraj]

Whoever said that I am inactive here? Have you seen the previous issues and the "engagement" lol. Anyways, let's not get defensive and clear up the air.

First of all, for y'all who haven't gone through issues and read the response. Here:

As said, the extension works and is daily used by me and most of my peers. The moment it really stops working, I fix it up.

To all those who are running other adblockers side by side, I cannot help, they are getting detected. Worse yet, YouTube puts a tracker when detected and that causes the "I deleted the other adblockers and I am still getting detected" queries.

Even after logging out, clearing out the cookies and logging back in sometimes doesn't fix the issue for some (it fixed for most of us) hinting they are marking the accounts using adblockers server-side but I can't say for sure as FadBlock works perfectly for me as of now and many of the supporters I have talked to over the email.

You don't believe me? Just try moving to a different network, a clean installation of Chrome or any supported browser and you'll see it works as intended. Post back the results.

Hint: I have done that in a sandboxed environment and it works.

I hope this answers why some of you are getting detected.

This doesn't make sense to me. If Google is "flagging some accounts server side" so what?

Yo @seebeedub, let's get nutty.

"So what?" So to block those who use adblockers and make them stop using them. As you said, it's in their best interest "to sell your data to advertisers" in your own words.

'So who cares about "flagging some accounts server side"?' We care. If you are caught and labeled as an 'filthy adblocker user' in their servers, there's no program that can save you from that.

Now to the most fun part,

The developer says FBO is "undetectable". I am not convinced. Google could for example in the browser, issue a request for a little tracker jpg with identifying elements in the name at the start of the playing of an ad. It could then also issue another request at the 10 and 20 second point in the playing of the ad. On the server side the code could then calculate the timing of the requests and determine the speed the actual ad was playing in the browser. So even if the developer is correct and FBO itself is undetectable, to say the behavior of the ad in the browser is invisible to Google isn't logical.

Ahem. Totally, you can theoretically do that. Awesome idea, kudos.

Let's talk business, shall we? Count the number of requests and calculations you're doing to detect one ad inside a video containing numerous ads, of a single user. Let's just calculate the number of users YouTube has,

As per a quick Google search,

YouTube has more than 2.70 billion monthly active users as of 2024.

Ahemm. Now the number of videos,

As of 2024, there are 3.9 billion videos on YouTube

Now why the fuck will Google melt their own servers just to detect this program? THEY WON'T.

That's the beauty of it. It uses native things to skip the ads and does not perform like a traditional adblocker which blocks the ad inserts programmatically preventing them from loading in. That's why adblockers block ads everywhere, not just on YouTube.

Now, detecting whether one of the resource loaded successfully or not is unfortunately very simple,

ad = loadAd(); // returns bool
if (ad == false)
{
 // you filthy AdBlock user go to hell!!
}

FBO doesn't suffer from any of that. That's why it rocks. The documentation always said "you cannot be undetectable when you're stacking up every adblocker on the face of the Earth".

I use it on the daily and it works. And if Google can find who developed FadBlock, they cannot determine the Google account I use to watch Vsauce videos. And well, if they can, well, then we are all doomed, aren't we?

[dearhorse085]

I can confirm that deleting everything (history, cookies, etc) on firefox did the trick for me

[benalt613]

I allowed FadBlock to run in Incognito mode and then opened an Incognito mode session in Chrome. After logging into my YouTube account from there, everything worked perfectly. So that appears to be another option when things start acting up.

[mike-matenkosky]

I generally use Firefox and use AdBlock. I have AdBlock disabled for YouTube on;y. Every couple of days I will start getting ads starting and then a blank screen. Logging off of YouTube, deleting their cookies, closing Firefox and then opening Firefox and logging in to YouTube again does work for me. I've had a couple instances when I had to do this several times, but eventually it clears up.

I've used Brave too, with no AdBlock, and a few days ago it started detecting ads like Firefox did. Logging off, clearing cache and re-starting the browser does the trick.

To the developer, I tried to pay for the "Lifetime License", but I don't own a cell phone (probably the only one in the planet that doesn't) and they want a confirm code via text so I can't "donate".

[ckeene159]

Per my post above, a couple weeks ago got the youtube "ad blockers not allowed" message and had to disable fadblock. I put off trying some of the suggestions here, waiting to see what developed. Many thanks to developer for his post which encouraged me to finally try something. Rather than the "logging out, clearing out the cookies and logging back in" (logging out of and back in to what, youtube I think?), I decided, since we use that device almost exclusively for watching youtube, that I'd just uninstall Firefox.

I first used the Run Windows type %APPDATA%\Mozilla\ and deleted the Firefox folder to delete all saved data. (I found that if I just uninstalled and reinstalled Firefox that it still had all cookies, cache, etc.) Then I uninstalled Firefox. Then I reinstalled Firefox. Then I installed add-on Fadblock. Then I logged in to youtube. Success. We watched for an hour+ last evening, ads skipping. Thank you, Piyush. I'll send a more tangible expression of my appreciation in a couple weeks or so which will be our 6-month mark of using fadblock.

To previous poster: there are some links here at https://github.com/0x48piraj/fadblock where you can "sponsor this project" which I think would not need a cell phone.

[davidqkelly]

As of today, I am now seeing the first ad in the series of ads. Once I skip the first ad, even if there are more ads in the queue, the remaining ads get skipped.

[0x48piraj]

Hey everyone, is this happening to you guys as well?

Here: https://github.com/0x48piraj/fadblock/issues/216

Does logging out - clearing the cache - logging back into your YouTube account makes FadBlock running again?

FadBlock is running smoothly for myself but the video issue is abnormal behavior and I am investigating but I would need more reports to know if a new geographical patch was pushed by YouTube.

[Zarradhoustra]

Hey everyone, is this happening to you guys as well?

Here: #216

Yes its exactly what is happening to everyone.

[KnightGabriel]

I've literally switched browsers entirely from Opera GX to Firefox and downloaded a fresh installation of fadblock and it's still getting detected INSTANTLY. It clearly isn't just an issue with the client.

[isnbh0]

Hi, just wondering if this has been discussed. From the developer of a similar blocker:

Let's talk about technical stuff, since July update youtube starting detecting isTrusted property It's mean if you using javascript to do skip action, this property will be False, then you get block page

Edit: additional reference

[0x48piraj]

I didn't knew about this extension @isnbh0. I'm looking into the issue, unfortunately FadBlock still works for me so testing patches would be a bit difficult.

[davidqkelly]

Hey everyone, is this happening to you guys as well?

Here: #216

Does logging out - clearing the cache - logging back into your YouTube account makes FadBlock running again?

FadBlock is running smoothly for myself but the video issue is abnormal behavior and I am investigating but I would need more reports to know if a new geographical patch was pushed by YouTube.

This typically fixes it for me. After a week or two, YouTube begins detecting it again. Once again, I log out, clear cache, and log back in and it starts working again.

[0x48piraj]

Gotcha, thanks for reporting @davidqkelly - I am looking into it, I hope a permanent fix can be finalized soon.

[davidqkelly]

Gotcha, thanks for reporting @davidqkelly - I am looking into it, I hope a permanent fix can be finalized soon.

I would be really interested in what the fix was. Does seem related to cache or linked to the Google account somehow. Be sure to post a description of the solution!