You can use Firefox with Youblock Original to block ads in the browser, but I don't know of any app, sorry
this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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Kid: Mom, can I have uBlock Origin?
Mom: We have uBlock Origin at home.
uBlock Origin at home: Youblock Original
Splendid
I don't think that there's a technical route around it anymore. yt-dlp used to be able to do it, but isn't any more. A service doing it would have to either use some "proxy" account, which I'm sure YouTube would shut down in short order due to it having insane load, or mirror content elsewhere, which would infringe on copyright.
Probably the closest thing to equivalent functionality that could be made would be, for content creators who don't mind having their content on other services
and people who make a living from YouTube payments aren't going to do this
getting them to upload that content to another service, and then have some database mapping login-required content on YouTube to that content elsewhere.
I think yt-dlp can if you pass it your cookies. So it still ends up using your account if that matters, but you do get to dl the file.
Oh, good catch. I just want this to avoid logging in and letting YouTube profile me, but it looks like OP doesn't care about that, but is upset about the ads.
OP, you can install uBlock Origin and it'll block the YouTube-provided ads. That being said, if YouTube wants to, they can crack down and make this route unworkable one day, and I imagine that one day, they will.
On Firefox on the PC, you can use the Sponsorblock plugin to block various sorts of intros/outros/embedded ads. I doubt that YouTube will care about this, because content creators are trying to bypass YouTube in terms of ad dollars here, so this one probably isn't going to be blocked. I don't know if this is available on mobile browsers.
EDIT: Yes, looks like it's available on mobile browsers as well.
Thanks for the answers, I'll keep in mind. I'm both mildly annoyed about getting profiled and the YT ads, but then there's the inconvenience of having to watch this on my laptop and not my phone which is my preferred way to watch videos.
I used FreeTube for my PC but it stopped working a couple months ago and I've no idea why, though that's material for a different post.
On mobile, the performance difference between NewPipe and YT browser/app is staggering too, NewPipe being the better of the two. So there's a mix of reasons.
PipePipe seems to work with my login to play age restricted stuff. I do generally have to trigger a login through settings and then research the video through.
even the userscript i had for this, which used a fallback proxy if needed, hasn't worked in awhile.
if you don't mind the login requirement and the target video isn't drm-'protected', you might be able to pass the login credentials or browser cookies--whatever's needed, to yt-dlp and download the video for later viewing in the media player of your choosing.