mary3444,

Before you "call it quits trying to get youtube for him" let us try another strategy.  Essentially I am going to provide you with instructions to do two things:  1. delete the current youtube cookies, and 2. how to use the "Private Window in Firefox."  Deleting the youtube cookies should take away all of the data that youtube has stored on your computer right now, and using the Firefox Private Window should keep such data from accumulating again.  The instructions may appear lengthy but that is only because I have tried to describe every step and what you will see clearly and simply.  It should only take you a few minutes to do them -- less time than it takes you to write a post here at Landzdown!  (Smile)


Deleting the Youtube cookies

• Open the Firefox browser;
• On the menu at the top of the browser click on "Tools" and then "Settings";
• A new Settings screen should pop-up (it will either be in a new tab or window depending on your Firefox browser settings);
• On the left side of the Settings screen click "Privacy & Security";
• A new screen will appear with the title of "Browser Privacy" at the top over the middle column;
• Scroll down the middle column just a little bit until you get to a section called "Cookies and Site Data";
• On the right side of this section click "Manage Data";
• A small new sub-window will pop up, entitled "Manage Cookies and Site Data"; this contains a list of all the cookies being stored by Firefox on your computer;
• In this sub-window come down to the column headings and find and click the "Site" heading once; clicking on "Site" will sort all of the cookies into alphabetical order;
• Now that the cookies are in alphabetical order scroll down the list until you find "youtube"; it will probably say "youtube.com";
• Click on youtube; it will highlight the entire line in blue;
• At the bottom left of the pop-up window click "Remove Selected"; this will delete the youtube cookies;
• If there is more than one cookie listing with the name "youtube" then repeat steps 11 and 12 until all of the youtube references are removed;
• When finished, click "Save Changes" at the bottom right of the pop-up window; the pop-up window should disappear; at this point all of the youtube cookies have been deleted;
• You may now close the entire "Settings" tab or window by clicking the "x" on the right side of the tab or the top right corner of the window; (you can also just close Firefox altogether if you wish);

How to use the Private Window in Firefox


So now when you or your husband decide to go on youtube, do the following:

• Open the Firefox Browser;
• On the menu at the top of the browser click on "File" and then "New Private Window"; a new window should open which will say Firefox but it will also have a 'purple mask' prominently displayed;
• So at this point you will have both a regular Firefox window open and also a private window; the regular window will have the normal Firefox symbol and the private window will have the purple mask symbol;
• From now on when you or your husband go to youtube use the private window, the one with the purple mask; when you finish with youtube simply close the private window; by using the private window youtube will be blocked from permanently storing cookies and your browsing history on your computer;
• But while you are using the private window a cookie will be temporarily stored; so if you are using youtube and watching multiple videos one after another then youtube may start showing the notice again because the temporarily stored cookie will be tracking your activity;  if such a notice appears again then simply close the private window and then re-open a new private window (make sure that you close the entire private window and not just the tab); this will delete the temporary cookie and you may continue as usual;
• So again always use the private window in Firefox to view youtube and if the notice appears after viewing several videos then simply close the private window, reopen a new private window, and continue on with your activity.

Hopefully this will help with the situation, and again it is not complicated at all, just lengthy because of the descriptiveness.  The key points are to delete the current youtube cookies and then to start anew by using the Firefox private window for youtube from now on.

Also if you have disabled uBlock Origin you can re-enable it if you wish.  There is no reason for it to be disabled if that did not help with the situation.

Again let us know of your experience and if we can be of any further assistance.


[PS - I just saw plodr's last note.  I am not laughing either.  (Smile)  Not only do I not have a cell phone but I do not even have a television.  So nothing is "smart" at my house!  (Ha ha!!)  But obviously I do have a computer and internet service!]


v_v

Mary, I'm not laughing. When I had to replace my husband's cellphone (he uses in the car for emergencies and it was my old phone from 2005), I had to find a flip phone with big buttons for him to press. He only wants to make calls. He doesn't want to answer calls. I also couldn't see spending a lot each month just to have a phone for emergency use. I finally bought him a $30 Tracfone flip and turned off wifi so he wouldn't accidentally press something and get on the internet.

Our televisions are from the late 1980's and 1990's. I don't understand any of the smart tv things! Heaven help us when we have to replace a tv. I looked and it is still possible to buy a non-smart tv. But who knows how long that will last.

v_v, I did disable uBlock when this first happened. It then said to refresh which I did but that did not help at all. I am not getting the image that Captain Tripps showed me & the message that I get does not have a X anywhere on there only tell you how to unblock the ads & I have done that many times. I don't go no & I don't think my husband would mind the ads but not sure on that one.
plodr, My husband knows less the I do which means neither one of us knows much about this computer. I don't know how to post. I will try the 2 sited to see if he likes either one. What he likes is watching mma, boxing, & things about Alaska.
Pete, What you & your wife are doing leaves me out in the cold. I do not know how to stream so I would not know how to get the free youtube app.

Guess I will say it is time to call it quits trying to get youtube for him, like I said it keeps him busy for a little while. We don't even own a cell phone so now all of you can laugh at us.

Thanks everyone for your help as I know it is not easy to try & get something for me to understand but I do appreciate your patience every time I have a problem.

Hope everyone has a great holiday

Mary

SpywareBlaster database update 11/5/2023


9 NEW items (IE/ActiveX)

11 NEW items (Edge/Scripts)

for a total of 19,080 items in database

After updating, be sure to manually enable all protection.

Off topic:

These days my wife and I have been doing most of our Youtube video watching on TV via streaming devices. (Not "YoutubeTV", just the free Youtube app).

I've noticed that Youtube is more generous about letting you skip ads than most of the other free services. After a few seconds most (not all) adds give you the option to skip the ad.

Meanwhile we can keep our other devices as secure as we want.

I only have two sites. I've avoided sites where you have to create an account.
See if your husband can find anything to watch at either of these two sites if YouTube misbehaves.
https://popcornflix.com/#/credentials/welcome
https://archive.org/details/feature_films?and%5B%5D=language%3A%22English%22

Quoteplodr, I went to that site you said it was movies & tv, that is not what my husband

Can you post the site where your husband starts?

I do have some sites bookmarked on my husband's laptop which I will post but he is using the computer right now. Perhaps while your husband can not get YouTube to work, he can watch something from another site.

v_v, thanks for the explanation. That helped me think about why I have no problem. I dump cookies, except for a few when FF closes so YouTube forgets I was there from one day to another. I don't stream much on YouTube so that helps too, I suspect.

Not a solution, but some more background on why this is a changing landscape:
https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2023/11/youtube-launches-global-effort-to-block-ad-blockers

Take care,
Pieter

mary3444,

As plodr said you do not need to disable uBlock Origin or switch to another ad-blocker, unless you just want to.

The overall story for this situation is as follows (as implied in the link given by Metallica in his "November 02, 2023, 03:34:16 AM" post above):

• youtube wants to show you ads because that is how they both make money and provide service;
• when an ad blocker is used those money-making ads are blocked;
• so youtube has started a campaign to get rid of the ad blockers;
• in response to this uBlock Origin (and probably other ad blockers also) have been working to override and get around the youtube anti-ad block campaign;
• so the situation ends up being like a chess match: youtube makes 'move' and then uBlock Origin makes a 'counter-move' to get around the youtube 'move', then youtube makes another 'move'; right now this cycle seems to just keep repeating itself;
• the video posted by CaptainTripps has simple and clear directions as to how to stay up to date in this cycle of 'move' and 'counter-move'.  You do not need to know what "filters" are, you just need to follow the clicking directions in the video.  You already have uBlock Origin so you just need to follow the 'click this' instructions in the video.  After you finished the proper updating then go to the following page (as listed in the video) " https://drhyperion451.github.io/does-uBO-bypass-yt/ ".  This page will tell you if your filters are up to date with the latest uBlock Origin 'countermove' to the latest youtube move'.

Are you (or your husband) getting the image that is shown in the youtube link provided by CaptainTripps?  If you are then you will see in that image that there is an "x" in the top right hand corner.  This "x" is what I was referring to in my last post (of November 02, 2023, 02:16:43 PM).  My experience has been that if I simply click that "x" the notice goes away for the remainder of my session or for the day.  It may return on another day (but sometimes it does not) and then I simply click on the "x" again to get rid of it.  As plodr indicated there may be an optional "Dismiss" link to click also.  Right now due to the above described 'move and counter-move cycle' there does not seem to be a permanent way to get rid of the notice forever.

During these last few days I have not seen a notice even though I continue to extensively make use of youtube.


ESCALATION !!!


Well I spoke too soon!  Just as I wrote the above I went onto youtube and sure enough a notice has appeared in my Vivaldi browser.  This new notice has the following message:

Quote* Video player will be blocked after 3 videos.

* It looks like you may be using an ad blocker.  Video playback will be bloced unless YouTube is allowlisted or the ad blocker is disabled.

* Ads allow YouTube to be used by billions worldwide.

*You can go ad-free with YouTube Premium, and creators can still get paid from your subscription.

Thus it appears that youtube has escalated its tactics now and that it will somehow try to block any further youtube viewing after "3 videos".  Just to be sure I have gone to the same youtube page with my SlimJet browser.  In that browser I did not receive any notice!  So it appears that this is going to be a game of 'cat and mouse' so to speak, and that it may vary from browser to browser on any given day.  Also my guess is that youtube will try to keep track of the "3 videos" quantity through cookies.  So it may become necessary to periodically delete the youtube cookies.

But still even in this latest notice in the Vivaldi browser there remains an "x" in the top right hand corner.  So I clicked on it, the notice disappeared, and the youtube video played as usual.  Thus clicking on the "x" to get rid of the notice still works.

The hour long video on youtube finally played out and another video automatically loaded in the Vivaldi browser.  This second video had another updated notice now indicating that

Quote* Video player will be blocked after 2 videos.

So it does appear that youtube is counting.  At this point I deleted the youtube cookies and launched another youtube video.  No youtube notice appeared this time and the video continued to play and finish.  I loaded another video and it also played and finished, and there was no notice.  Thus it appears that deleting the youtube cookies also affects these notices.

By the way this "youtube anti-ad blocker campaign" is all over the internet news right now; you can search on that phrase in quotation marks.  Here is an excerpt from a post in the Brave browser community " https://community.brave.com/t/psa-youtube-adblock-detection/510337 ":

QuoteKeep your components and browser up-to-date. YouTube is actually pushing out new blocks multiple times per day to try to counter anything that Brave, uBlock Origin, and other adblock are doing to try to circumvent detection.

As you can see it is not just you and your husband or a few people here on Landzdown.  According to another comment somewhere this is a "global campaign" by youtube, and apparently they may be "pushing out" new and variable notices "multiple times per day."

So to sum up:

• you can still click on the "x" in the top right hand corner (or a "Dismiss" link if there is one) to close the notice;
• you may need to keep doing this occasionally;
• periodically you my need to refresh the uBlock Origin filter list according to the instructions in the link posted by CaptainTripps;
• if youtube does begin to "count" and limit usage to three videos then it may also become necessary to periodically delete the youtube cookies.  (If you need a cookie manager for Firefox I suggest the "Cookiebro - Cookie Manager by Nodetics" available at " https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookiebro/ ".  Let us know if you need help with this part.)

On the other hand if you or your husband do not mind watching ads then you could click on the "Allow YouTube Ads" link in the notice and this will probably get rid of the notice.  But the result will be that you will be experiencing ads during your use of youtube.  Yet the very reason that all of us are using uBlock Origin (or any other ad blocker) is to avoid these ads and any other ads that might appear on the internet.

Keep us up to date with your experience and let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

v_v

plodr, I went to that site you said it was movies & tv, that is not what my husband so I went to history hit something & got the same thing about ad blocker. looked at. Tried home hit something & got the same thing about ad blocker. Would not care about a pop-up but never saw that. I am about to give up trying to get it back for my husband.
Captain Tripps, I have uBlock that is up to date. I don't know what filters are so I can't update that.
I am sorry to bother all of you with such a minor thing but I had hoped all of you could help me as I am not good at this.
Mary