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I hate YouTube ads – and I just discovered how to get rid of them without an ad-blocker

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Albanian YouTube is a blissful experience

For years, YouTube has been locked in a battle with ad blockers. Google has steadily tightened its detection systems, and many popular ad-blockers now struggle to work consistently on the platform. Even when they do, they’re often limited to desktop browsers, leaving people watching on phones, smart TVs, or streaming devices stuck with incredibly frequent and intrusive ad breaks.

Of course, there’s always YouTube Premium. But with subscription prices continuing to rise across the board, paying just to avoid ads isn’t always appealing. During my own testing, though, I found there’s another workaround that works surprisingly well.

Surfshark | 2 years + 3 months free | 7-day FREE trialTwo-year plan: $1.99 per month at Surfshark

Surfshark | 2 years + 3 months free | 7-day FREE trial
Two-year plan: $1.99 per month at Surfshark
Any quality VPN with a server location in Albania will block ads, but Surfshark provides the best mix of powerful privacy tools, ease of use, and excellent value.

Pros and cons:

🔖 Fully audited privacy
📺 Excellent streaming unblocking
💸 7-day free trial with no upfront payment
❌ Apps aren’t hugely customizable

After your 7-day free trial, Surfshark costs $1.99 per month, which works out at about $53 for two years of cover. There’s also a 30-day refund period after the free trial so you can make sure it works well for you.

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How does connecting to an Albanian VPN server get rid of YouTube ads?

This neat little trick works because YouTube doesn’t show ads everywhere in the world. In order to display ads on videos, Google needs a functioning advertising market in that country. Albania currently isn’t part of YouTube’s monetized markets under the YouTube Partner Programme, meaning creators typically don’t earn ad revenue from viewers there.

As a result, far fewer ads are produced for that region. When I connect to a VPN server in Albania, YouTube believes I’m watching from there, and in my testing I haven’t seen a single ad in months of regular viewing, both on my laptop and my Apple TV.

To make this work reliably, you’ll need a good VPN. That means fast servers, reliable IP addresses, and an actual server location in Albania. Unfortunately, none of our top-rated free VPNs offer any servers in Albania, so a paid VPN is usually necessary.

It’s also one of the only reliable and simple ways to reduce YouTube ads on streaming devices like Apple TV, Fire Stick, and smart TVs, where traditional ad blockers don’t work.

How to block YouTube ads with a VPN

Several pop-up ads and an emoji face looking annoyed

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Blocking YouTube ads with this method is fairly simple. The key step is connecting to a VPN server located in Albania before opening YouTube. Here’s how I do it:

  • Choose a VPN with servers in Albania. Not every VPN offers Albanian servers, so check this before signing up. You’ll also want a service with fast speeds so videos stream smoothly. Surfshark, NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and Proton VPN are all good choices that offer servers in Albania.
  • Install the VPN app on your device. Download the app for whichever device you’re using. Most major VPNs support iPhones and Android devices, Windows PCs and Macs, as well as streaming devices like Fire TV Sticks and Apple TV.
  • Connect to an Albanian server location. Open the VPN app and select Albania from the server list. Once connected, your internet traffic will appear to come from that country.
  • Open YouTube and start watching. With the VPN active, launch YouTube as normal. In my experience, videos start playing immediately without the usual pre-roll ads. If you’re watching on a smart TV or streaming stick, you can either install the VPN app directly on the device or connect the VPN through your router.

Which VPNs work for blocking YouTube ads?

Not every VPN will work well for this trick. To reliably reduce YouTube ads, you need a service that offers a combination of speed, stable connections, and servers in Albania.

Fast speeds are particularly important because all of your video traffic is routed through the VPN. A slow connection can lead to buffering or lower video quality, especially when watching in HD or 4K.

You’ll also want a VPN that supports a wide range of devices. If you plan to watch YouTube on a Fire TV Stick, Apple TV, smart TV, or phone, the provider should have dedicated apps or easy setup instructions for those platforms.

Strong privacy protections matter too. Look for services that have independently audited no-logs policies, meaning they don’t record your browsing activity.

Among the most reliable options are Surfshark, NordVPN, and ExpressVPN. Surfshark is one of the most affordable and offers a 7-day free trial, NordVPN is consistently rated as one of the best VPNs overall, and ExpressVPN is particularly easy to use for beginners.

Disclaimer

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

Feature image credit: Getty Images

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In News

This Free Ad Blocker For Samsung Phones Also Kills Bloatware And Manages App Permissions

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By Jacob Kleinman

There are plenty of great ad blockers to choose from, but most just delete the ads or replace them with something less offensive. If you’re looking for an ad blocker that can do a little more (and you have a Samsung phone) here’s a new app worth checking out.

Created by developer NeedleGames from the XDA forums, Simple Ad-blocker for Samsung (SABS for short) promises to remove all those pesky ads and then some. The app works by tapping into Samsung’s ultra-secure KNOX software. That gives it the ability to disable packages — A.K.A. the terrible bloatware slathered on by your carrier. SABS also includes a system-level permission manager, giving you an extra level of control over what apps can see and do on your phone.

 

Simple Ad-blocker for Samsung was created specifically for the Galaxy S8, S8+, and Note 8, but NeedleGames says it should work on any Samsung phone running Android 5.0 or up. That includes the brand new Galaxy S9, along with a bunch of older models. You don’t need to root your phone to run this ad-blocker either, though the setup process does get a little complicated and requires some technical know-how.

The first thing you’ll need to do is get a licence key from Samsung (follow along with the instructions here). Then disable any other ad blockers you might be running on your phone and download the SABS source code from GitHub. You can do this on your computer if you prefer, or directly on your phone for a slightly quicker process.

Just make sure to follow the directions carefully and you should make it out the other side with a powerful new ad-blocker up and running on your Samsung phone.

Photo Image Credit: Samsung

By Jacob Kleinman

Sourced from lifehacker

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Google got duped by a fake ad blocker, and 37,000 people accidentally downloaded adware

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By Mark Kaufman.

It’s easy to see why Google (and some 37,000 people) were tricked — the developer who packaged the adware into an extension used the name of an already popular and legitimate extension, AdBlock Plus.

Additionally, the bogus page in the Chrome store came with reviews. In short, the fraudulent extension looked pretty realistic. Twitter user SwiftOnSecurity, who regularly tweets about web security, posted an image of the devious extension:

Google eventually caught wind of the breach and removed the deceitful adware, but it remains unclear just how harmful the malware is for those who already downloaded the extension. At least one unfortunate user says they’re being hit with ads. In a screenshot of a review, posted by SwiftOnSecurity, the user states that the “instant this was added to Chrome started getting invasive ads with high volume levels opening new tabs.”

Though Google took down the adware, SwiftOnSecurity was unimpressed by Google’s failure to stop this malware from sneaking through and ending up conspicuously displayed in the Chrome store in the first place:

The 37,000 infected users probably hope this public shaming further motivates Google to buffer the Chrome store’s verification process. After all, malicious developers will only get more inventive if the problem isn’t fixed.

Featured Image Credit: Mark Lennihan/AP/REX/Shutterstock

By Mark Kaufman

Sourced from Mashable UK

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In News

Two cheers for Google’s native Chrome ad-blocker

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Publishers and internet users will have given a half-hearted cheer to last week’s news that Google is to build a form of advertising control technology into Chrome from 2018.

Cheering, perhaps, but each group will have been doing so for different reasons and with little enthusiasm.

Notice we said control – not blocking. But before untangling the difference, let’s acknowledge why ad-blocking has become so appealing: visiting many websites often means being swarmed by ad and tracking systems that noticeably slow browsing performance.

Publishers claim this is a fringe problem caused by aggressive companies getting carried away, but that’s not entirely true. There are plenty of mainstream sites that happily leave users in the slow lane.

Google’s top ad executive, Sridhar Ramaswamy, describes the outcome:

These frustrating experiences can lead some people to block all ads – taking a big toll on the content creators, journalists, web developers and videographers who depend on ads to fund their content creation.

So, people start using ad blockers which block out almost everything, encouraging publishers to deploy anti-blocking technology which simply annoys readers even more.

Without giving a history lesson, suffice it to say that the model’s futility occurred to ad-blocking companies, which also needed revenue. Their solution was to let some advertisers pay not to be blocked.

This went down badly with many publishers, who felt they were being extorted, an argument that continues to this day. Savvy users responded by disabling whitelisting anyway.

Google’s alternative is slightly different and has two elements. The first is to allow Chrome to control ads that don’t adhere to rules agreed by the industry Coalition for Better Ads.

Arguably, this isn’t blocking because it only stops ads that transgress in very specific ways, such as auto-playing videos, prestitial ads with countdown timers (which block a homepage for a given period) and sticky ads (which persist even after scrolling).

It won’t address the wider issue of the way ads drain performance or – the other reason ad-blockers became popular – stop users from being tracked across websites to the detriment of their privacy and, sometimes, their security.

Given this, the second element Google, Funding Choices, might be particularly galling. Still in limited beta, this is a way to charge users who refuse to turn off their ad-blocker. The revenue from this, stored in a Google digital wallet, will be split between the publisher and – you guessed it – Google.

Doubtless, a few publishers will see this as a handy revenue stream, assuming enough bother to enable it. It might raise pennies.

For most, however, it will stick in the craw for publishers to pay Google at all, the very company many privately blame for using its search engine algorithms, advertising system and dominance of mobiles to slowly drain their brands of importance – and revenue.

To date, only one other mainstream browser maker, Opera, has dabbled with integrated ad blocking. Google’s plans are more potent even if its ad control tech ends up as a halfway house that merely enforces sanity on publishers.

What it can’t yet do is stop people using ad-blockers without driving them away from Chrome itself. For now, ad-blockers remain the last stand of browser users who refuse to cede all control.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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Sourced from naked security by SOPHOS

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