When I was at a friend’s house the other day and a YouTube playlist was playing on the TV, I was really shocked. After every video, there were one or two ads (and some of them even in between). I was not aware how extremely many ads you get when using YouTube without an ad blocker. Therefore, a small collection of apps, add-ons and links that help to make YouTube a bit more enjoyable:
Browser
- uBlock Origin: Add-on which blocks ads, trackers and malware sites
- SponsorBlock: Add-on that skips user submitted segments of the video automatically
- Enhancer for YouTube
- Unhook: Remove YouTube Recommended Videos Comments
- Redirect YouTube Shorts to standard player
- Youtube-shorts block
AndroidTV / FireTV
- SmartTubeNext is an unofficial YouTube client for Android TV. Send Files to TV can be used to transfer the .apk phone → TV
Android
Youtube Vanced: Modified YouTube App for Android which removes ads and gives more customization- The successor is ReVanced Manager. Helpful Reddit post: ReVanced Manager guide for dummies
- Blockada: Adblocker and privacy app for Android and iOS
- LibeTube
HTPC
- YouTube Leanback TV (Step 4)
DNS Blocking (i.e. with PiHole)
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kboghdady/youTube_ads_4_pi-hole/master/crowed_list.txt
- More Smart TV related lists can be found here: https://github.com/RPiList/specials/blob/master/Blocklisten.md
Update 15.01.2024: When using YouTube in a Browser in combination with uBlock, you likely receive the following message right now: “Ad blockers are not allowed on YouTube”. The only working solutions to prevent this message and to continue watching ad-free is disabling uBlock on YouTube and use this Script with Tampermonkey (at least for me).
Update 25.01.2025: I found Chrome Mask very helpful, as I continue to experience problems when using uBlock in combination with Firefox on YouTube.
Update 23.07.2025: To stop the super annoying AI translations, you can use the browser Add-on YouTube No Translation (GitHub).
When using ReVanced, you can force the App to use the original Audio. Got to the ReVanced Settings:
– Miscellaneous → Spoof Video Streams → Standard-Client → iOS TV
– Video → Force original audio → turn on