Seeing Ads on YouTube? Google is testing server-side ads that break adblockers

If you run an adblocker in your browser of choice and still see ads on YouTube, then you have been selected for an experiment on the popular streaming website.

Yesterday, the official X account of SponsorBlock revealed that Google is testing server-side ads on YouTube. The new ad delivery technique injects ads into the video stream. The makers of the popular service noticed that it is breaking it, as the timestamps were not correct anymore.

At about the same time, users started to report issues with ads on YouTube on sites like Reddit. Most said that they were now seeing unskippable ads on YouTube, even while they were using adblockers like uBlock Origin.

Reports suggest that Google is blocking controls of the video on top of that, so that features such as skipping ahead are not active while the ad is playing.

Extension developers are scrambling to gain access to this new form of ad delivery on YouTube to test their extensions against it and find ways around it.

It is too early to say if there will be workarounds.

Some users have suggested that checking for yt.config_.EXPERIMENT_FLAGS.html5_enable_ssap_entity_id in the browser’s Web Developer console reveals if the experiment is running currently. The return of “undefined” means that it is not currently.

The future of content blocking on YouTube

Google is experimenting all the time to deliver ads to content blocking users of the service. To mention just a few:

The latest experiment adds a new dimension, as it introduces server-side ad injections.

While it breaks timestamps for now, that would be fixable easily by Google, as the company knows the playtime of ads.

It is too early to say if server-side ad injections will be Google’s trump card against content blockers. Once extension creators get to experience the new system first-hand, they may find ways to deal with it again.

It is also unclear if extensions like Ad Accelerator or Ad Speedup that speed up or skip ads will continue to work.

It is a cat and mouse game that seemingly neve ends.

It will be interesting to see how ad-blocking uses react when advertisement cannot be blocked anymore on YouTube. Will they bite in the apple and endure ads? Will they subscribe to YouTube Premium? Or will they reduce their consumption of videos on YouTube?

Do you watch videos on YouTube? What would you do if ads cannot be blocked anymore on the site, if you block them of course?

Summary