Video hosting company YouTube has started actively restricting access to the platform for users who use ad blockers. According to user reports and data from technical resources, many viewers using popular extensions such as uBlock Origin and AdBlock were unable to view videos — instead of videos, errors or requests to disable blocking are displayed.
The policy tightening is part of Google's massive campaign to protect its advertising model for content monetization. In recent months, the platform has consistently strengthened its security mechanisms, including bypassing known extensions, checking network requests, and hidden interface validation.
According to the developers of browser extensions, YouTube uses more complex and dynamic methods of counteraction, which makes many previously effective tools ineffective or completely useless. This applies to both desktop and mobile browsers.
The company's goal is to encourage users to either disable blockers or switch to a paid YouTube Premium subscription, which allows you to watch videos without ads and with additional features. Google representatives have previously stressed that advertising remains a key source of revenue for both the platform and content creators.
According to industry experts, new workarounds may appear in the near future, but YouTube, apparently, intends to continue actively developing security tools. This creates the prerequisites for further technological confrontation between the platform and third-party blocker developers.
Users who have encountered restrictions are increasingly reporting that content cannot be played or that warnings appear that require them to disable extensions. Some browsers also report performance degradation when trying to bypass the security system.
YouTube takes another step towards strict control over the advertising model and monetization, emphasizing the priority of paid content consumption formats in the video hosting ecosystem.
