Greetings y’all. I’ve been using ways to circumvent YouTube ads for years now. I’d much rather donate to creators directly instead of using Google as a middle man, needing YouTube Premium. If even pay for premium for just a add free version, if the price wouldn’t be so outrageous. I’ve So far used adblockers, Vanced and then Revanced.
Since the recent developments in this matter, I’ve setup Tubearchivist, a self hosted solution to download YouTube videos for later consumption. It mostly works great, with a few minor things that bother me but I highly recommend it. ReVanced also still works, but nobody knows for how long.
The question now is, if I should use a VPN to obscure my identity to Google. I don’t know if I’m being paranoid here but I wouldn’t put it past Google to block my account, if they see YouTube traffic for my IP address and no served ads. Revanced even uses my main Google account, so not that far fetched.
So far, or at least to my knowledge, Google has never done this but I think they just might in the future. So I’m planning on putting tubearchivist behind a VPN via gluetun.
What do you think? I’m eager to hear your opinions on this.
I can also add my docker compose, if there’s interest and when I’m back on my PC.
You don’t actually get banned, they just don’t let you watch youtube videos until you turn off your adblocker. You can even sign out and never see the ad block blocks because its tied to your account only.
True but we don’t know what google does to accounts that are bulk download videos from their platform for offline viewing. It’s definitely against the terms of service.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.
You don’t actually get banned, they just don’t let you watch youtube videos until you turn off your adblocker. You can even sign out and never see the ad block blocks because its tied to your account only.
True but we don’t know what google does to accounts that are bulk download videos from their platform for offline viewing. It’s definitely against the terms of service.
Jup, that is precisely what I meant and why I advocate for people to be cautious, if they use their Google account for more things than just YouTube.