Support NeoGAF

[Bernoulli]

In the latest wave of anti-ad blocker measures implemented by YouTube, AdBlock users have been reporting widespread performance issues with the extension enabled.

In a thread posted to the YouTube subreddit over the weekend (thanks, 9to5Google) users noted that having AdBlock enabled caused slow load times and increased CPU usage, as one user writes: "This messes up the resources on the computer as a whole. It just kills chrome it seems."

I decided to test this myself, and I noticed that having YouTube open with AdBlock increased my rig's CPU usage by around 17%. While using AdBlock or similar programs is against the website's terms of service, AdBlock is also a massively popular extension. On the Chrome web store it boasts 60 million users.

While you do agree to YouTube's terms of service upon using the site, there's a massive difference between simply blocking AdBlock users and causing increased CPU usage. From what I could see the increase was pretty consistent—so not a dangerous spike—but lower-end laptops mainly used for browsing could start having heat problems. At best it's inconvenient and annoying. It should be noted that this CPU-spiking (if deliberate) isn't something YouTube informs AdBlock users of either.

It's not just you: YouTube is slowing down your PC if you have AdBlock installed by making your CPU sweat—though despite the company's past behaviour, it's probably AdBlock's fault

YouTube Premium members also appear to be impacted.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[azertydu91]

Yeah youtube was slow as hell for me the last couple of days so I checked online and changed my adblockers and now it works like a charm.
But man that was shitty as fuck, I was wondering if there was a problem with my computer.

 

[rodrigolfp]

Chrome -_-'

Laughs in Edge....

 

[nowhat]

Lesson learned here: use Firefox and uBlock Origin.

 

[Badlucktroll]

“Youtuuuuuuube!!!!”

 

[Kilau]

All that wasted energy should be added to their carbon footprint. They are so super serious about climate change after all.

 

[Mipcgamer]

Yeah youtube was slow as hell for me the last couple of days so I checked online and changed my adblockers and now it works like a charm.
But man that was shitty as fuck, I was wondering if there was a problem with my computer.

What adblockers are you using now that solved the problem?

 

[Anime-Vix]

So that's why. It has been terrible for me the past couple of days. It is unusable for me. What a crappy thing to do but im not surprised Google would go so low.

 

[Miles708]

Lesson learned here: use Firefox and uBlock Origin.

Really, this is the only combination that works.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Do some research before posting

YouTube’s Load Times Are Slower For Users With Ad Block And The Video Giant Has Nothing To Do With It

Reddit uproar accuses Google of YouTube app slowdown; investigation reveals Adblock, Adblock Plus bugs, shifting blame.

www.digitalinformationworld.com

Users reporting slow performance after updating to Version 5.17.0 (#532) · Issues · Adblock inc / Extensions / AdBlock / adblock · GitLab

Background Recently, ABP released version 3.22 which upgraded the bundled extension engine version to 1.1.1. AdBlock released version 5.17.0 which also...

gitlab.com

 

[azertydu91]

What adblockers are you using now that solved the problem?

Ublock...But for those that are interested in youtube without adds and have a vpn just say you're in russia, no adds (like on smart TV it works great.

 

[Klik]

Ublock...But for those that are interested in youtube without adds and have a vpn just say you're in russia, no adds (like on smart TV it works great.

I just deleted adblock and installed ublock. Its great,my PC runs videos fast same as before

 

[RoboFu]

Why be so shady why not just outright block videos? Pretty sure this could go to court as google is intentionally harming your pc.

 

[Bernoulli]

Ublock...But for those that are interested in youtube without adds and have a vpn just say you're in russia, no adds (like on smart TV it works great.

did you delete adblock or just disabled it?

 

[fersnake]

i had to disable adblock for YT, cuz whenever i switched to fullscreen i got stuck like 2 secs before entering fullscreen or loading the thumbnail when seeking through the video.

i have adblock in general not for yt cuz i have premium so gladly i figured out fast hehe.

 

[azertydu91]

did you delete adblock or just disabled it?

I have 3 adblockers and just disabled 2 of them for youtube.

 

[Calverz]

I use edge and ad blocker. I noticed it the other night. I was so confused to what was going on. I read online you can get rid of adblocker and get a different one. When I went to uninstall ad blocker, it gave me a message begging to not uninstall and if its an issue with youtube, they are working to resolve it. At that point I remembered I had youtube premium. So I reinstalled ad blocker anyway and stopped it working on youtube.

 

[cireza]

Always used Firefox. Also use duckduckgo to actually find things on the internet.

 

[King Dazzar]

FWIW Its fine with Origin and chrome.

 

[Dazraell]

Already noticed it, but they still won't get any money from me

 

[Doctor Hades]

I despise Google. Not just because of the hassle I had with them after my account was hacked and used to purchase a Google Ad campaign, which took six months to completely resolve, but because they are just seem to be so damn greedy with their pricing. They only offer one Premium subscription model of £13.99 per month which they keep pushing on my devices as a way of avoiding ads.

Now, I understand the need for advertising but most YouTube videos that I watch already contain embedded ads so having to sit through constant ads for a few seconds every 5-10 minutes in an annoyance. Naturally, I switched to using ad blockers as a way of getting around this but only for my PC. I was fine with watching a few ads on my Switch OLED, phone or iPad. And while I would be happy to pay 99p or £1.99 per month for an ad-free experience, I personally do not feel that Google's current £13.99 a month service is worth it as it has nothing else of interest to me other than having no ads.

What astounds me is how dumb Google must be to not realise that having different tiers of services, including a basic low-cost one that offers no ads, would surely generate more subscribers than just offering an expensive higher priced one. Until they offer more compelling subscription packages then I will continue to use ad blockers as a way of reducing the number of ads on my PC.

 

[Laptop1991]

I use Ublock origin and Brave and haven't has the slowdown yet!.

 

[azertydu91]

I despise Google. Not just because of the hassle I had with them after my account was hacked and used to purchase a Google Ad campaign, which took six months to completely resolve, but because they are just seem to be so damn greedy with their pricing. They only offer one Premium subscription model of £13.99 per month which they keep pushing on my devices as a way of avoiding ads.

Now, I understand the need for advertising but most YouTube videos that I watch already contain embedded ads so having to sit through constant ads for a few seconds every 5-10 minutes in an annoyance. Naturally, I switched to using ad blockers as a way of getting around this but only for my PC. I was fine with watching a few ads on my Switch OLED, phone or iPad. And while I would be happy to pay 99p or £1.99 per month for an ad-free experience, I personally do not feel that Google's current £13.99 a month service is worth it as it has nothing else of interest to me other than having no ads.

What astounds me is how dumb Google must be to not realise that having different tiers of services, including a basic low-cost one that offers no ads, would surely generate more subscribers than just offering an expensive higher priced one. Until they offer more compelling subscription packages then I will continue to use ad blockers as a way of reducing the number of ads on my PC.

I think you can with a vpn set to a country like turkey for around a $/month

 

[twilo99]

My 5800x3d feels absolutely nothing

 

[twilo99]

I use edge and ad blocker. I noticed it the other night. I was so confused to what was going on. I read online you can get rid of adblocker and get a different one. When I went to uninstall ad blocker, it gave me a message begging to not uninstall and if its an issue with youtube, they are working to resolve it. At that point I remembered I had youtube premium. So I reinstalled ad blocker anyway and stopped it working on youtube.

I use edge and ublock, seems to work alright.. might have to purge the cache every now and then

 

[SportsFan581]

Seems like a ridiculous thing for them to do. Why not just put up a message that says the site can't be viewed with ad block extensions enabled (like many other sites do)?

 

[Generic]

I noticed Youtube have been slower in the past weeks...

 

[ReBurn]

Seems like a ridiculous thing for them to do. Why not just put up a message that says the site can't be viewed with ad block extensions enabled (like many other sites do)?

That was the first thing they tried and it was pretty much instantly bypassed.

 

[Imtjnotu]

Even tho I have a YouTube music subscription, it's still slowing down with ad block.

Stupid YouTube

 

[LordCBH]

google REALLY needs some breaking up. Hell fuck it, do it to all the trillion dollar companies.

 

[Jayjayhd34]

Soi just checked youtube loaded in 2 seconds then clicking video was pretty much done matter of milisrconds cpu usage 1.2%
.oh yeah I have i9 12900k

 

[manzo]

Brave and Ublock Origin. Work PC running with an i7-12800H with 32 gigs of RAM. CPU usage hovers between 0,7%-1,5% for Youtube. No problems here.

 

[mayham2199]

Damn this was happening to me.

 

[Skifi28]

Google always cared about the environment and they never miss a chance to show it.

 

[Dibils2k]

is that whats going on! i even have youtube premium the idiots!

 

[sankt-Antonio]

Lesson learned here: use Firefox and uBlock Origin.

Still massive slowdowns for me with that config. Videos will stop buffering etc.

 

[Magic Carpet]

ADS are out of control on the interwebs. Youtube has even more ADS from the channel people themselves. I've yet to see a youtube ad interup a channel ad though. So they must know when they do them.

 

[Lupin3]

Brave with uBlock works just fine here. Always has.

 

[azertydu91]

Still massive slowdowns for me with that config. Videos will stop buffering etc.

If you haven't, close and reopen your browser, mine was still slow when there was just ublock, I closed it and reopenned it and miracle everything was just as before.

 

[angrod14]

I'm rocking uBlock Origin on Firefox and it slays everything YT throws at it.

 

[Sushi_Combo]

Looks like just a chrome issue? Haven't noticed any performance decrease with Edge so far.

 

[Calverz]

I use edge and ublock, seems to work alright.. might have to purge the cache every now and then

Ublock. That’s the one I read was quite good. Il keep Adblock for now as has been good historically and don’t need it for YouTube.

 

[MarkMe2525]

Just came out that this is BS. Mixture of placebo and a bug with a recent ad block update. Nothing to do with youtube. Bernoulli

Adblock: Google did not slow down and lag YouTube performance with ad blocker on

According to several user reports online, Google was apparently slowing YouTube down if it detected adblockers. However, Adblock has now confirmed that such is not the case at all.

www.neowin.net

 

[Emedan]

Noticed this too, fucking Google, I even pay for Premium. Just changed browser, gj.

 

[IAmRei]

Few days ago, i got slowed and i thought it was my photoshop (which is very bad in cache) to blame. And then i read some forum, that yt slowing down in purpose. But at that time it is not slowing again.

I think cleaning windows %temp% cache and playing youtube again after restart browser that who do the work.

anyway, I'm using edge and adblock.
i havent try it on brave browser btw.