YouTube’s displeasure with their user’s use of ad blockers is having an influence beyond YouTube. As a result of YouTube’s new policy of warning users who seek to watch videos while using an ad blocker, a number of ad-blocking apps claim that thousands of users have deleted their products.
AdGuard reports that since YouTube made the change on October 9, more than 11,000 individuals per day have removed the Chrome extension it developed. Andrey Meshkov, the company’s chief technology officer, said 52,000 users had removed AdGuard on October 18.
However, AdGuard’s paid version, which is unaffected by YouTube’s crackdown, saw an increase in downloads.
Ghostery, another ad-blocking business, reported a flat month of October usage despite three- to five-times-daily increases in installs and uninstalls. More than 90% of respondents to a corporate poll on why they uninstalled the software cited the lack of compatibility with YouTube as the primary reason.
Some users have attempted to utilize alternative browsers as a workaround because the YouTube crackdown appears to only affect Chrome users on desktop and laptop computers. According to Ghostery’s data, the percentage of October installations of Microsoft’s Edge browser increased by 30% month over month.
Google’s entire revenue is benefiting from YouTube advertising more and more. The corporation made almost $22 billion from advertising on the platform from January to September. However, YouTube is also attempting to increase subscriptions to its YouTube Premium service, which removes advertisements, allows users to download videos and view them offline, and provides access to YouTube Music.
The monthly cost of YouTube Premium was increased by $2, to $14, earlier this year.
Firefox add-ons like uBlock Origin remain functional if you need a replacement. Adblock Plus has also provided advice on how to circumvent the anti-ad block protections.
