Firefox, Adblock and Youtube

[Wildy]

I'm just throwing this out here, but has anyone else using Firefox with an ad blocking program (Adblock Plus for example) found that when it is activated you get the message "Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Adobe's Flash Player. Get the latest Flash player." instead of a video?

Does this mean that the embedded ads that they have started using is causing their videos to come up as "ads" instead of "video"?

[treadmore]

Never had this problem. If firefox doesn't update flash automatically though, you may have an out of date version. Get the latest version here:

http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/?promoid=DJDWD

[Smackety]

I use firefox with adblock plus and youtube does not seem to be affected.

ETA: did you train your adblock plus to block youtube videos by any chance?

[CrikeyBobs]

Well, I use GreaseMonkey, NoScript and Stylish add-ons to "enhance" my youtube viewing experience, but I also have Adblock Plus.

As an experiment I disabled all except AdBlock and I was able to watch the videos. Looking at the javascript on a typical youtube video page there is one that is sourced from s.ytimg.com. If you have ytimg.com in your block list then perhaps that is preventing the script from being fetched. If so you could add a whitelist entry to allow scripts.

Or maybe this is something new that is being rolled out, and you are one of the chosen ones!

[Wildy]

I use firefox with adblock plus and youtube does not seem to be affected.

ETA: did you train your adblock plus to block youtube videos by any chance?

No. I checked that.

Well, I use GreaseMonkey, NoScript and Stylish add-ons to "enhance" my youtube viewing experience, but I also have Adblock Plus.

As an experiment I disabled all except AdBlock and I was able to watch the videos. Looking at the javascript on a typical youtube video page there is one that is sourced from s.ytimg.com. If you have ytimg.com in your block list then perhaps that is preventing the script from being fetched. If so you could add a whitelist entry to allow scripts.

Or maybe this is something new that is being rolled out, and you are one of the chosen ones!

Well, for now all I have done is added youtube to the whitelisted pages. I don't like it though, because I hate ads, which is the reason I got adblocker.

It looks like this .ytimg.com thing is causing it. I just wish that Youtube didn't need to put ads into the videos.

[BigAl]

I don't know anyone that uses adblock.

I know lots of machines that block crap by using a replacement host file maintained by these people:

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

I've been using it for several years. Its never prevented me from seeing anything I want to see and, by now if I think it's blocking something, I appreciate the blockage.

The file applies to the entire system and all the applications that reach the internet. This is one more layer of defense if you should catch some nasty spy-ware, it is harmless if it can't talk to it's server and download more crap.

[ohms]

I only get that sort of message when I have haven't set the NoScript add-on to allow the site to use JavaScript.

[Smackety]

I don't know anyone that uses adblock.

I know lots of machines that block crap by using a replacement host file maintained by these people:

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

I've been using it for several years. Its never prevented me from seeing anything I want to see and, by now if I think it's blocking something, I appreciate the blockage.

The file applies to the entire system and all the applications that reach the internet. This is one more layer of defense if you should catch some nasty spy-ware, it is harmless if it can't talk to it's server and download more crap.

Adblock plus is really really wonderful, you have to try it and then go back to a friends computer to realize that all the banners on the internet have vanished and your pages all load super fast without all the commercials.

[Wildy]

I don't know about other people but I found the problem to be a filter called "_" that seems to block almost everything.

Including the interface for this forum and blogger.

[BigAl]

Adblock plus is really really wonderful, you have to try it and then go back to a friends computer to realize that all the banners on the internet have vanished and your pages all load super fast without all the commercials.

Essentially all the pop-ups went away when I first used this host file and
my web screen has "can't access host" in many of the boxes that would be advertisements and it does this without another layer of blocking software. My browser runs noticeably faster on an underpowered machine or a slow net connection. I like the idea that trackers like DoubleClick are not seeing what I do, not that this is a perfect privacy shield.

The legit pop-ups are now nicely managed by FireFox with no add-ons.

[Smackety]

Essentially all the pop-ups went away when I first used this host file and
my web screen has "can't access host" in many of the boxes that would be advertisements and it does this without another layer of blocking software. My browser runs noticeably faster on an underpowered machine or a slow net connection. I like the idea that trackers like DoubleClick are not seeing what I do, not that this is a perfect privacy shield.

The legit pop-ups are now nicely managed by FireFox with no add-ons.

That HOSTS file thing looks pretty useful, I will try it out - thanks for the tip.

[bokonon]

I also use the HOSTS file instead of a commercial adblocker. The only downside is that occasionally after a Google search, I'll see something intriguing in the "ad" column on the right, click on it, only to be told that that page isn't available on the host. Of course not, since all the "ads" are pointing to localhost.

Most of the ads list the URL, which I can still key in manually if I'm really that interested.

I won't go back to not using the HOSTS file, though. I got really sick and tired of seeing the content load for the webpage I wanted, only to be forced to wait another couple of minutes because something was clogging the pipes coming from some ad site somewhere. No more.

ETA: Except I didn't download a host file, I just looked at what was causing my bottlenecks, and put them in manually. I only have about a dozen entries in my HOSTS file.

[bruto]

I get this problem occasionally but intermittently, and it goes away after a reboot. I don't know just what causes it, but it is not a simple matter of adblocking settings, nor is it actually an out of date version of flash. Usually the same video will run embedded, even when it refuses to run straight from Youtube. But it's always been fixed by a reboot without a change of any settings.

[BigAl]

I also use the HOSTS file instead of a commercial adblocker. The only downside is that occasionally after a Google search, I'll see something intriguing in the "ad" column on the right, click on it, only to be told that that page isn't available on the host. Of course not, since all the "ads" are pointing to localhost.

Most of the ads list the URL, which I can still key in manually if I'm really that interested.

I won't go back to not using the HOSTS file, though. I got really sick and tired of seeing the content load for the webpage I wanted, only to be forced to wait another couple of minutes because something was clogging the pipes coming from some ad site somewhere. No more.

ETA: Except I didn't download a host file, I just looked at what was causing my bottlenecks, and put them in manually. I only have about a dozen entries in my HOSTS file.

The current MVP host file has hundreds of entries. You might take a look at it. I never click on a paid advert. Maybe that's just me.

By now, my attitude is that if the host file doesn't want me to see something, I don't want to see it.

[Aerik]

Youtube is actually more complex than most people give it credit for.

There's an .swf file from www.youtube.com that calls up subrequests to another .swf on s.ytimg.com as well as javascript files, which calls up more crap from s.ytimg.com, but finally the actual video file is streamed from v[1-30].cache.googlevideo.com . There's plenty of room for false positives in adblocking, whether via a direct blocker (adblock plus) or via styesheets (stylish) and hosts files. Luckily even using the filter "*googlevideo*" in adblock plus will not affect youtube videos, but the hosts file (and extensions like blocksite and requestpolicy) can.

I also use the HOSTS file instead of a commercial adblocker.

What the heck is a commercial adblocker? Adblock Plus, IE7Pro, adblock original, admuncher, privoxy... As far as I know there are no non-freeware adblockers out there that anybody in the world actually uses. There's even very little shareware. If we're not paying for it, it's not commercial.

---

Myself, I use

* adblock plus (http://adblockplus.org/)
* Stylish (http://www.userstyles.org/)
* NoScript (http://noscript.net/)
* RequestPolicy (http://www.requestpolicy.com/)

and the hosts file, to prevent ads. I get more security with extensions like Redirect Remover, Perspectives, and Better Privacy. I get my hosts file primarily from http://hostsfile.mine.nu/ . They have several hosts file for different uses. Some for ads, some for malware, some for pornography. Plus combo files. I use the comprehensive file. Beyond that, Spybot Search&Destroy also updates my hosts file, and sets up cookie/image protection inside all browsers.

Ads? No way. False positives? Rarely.

The only thing I can think of to make my browser safer is, if only the SafeHistory (http://safehistory.com/) and SafeCache (http://safecache.com/) extensions would be updated to work with FF 3.*.