YouTube began its crackdown against ad-blockers a couple of years ago and now it has a new trick to enforce its rules.

As spotted by PCWorld through posts on Reddit and the Brave browser forum, several ad-blocker users have complained about longer video loading times and increased buffering on YouTube.

When using ad-blockers, YouTube users now see a new pop-up that says, “Experiencing interruptions?” It is accompanied by a link that leads to a Google support page advising them to disable ad-blocker extensions for an uninterrupted experience. 

As MacRumors notes, YouTube’s latest approach is a bit different from its previous ones. Earlier, the Google-owned platform just displayed warnings or blocked the content entirely. Now, it appears it is delaying the video by the same amount of time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad.

Interestingly, several users prefer the delay over ads. “Jokes on them. I’d absolutely have my video buffer for 10 seconds than watch Mobile Slot machine scams,” writes one Redditor. “I’m petty enough to sit there letting it buffer for 30 minutes instead of watching a 30 second ad,” writes another.

Using ad-blockers violates YouTube’s policies. “Our terms don’t allow third-party apps to turn off ads because that prevents the creator from being rewarded for viewership,” YouTube said last year.

If you want to avoid ads, you can get a YouTube Premium subscription for $13.99 per month. There’s also a new $7.99-per-month Premium Lite subscription that lets you avoid ads everywhere except in music videos and Shorts. Now might be a good time to get one of these subscriptions because, for non-paying users, YouTube is reportedly planning to increase the length of unstoppable ads from the existing 15 seconds to 30.

If you are using an iOS device and see the YouTube app crashing, that’s a whole different story. YouTube has released a fix with an update to the app. To actually solve the issue, though, you’ll need to uninstall the app, restart your iPhone, and then download the latest version from the App Store again. 

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About Jibin Joseph

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Jibin is a tech news writer based out of Ahmedabad, India. Previously, he served as the editor of iGeeksBlog and is a self-proclaimed tech enthusiast who loves breaking down complex information for a broader audience.

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