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Did ad blockers survive YouTube's offensive? Letting numbers talk (adguard.com)

submitted 7 months ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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TL;DR version:

From June to August, the number of active users of the AdGuard Ad Blocker extension for Chrome dropped by about 8%. But in late August, the trend reversed. The temporary slump in user growth was offset by the increased demand in the second half of the year.

After a brief period of turbulence that lasted about a month, we saw the trend stabilize. And while the daily number of uninstalls was still higher than before YouTube's crackdown, it remained consistently lower than the number of daily installs.

After media reports and YouTube’s own statements implied that ad blockers were doomed, and especially after more and more users started noticing that their ad blocking extensions were not working properly on YouTube, we did indeed see a spike in uninstalls. However, at the same time, the number of installs also increased significantly! It may well be that the way ad blockers’ woes were amplified in the media inadvertently boosted their popularity and helped them woo new users.

The takeaway from all of this is that ad blockers — first and foremost, ad-blocking extensions — were rocked by YouTube’s onslaught, but survived. And, moreover, the interest has rebounded, as is evidenced by the growth in the number of active users.

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[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 99 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I've been using uBlock Origin in Firefox on both Linux and Android this whole time. If Lemmy hadn't lit up about it, I wouldn't have noticed. I never saw one ad or that "dur hur no ad block" message.

And I let Youtube ads run for YEARS. Ads basically everywhere on the net have become intolerable in their content and quantity, so I said enough. And it is 100% Adsense's fault.

[–] pachrist@lemmy.world 26 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The fact that ads are so intolerable is the problem. I understand that much of the internet being free is because of ads. But we went from the early days of the internet where ads were malicious, active annoyances to the modern internet where ads are malicious, passive annoyances. Clicking on an ad no longer ruins my afternoon with a virus, but it does log and sell my data to the highest bidder. Nearly every ad on the internet is in bad faith.

Until we have better ads, I will block absolutely everything I can.

[–] sir_reginald@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

There's no such a thing as good ads. Not even before the internet.

[–] RGB3x3@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Ads basically everywhere on the net have become intolerable in their content and quantity,

I was reading a huffpost article the other day on my work computer on Firefox that doesn't have an ad blocker. The page was refreshing with new ads every 5 seconds and took up like 20% more CPU power than before I opened the page.

So huffpost is now in my mental blocklist.

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

yeah we need a coalition of sites that agree a single page serve is fine, they don't need tons of garbage running in the background.

[–] guacupado@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

Yeah I've always been on firefox and I haven't noticed a single thing change during the last year of all this hubbub about Youtube.