It’s happening. The ads are going. Mostly.
DuckDuckGo announced on Wednesday that their free browser now blocks the majority of YouTube video ads. We’re talking the stuff before the video. The stuff during the video. It’s on by default if you’re on iPhone, Windows, or Mac, provided your software is updated.
Android? You’ll have to wait a bit. It’s coming, they say, but for now, you need to hunt it down in your browser settings to toggle it on. No hidden menus, though. Just open the browser. Hit YouTube. Watch.
Here’s the kicker, though: The actual YouTube app doesn’t care. It doesn’t talk to the browser’s ad blockers. If your phone decides to open a link inside that shiny yellow app icon, the ads come back in full force. You have to make sure the page loads as a website inside the DuckDuckGo window. youtube.com. Or m.youtube.com. The trick is the container.
Powering this? uBlock Origin. That community-driven, open-source beast of a blocker provides the lists, while DuckDuckGo layers its own rules on top to keep things from breaking. Sometimes the video buffers a second longer while it loads. But once it starts playing, it keeps going.
This isn’t the same as their Duck Player, which strips YouTube down to a skeleton of a viewer. This new feature keeps the experience normal. History works. Playlists save. You’re still in the real YouTube, just… cleaner.
“The feature blocks most video ads.”
DuckDuckGo made sure to put that asterisk on the table. Most. Not all. They aren’t promising a sterile existence. They’re just cutting down the noise.
So why are we surprised? 🤔
