Opening your browser and clicking on YouTube is an exciting experience. Whether you’re into cooking, golf, entertainment or the most recent news events – the platform has a lot to offer.
One downside to streaming online are the ads and pop-ups. They slow your internet speed, cost you data and ruin the escape. Ads and pop-ups can also contain links to harmful sites, viruses and phishing.
Browser users should consider ad blockers to eliminate annoying pop-ups and banners.
Several reliable services exist, offering data protection, enhanced online security, and a simple way to block ads on YouTube.
Read on to learn more about ad blockers and why more online browsers use them.
Common YouTube Ads
Ads and pop-ups come in a variety of formats. Good ad blockers will identify and remove them.
Some of the most common types of YouTube ads to look out for:
- Overlay Ads: These ads are typically semi-transparent and can be found on top of the video.
- Display Ads: These ads are especially frustrating to desktop users of YouTube, appearing on the side or bottom of the video you are trying to enjoy.
- Mid-Roll Ads: Frequent YouTube watchers will know these ads well, as they appear in the middle of a video. Longer videos can include several of these ads, interrupting the viewing experience.
- Pre-Roll Ads: These ads are the most common form of YouTube advertising and pop-up before your video plays.
Advertisers, content creators and YouTube rely on these types of ads to create revenue, improve marketing campaigns and create product interest, but that should not interfere with your viewing. Ad blockers take care of most ads, overlays and pop-ups, allowing you to view your content in its original format.
How Ad Blockers Improve The Experience
Greater Control Over Online Content
Not all pop-ups are bad, some websites require pop-ups such as login windows and video players to work properly. Users of ad blocker services can typically control which pop-ups they see by disabling pop-up and ad blocking from websites that they know and trust. This means that necessary website functions take place and unwanted pop-ups and overlays are avoided.
Less Annoyance
Advertisers and competitive service providers use ads as part of their marketing campaigns. While these mini ads might be successful for the advertiser, they tend to annoy the site’s user. Multiple ads appearing one after the other, or even overlapping can make things even more frustrating. Ad blockers remove unwanted content, reduce irritability and promote engagement. This can be useful for those susceptible to continuous advertising content or needing to concentrate on news feeds and work tasks.
Quicker Page Load Times
If you have experienced a brief page freeze while ads appear, then you will know that they slow loading times. These seemingly innocuous messages use resources to pop-up. Tracking scripts, large external images and JavaScript reduce loading times and slow overall performance. This can be especially important to individuals on slower internet connections, causing buffering, lagging and page freezes.
Better, More Enjoyable Browsing
Ads and overlays can contain links to other sites and services, which appear suddenly obscuring the content you wanted to view. Some ads disappear after a certain period, but more hardy variants require you to click to close them. The disruption can lead to less information retention, viewing enjoyment and time spent on YouTube. Ad blockers help to restore YouTube to its unobstructed form. Giving visitors the content they were after as well as smoother functionality.
Improved Security And Online Privacy
Apart from the interruption, ads can also harbour malicious content. Users who click on such pop-ups could unintentionally download unsafe software, be forwarded to potential phishers or suffer identity theft in severe cases. Blocking these harmful ads, reduces the risk substantially. This helps to create a more comfortable browsing experience and is useful for individuals who struggle to identify malicious links.
Tips On Choosing The Right Ad Blocker
- Ensure that your ad blocker of choice is compatible with your browser. Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are popular examples.
- Good ad blockers will reduce pop-ups, overlays and display ads automatically.
- Your ad blocker should operate in the background, without obtrusive notifications. Notifying you of blocked ads without distracting you.
- Check the community involvement of your ad blocker. Many higher-end ad blockers use the help of their customers to track pop-ups and overlays on websites. This leads to quicker ad identification, while keeping user data anonymous.
- Your ad blocker service provider will need access to the information on the sites you visit, this allows them to block ads more effectively. Legitimate ad blockers will never share your data or your search history with any third party. Read the ad blocker’s terms or contact them should you need more information on this.
Potential Limitations Of Pop-Up Blockers For YouTube Use
Despite their best attempt, pop-ups and ad blockers cannot always remove every ad. To bolster its revenue, YouTube has developed more advanced ad blocker detection tools. This means that some ads, pop-ups, and overlays might still get through.
In Summary
Ad blockers have the potential to improve your viewing experience and keep you and your data safer online. Research your ad blocker of choice, to make sure that it is compatible with your browser.
The more ads a blocker can remove, the smoother your video playback. Here’s to uninterrupted YouTube viewing and access to the best content without the frustration.