Hey, you what the most annoying thing about YouTube is? Those little thirty second ads that pop up randomly in a long video you’re watching. You’ve just sat down with some delicious supper, ready to tuck into a video essay dissecting the themes of Dark Souls and just as you’re getting to the good part an advert for Wix or Fiverr rears it’s irritating head. I can justify having an ad at the start and end of a video, but slotted clumsily in at random intervals? If I wanted that, I’d just go to DStv. Fortunately, there is a way to turn off these kinds of intrusive ads in YouTube videos and even go so far as to remove entire paywalls from sites without even installing an Adblock extension.
It’s actually just as simple as throwing in a fullstop in the URL. All you have to do is pull up the page or video URL, which will probably look something like “youtube.com/darksoulsvideoessay” and simple change it to “youtube.com./darksoulsvideoessay”. That’s literally all you need to do to turn YouTube ads off without installing an adblocker.
The bug was spotted by reddit user u/unicorn4sale who was kind enough to share their discovery with the rest of the world. The “hack” can even work to disrupt paywalls on major news sites such as The Washington Post, Wired, and The New York Times. So you can read all the articles you want without needing to cough up for the subscription!
Of course, now that we’ve spoken of the bug’s existence it’ll more likely than not be patched sooner rather than later. So better make use of it while it’s still alive and unsquashed!
(Source: TNW)