YouTube says it didn’t slow down loading times for users with ad-blockers, so what?

Recently it was reported that YouTube was loading slowly if people were using ad blockers. It is natural for many of you to feel aggrieved by the intense pressure exerted by the platform to receive payment from people for its services.

However, a new report came out on Wednesday that says YouTube actually has nothing to do with the platform slowing down and certainly nothing to do with the use of ad blockers. YouTube has commented on these allegations and assured that its efforts to prevent the use of ad blockers are not yet as aggressive. The report here quotes the platform as saying that YouTube’s slowdown is not related to its efforts to circumvent its ad blocker.

So, if YouTube hasn’t made any changes to slow down the loading time, what is causing this problem? Turns out, the problem is caused by ad blockers, specifically AdBlock and AdBlock Plus tools.

The same report quotes a developer from uBlock Origin, another ad blocking platform, who explained that the problem was due to a bug in Adblock ad blockers. Raymond Hill shared details about the bug that affected AdBlock version 5.17 and AdBlock Plus version 3.22, which people are using on their web browsers to block ads.

They also explained that the bug was only causing problems for the Adblock tool and that their own uBlock Origin ad blocker is not affected, which means YouTube can operate normally for these users. Ad blockers have been updated with a patch that will fix the slowdown issue for users.

YouTube claims that blocking ads limits its ability to pay content creators and that’s why it wants people to stop using these tools or simply pay for a premium service that blocks out ads. Provides free content.

We’ve also seen that YouTube has come up with a three-strike rule for videos, giving people enough time to stop using the ad blocker and continue using YouTube for free as long as they want. Allows ads to be shown on all videos on the profile. The message clearly states that video playback will remain blocked until you whitelist YouTube from ad blocking apps/extensions or disable the feature completely.