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For the past three days, I've encountered an issue where ads suddenly started appearing on YouTube even though uBlock Origin was enabled. After some investigation using different browsers (Chrome, Brave, Thorium, and Firefox), I concluded that uBlock Origin and other ad blockers work perfectly until I log into my Google account. When I sign into my Google account, the blockers stop working on YouTube.

I tried using a different Google account and didn't experience any issues; everything worked fine. I also disabled all other extensions and still had the same problem. Does anyone know what might be causing this? Is there a setting within the Google account that I might have accidentally enabled, allowing ads to bypass uBlock Origin, or has Google started targeting individual accounts?

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Adblockers versus ad networks is always a cat-and-mouse game.

Given that the ad networks are highly profitable and those running them are paid, that is an advantage over the often volunteer efforts behind the best adblockers. Also, given that the best adblockers are largely open source, the developers for the ad networks are able to see the code being used to block their ads and find ways to make it more and more difficult for their content to be blocked.

It is normal for these products to vary in their efficacy. The normal process is that the ad networks release some new ad method and their ads get through, and then a few days later the adblockers figure out how to block the new methods.

I'm trying to emphasize that this is normal.

As a user, you sit and wait. You can check the individual forums for the adblockers, but I recommend NOT posting "HALP, IT'S BROKEN!!!" because they already know it's not working.

As a contributor, you could join the adblocker developer community, though probably wait for an easier period to join, as your joining may require those dedicated teams to take attention away from the immediate fix to hold your hand until you're up to speed and actually contributing.

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You could try the following:

  • update your filters by entering uBlock Origin control panel through its icon -> Cogwheels icon Icon -> Filter list - this very often fixes YouTube problems for me, despite having automated updates on. It seems they can get delayed from time to time.
  • turn the extension off and on - this rarely also refreshed the plugin into a state in which some blocking started working again
  • purge cache for YouTube (Ctrl / Shift + F5 on their homepage) or even the entire browser - personally I didn't have to do it, but it's recommended by a lot of people

Since YouTube started messing with adblockers last year, I never had a downtime of blocking, as long as I followed these steps.

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