If you use the official YouTube TV app without a premium subscription, then you are in for another ad-treat.
Google has been testing Pause-Ads on YouTube since April of this year. These ads show up when you hit the pause button, e.g., to get something to drink or go to the bathroom.
Now, pausing will show an ad on the screen for more users. The following happens when you pause the video while using the official YouTube TV app.
- YouTube pauses and shrinks the video that is playing so that it occupies roughly two-thirds of the screen.
- An ad is loaded and shown to the right of it.
- YouTube displays a dismiss button and an info button next to the ad.
YouTube user RoÆther posted a screenshot of the experience on X:
There is also a report on 9to5 Google that shows another photo and a different ad.
There are other reasons for hitting that pause button. Maybe you would like to share your thoughts with someone else in the room, answer a phone call, or think about what you just saw.
Whenever you do, you will see an advertisement on the screen. Is it a disruptive experience? I’d say it is, as it changes the interface and displays new buttons on the screen. The ads do look static for now, though.
Reports suggest that Google is rolling out the change to more users.
YouTube is not the only platform that pause ads are making an appearance on. More and more ad-financed services may introduce pause ads to increase revenue generation.
As always, users have a few options to deal with ads on the platform:
- Subscribe to YouTube Premium, which offers an ad-free experience.
- Use a third-party YouTube app.
- Stream content from a PC with a content-blocker.
- Use a VPN connection to a country that does not have ads on YouTube.
Note: another interesting option is to search for the video on Bing Video. You may watch the video there without ads.
All in all, it is clear that ad-powered services are going to push ads harder and harder on YouTube. Google has been testing unskippable ads for instance, which make the experience even worse.
What is your take on pause ads? Would you mind, or is this something that you do not care about at all? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
My kids sometimes watch yt on the Samsung TV using the app. The ‘commercial’ breaks are extremely disrupting. Abruptly while watching it appears the power has gone out or the TV has died. Then after a few seconds of no picture, no anything, like the TV is off, an ad will start.
They’ve tired of hearing me ask them “Why aren’t you watching it through the PC?”. That TV also has a Gaming PC hooked to it and a secondary mouse that is wireless that they could use from the couch. If they used it, they would not see any ads.
Apparently the few clicks it takes to move the output from the monitor up to the TV is too much trouble 🙁
You can always run a script to enable opening YouTube videos in embedded mode : disable video autoplay, have a look on the video’s description, and when it comes to running the video, have it opened embedded in a new tab : no fuss.
Personally I’ve been bypassing YouTube servers by relying on two YouTube front-ends : Invidious and Piped instances. Both are this time completely blocked by YouTube when it comes to delivering the video, but not in their search and channel videos features. Hence I continue to use them (mainly Invidious though) but have added a redirect to have the videos opened by YouTube in embedded mode : instantaneous … the drawback being the absence of the video’s description … Piped and Invidious are working on it, they’ll be back 100% functional, patience until then.
It’s not that I’d have an intellectual conflict with YouTube, it’s only that the site is heavy (scripts, scripts and scripts, even with dedicated userscripts/extensions), the videos take an eternity to appear (when instantly in embedded mode), at least here on Firefox. I can’t imagine running a Chromium browser for the only sake of having YouTube videos appear quickly 🙂
“I can’t imagine running a Chromium browser for the only sake of having YouTube videos appear quickly”
I use Brave browser and YouTube video loads extremely slowly. I use scripts to skip YouTube ads, and they rewind the first ad for 20 seconds without showing it. If anybody knows scripts that can rewind or skip the first ad really fast, I will be grateful.
And I found the mistake almost immediately by trying to disable a few things. Its script “AdsBypasser” and extension “Control Panel for YouTube”. They slow YouTube video load.
I gave up on UTTV app over a year ago switched to FF to view it. Last month I gave up on it completely. There are alternatives to UTTV that are less obtrusive, I dont like jumping through hoops watch TV while trying to remove extra ads that services add to the service i am paying for. I put up a antenna for local channels, and have add free pay Hulu (with no TV) and Netflix, along with a few free stream services like Tubi. I bought a $60 antenna for the attic and reused the cable that was already installed. I can pull in 70 local channels but only watch 7 or 8 of them.
Perhaps someone at google is secretly pushing for the google antitrust breakup by making youtube unwatchable. Re static ads-a “feature” of some “free” Roku channels for at least a year now. PS Yes this is not an apple site (and this is no plug) but just as an FYI tweaked Brave settings on a Mac does prevent most/many youtube ads, though not all, so perhaps more aggressive settings may work in Windows as well.