SponsorBlock – skip sponsor segments on YouTube

Sponsorblock is not as blunt a tool as people make it here. You can only block specific type of ads and you can whitelist whole channels which I do for some niche channels I subscribe to. In Android, I use Tubular [1], the NewPipe fork that integrates Sponsorblock and ReturnYoutube Dislike. My only additional request in this awesome app is if we can download the video after snipping out the sponsor block sections.

[1] https://github.com/polymorphicshade/Tubular

As a YouTuber, I’m conflicted about this. My main channel (non-tech) is small, but is monetised, and YouTube see fit to throw me a _very_ variable amount of money every month. CPMs are down right now so revenue has tanked along with it, it’ll pick back up at some point, but the variability is itself the pain point. My videos are relatively expensive and time consuming to make, but people seem to find them useful, and even enjoyable. The occasional (relevant) sponsor read or similar has been a huge help in providing some stability in the past, and I know for many channels it’s the main source of income since YPP revenue share can be so volatile.

I do worry that if this takes off it will just result in those sponsors pulling their budgets for this type of advertising, and it’ll be another nail in the coffin for creators. Sure many of us also do patreon etc but that’s never really sat right with me personally (and see also the post on HN just today about Apple coming for a revenue split there for another creator-hostile storm brewing).

On the other hand, I totally get the hatred of “the usual suspect” sponsors (VPNs, low-quality learning platforms etc) that get done to death because of their aggressive sponsor budgets and not-unreasonable deals. Those get shoehorned into a ton of videos and it’s a shame, but a blunt instrument like this is likely to kill off sponsorships as a whole, not just those bad ones.

I still don't understand a lot of youtube advertising. Like for me, if I'm being advertised something, I instinctively don't trust it, because they're having to pay people to say good things about it rather than people who have used it telling me it's a good thing. And there are still so many sponsorships from places like BetterHelp, which has been known to be a scam for a while now, and Raid Shadow Legends, which is just a crappy mobile game that is about as "mobile game" as you can get. The only reason I use onshape is because a friend recommended it to me, and I was very skeptical about it initially

The creator of this extension also makes DeArrow [1]. It replaces the clickbait thumbnails and titles with less annoying ones. I highly recommend it.

[1] https://dearrow.ajay.app/

I don't mind when youtubers have their own in-video ads tbh. Yes, a lot of them are often advertising really stupid shit (because it prolly gives the most money), but at least on most videos it doesn't break the flow as heavy as the normal youtube ads and it ain't as annoying. So I'd give them these few seconds of brainwashing me to deliver content that I like. That's fine.

I just stopped viewing people that use too many ads. Simple as that

Also extra useful: iSponsorBlockTV. You run it in on a server and you can set it up with the YouTube app on all your commercial streaming boxes that don't support browser extensions.

https://github.com/dmunozv04/iSponsorBlockTV

Related:

iSponsorBlockTV v2: SponsorBlock for TVs and game consoles - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37873749 - Oct 2023 (115 comments)

SponsorBlock – Skip sponsor, filler, intro, outro, like/sub reminders on YouTube - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35733993 - April 2023 (4 comments)

SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26886275 - April 2021 (174 comments)

An open-source browser extension to auto-skip sponsored segments on YouTube - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21743196 - Dec 2019 (101 comments)

Show HN: SponsorBlock – Skip sponsorship segments of YouTube videos - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20778926 - Aug 2019 (137 comments)

i have been using sponsor block firefox extension for some time. It's incredible. Youtubers I watch (LTT, marcushouse) are typically shilling crap like vpn or those stupid ray bud things.

Youtube is not usable without adblocker and annoying without sponsorblock

For anyone that watches a lot of YouTube I also highly recommend the "Tweaks for YouTube" extension, it's totally transformed my watching experience and fixes a lot of the little nits I have with the facebook UI and algorithmic feeds.

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/tweaks-for-youtube/...

Was looking for this exactly. I understand that you have to make money somehow if you want to dedicate yourself to YouTube, but I always found sponsor segments to be worse than native advertising, and just plain gross to watch.

Firefox + ublock origin + this + enhancer for youtube = Youtube bliss :)

I dont auto skip sponsors as some are actually useful but clicking the button works

For anyone using an Android phone, the ReVanced[1] patches for the YouTube app (formerly just YouTube Vanced) applies both an adblock and SponsorBlock, on top of various other convenience features. You'll need to provide your own YouTube APK file to patch.

I'll never go back to using non-Vanced YouTube ever again.

Advertisements are a blight on this world. They are the reason for marketing and sales budgets being quadruple that of engineering and UI/UX budgets, the whole 'form before function' thing, and enshittification in general.

[1]: https://revanced.app/patches?pkg=com.google.android.youtube

But how will I become an actual member of the House of Lords by buying a square foot of land in Scotland if I skip the sponsor blocks of videos?

Please if you report segments, use a correct type!

I’ve seen enough segments to be marked as ads when they are self-promotion and self-promotion when they are barely promotion and more like further exploration info.

I suspect if I was creating videos and putting them on YouTube, the best way to make SponsorBlock obsolete would be to put a banner on my video that lasted the duration of my video.

You’d then need to create a new type of in-video adblocker that displayed an overlay to cover the advertisement, since you could no longer block it by timestamp.

Personally I just stop watching videos and entire channels with sponsored segments. If they are okay with shilling some crappy product for a little cash I don't trust them not to sell out or be deceptive in less obvious ways as well.

Freetube.io has it implemented already few years.

Revanced with sponsorblock is the best method of watching youtube on mobile without ads. I think their is an ethical question about supporting creators, so I think if you do use an adblockwr and sponsorblock you should consider donating directly to creators you watch.

I like the technical side of such projects, because I'm a dev. I am also a creator and I am always conflicted when see such tools, because it does affect the bottom line of other creators.

maybe my viewing habits are not much different from the contributors, but i am very impressed with the effectiveness of the community effort here.

i have seen some cases where videos get the right tagging within minutes of going live. almost suggesting that the creators might be secretly doing the tagging for us!

from further digging, it appears that the initial community efforts have also helped develop a neural network based approach (https://github.com/andrewzlee/NeuralBlock). this appears to be the top current contributor according to the leaderboard (https://leaderboard.sbstats.uk/), with almost 8x the contributions to the next submitter, and ~1.6% of total submissions.

regardless of your moral stand on this, a very impressive collection of open-source efforts!

i've gotten used to having no ads thanks to Firefox with uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock that it became painful when i try to browse the web on others' computers

SponsorBlock is a godsend when watching Linus Tech Tips where it feels like it's 80% ads and 20% content

for other YouTubers, i find that their ads are actually useful if they're relevant to the video's content. for example, i discovered Boot.dev when i was watching bigboxSWE

I think this is the most interesting read: https://blog.ajay.app/voting-and-pseudo-randomness-or-sponso...

Ads are just going to migrate into the context via bugs or in video popups/banners like we now have on cable and network TV in the US. Of course this won't reduce ad breaks at all.

Skipping is not anonymous by default: "So, if you watch a video, and it does have segments, and you do skip a segment, then the server does get access the that segment ID, which is directly linked to the video."

Two questions.

1) if I skip ads on a video via Smart Tube Next, does this directly reduce the creator's income? 2) why do creators ask for likes and subscribe, does this directly increase income?

I wish there existed something like this for arbitrary videos such as for movies..

One issue with SponsorBlock is that people use skip to highlight[0] on music, which should be illegal. To me there often is no highlight for music. You need to hear the first part of the piece in order to enjoy the second. And people have different views on what counts as the highlight. I don't even like seeing the skip to highlight color on the scrub bar in videos that are just music. Skip non music[1] is good though.

[0] https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Highlight

[1] https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Music:_Non-Music_Section

uBlock Origin, Consent-o-Matic to automatically decline cookies, SponsorBlock and Argentinian VPN for $2/month YouTube premium makes the internet usable again.

Is there an equivalent that anyone knows about for Podcasts?

I can not live without this.

Even if I am on a device with premium, I still need to use like 3 different blockers/extensions to get YouTube to a state were it is usable.

Most thread opener start with "I" ... seems that people need to make a statement why or why they are not using Sponsorblock. Interesting.

I spend a lot of time on Youtube, I watch live trials, so this helps a lot, thanks!

Firefox, UBlock, Sponsorblock. Only way to tube

Youtube premium also supports skipping past commonly skipped video timestamps.

I think this is inevitable, but I’m also disappointed. I run an adblocker because deep tracking is invasive, consent can’t freely be given for every website, a significantly detracted user experience from relayouts while reading, huge performance costs, and bandwidth usage.

We’re seeing here on this thread that it is in fact that people just don’t want ads. These content creators need to be paid somehow.

I have been using it since beta and it's always awesome.

Honestly, my brain tunes out the sponsored segment. Just like it did for TV ads.