YouTube conducts experiments with its layout and functionality every now and then. But an average user only notices the updates to its design and not the under the hood updates which makes YouTube better and faster. But nowadays YouTube is experimenting something which everyone will fall in love with, a feature that allows you to block the ads on YouTube officially, by just changing a cookie stored in your browser.
After changing the cookie, the ads on the YouTube’s homepage, inside the YouTube player, in the right pane and the ads in the search results will disappear. It also adds channel cards, a feature which shows information about the channel when you hover over a channel’s name.
Changing the Cookie
- Open YouTube in your browser.
- Open “Developer Console”. This can be done by pressing keyboard shortcuts. These are browser specific, see below for your browser.
- Google Chrome: Hit the “Ctrl+Shift+J” key combination.
- Mozilla Firefox: Hit the “Ctrl+Shift+K” key combination.
- Opera: Hit the “Ctrl+Shift+J” key combination.
- Internet Explorer: Hit the “F12” key and then press the “Ctrl+2” key combination.
- Apple Safari: Hit the “Ctrl+Alt+I” key combination. This will open “Developer Menu” at the bottom of the browser. Now press the “Esc” key to open the Console window.
NOTE The “Developer Menu” will only open if you have checked the “Show Developer menu in menu bar” check box in the “Preferences > Advanced tab”. - Now, paste the below given code in the “Console” window.
- Hit the “Enter” key.
document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=oKckVSqvaGw; path=/;
domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();
This will reload the YouTube page, free of any ads whatsoever.
To enable the ads again, either remove the YouTube cookies entirely or run the below code in the “Console” window.
document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/;
domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();
NOTE YouTube can stop this experiment anytime they want. Therefore, below are many other ways we can block ads on YouTube.
Using YouTube Center Script
This is a browser script that allows you to not only block the YouTube ads, but it also adds many other useful functions to YouTube. Some of the best features include the download button that allows you to download YouTube videos in various formats and sizes. You can also disable auto-buffering, enable continuous play mode, set your preferred resolution, and hide/show any element on the YouTube page. There are many-many more features provided by this script.
Using YouTube Options, a Web Browser Plugin
YouTube options is available for Chrome, Opera and Apple Safari as of now. This is a beautiful extension that enhances the YouTube experience greatly. It can remove all the YouTube ads, set the default resolution and the player size, enable looping, show/hide different elements on the YouTube page. As the YouTube Center Script, it also adds the download options to the YouTube interface. It also adds the direct links to websites that lets you download the audio from any YouTube video.
This extension not only works for YouTube, but most of its features work on most other video streaming sites too, like Metacafe, Dailymotion, Vimeo, etc.
Adblock Plus
Adblock Plus is the world’s most popular ad blocking service. It blocks ads from all the websites entirely, leaving some of them which fulfil their acceptable ads criteria. Because most of the publishers depend on advertisements for their living, this is the last option I would recommend you to go for. This removes ads from every website, be it Facebook, Gmail, YouTube or any other website. This is available as a browser extension and is available for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer. Adblock Plus is also available for Android.