How YouTube’s Crackdown on Ad Blockers May Have Backfired – An Analysis by the Times of India

YouTube has recently expanded its crackdown on ad blockers globally, prompting users to uninstall these blockers in record numbers. However, it seems that this move may have backfired, as some users have turned to better ad blockers as alternatives. YouTube’s message to its users is clear – disable ad blockers or pay. The Google-owned platform started showing notices to people using ad blockers earlier this year, and last week, it confirmed the expansion of this crackdown. The notices inform users that video playback is blocked unless ad blockers are disabled or YouTube is allowlisted. According to a report by Wired, this crackdown led to a significant increase in the number of ad blockers being uninstalled. However, it also triggered a surge in the installation of new ad blockers that wouldn’t trigger YouTube’s pop-up. The director of engineering and product of Ghostery, a popular ad blocker in Chrome’s extension store, reported three to five times the usual amount of installs and uninstalls over the last month. While over 90% of users uninstalled the extension on Chrome, there was a 30% increase in installations on Microsoft Edge. Another ad blocker, AdGuard, saw a significant rise in uninstallations per day on Chrome, peaking at 52,000 on October 18. However, the installation of the paid version of the extension also increased during this time period.