Can I make a Bluetooth button to skip YouTube ads on the computer?
from Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 22 Nov 23:23
https://sh.itjust.works/post/50297993

Or is there a way to make it somehow auto skip? Figured out they opened Chrome instead of Firefox… Now I am interested in finding some small Bluetooth controller to skip videos in a playlist.

#nostupidquestions

threaded - newest

Brkdncr@lemmy.world on 22 Nov 23:28 next collapse

Pay up.

Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world on 22 Nov 23:58 next collapse

OP: Can I get a button?

Everyone in this thread: Use adblock

This guy: GIVE GOOGLE MONEY!!!

Brkdncr@lemmy.world on 23 Nov 04:48 collapse

I answered the 2nd part of the question.

spongebue@lemmy.world on 23 Nov 00:50 collapse

I mean, I kinda get it. I hate ads but understand that’s the “price” I pay for content. It’s also gotten invasive to the point that the Internet has gotten unusable without an adblocker, so I do that too (if there were less I’d at least try to do my part)

That said… You do know that the skip button was put in by YouTube? Do you really never press it? Or click the microscopic x to close an ad that’s in your way? Do you also go through the trouble of actually reading all of your junk mail?

YoFrodo@lemmy.world on 22 Nov 23:29 next collapse

If youre using a browser to watch YouTube just use Firefox with uBlock Origin. No ads

CapnClenchJaw@lemmy.world on 22 Nov 23:47 next collapse

And SponsorBlock, and BlockTube.

davidagain@lemmy.world on 23 Nov 01:56 collapse

The duckduckgo week browser comes with its own YouTube player which is ad free.

SolidShake@lemmy.world on 22 Nov 23:36 next collapse

Do people not know of ad blockers anymore

Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works on 23 Nov 00:20 collapse

I thought I had Unlock and it doesn’t work anymore

Longmactoppedup@aussie.zone on 23 Nov 00:33 next collapse

Guessing you are using Google Chrime as your browser. If so switch to Firefox and ublock origin works.

Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works on 23 Nov 01:21 collapse

Oh. You are right. I didn’t realize that’s what my daughter had opened… For some reason I just assumed YouTube won the war. I would edit to resolved but I am still curious about a simple Bluetooth button controller.

Grimy@lemmy.world on 23 Nov 02:51 next collapse

I’m planning on getting a Rii Bluetooth controller for the computer on my tv. It seems well thought out, with a keyboard and mousepad on it. It’s not a simple few buttons though.

Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works on 23 Nov 12:58 collapse

I was thinking of one of those ring things people use for their phone.

tacosanonymous@mander.xyz on 23 Nov 03:25 next collapse

Also, freetube app on pc will bypass ads and other bs

Zaphod@discuss.tchncs.de on 23 Nov 08:43 next collapse

There are one button bluetooth remotes to trigger a phones shutter. Maybe you could reuse one of those?

djmikeale@feddit.dk on 23 Nov 10:55 next collapse

Better touch tool might be one approach to mapping a Bluetooth button

thermal_shock@lemmy.world on 23 Nov 12:10 next collapse

Why? Just have it auto skip.

Psythik@lemmy.world on 24 Nov 04:54 next collapse

The war is only beginning, my friend.

Also, FWIW Ublock Lite still works and blocks YouTube ads in Chrome. But it’s also stripped of features compared to Ublock Origin in Firefox.

moopet@sh.itjust.works on 24 Nov 09:19 collapse

The answer is yes, then. I haven’t looked for existing solutions but I know bluetooth buttons exist, and you can probably even vibe-code something to do it for you based on an existing adblocker, even if that has to run a headless firefox so it can run ublock origin or something in the background and use that to tell the timestamps of the ads. You have a turing-complete machine. It can do anything.

thermal_shock@lemmy.world on 23 Nov 12:09 collapse

And you didn’t bother to look to see why. It doesn’t work on chrome, move to Firefox.

Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 22 Nov 23:41 next collapse

Just use an ad blocker.

adespoton@lemmy.ca on 22 Nov 23:45 next collapse

Yes, but that seems like over engineering a solved problem?

And it would be rather tricky. The button would be simple; even a pair of Bluetooth headphones could do it. The tricky bit would be in figuring out how long the ad is and pressing the 10 second skip key the correct number of times and then pressing the skip ad button if required.

Easier (and more secure) just to use an ad blocker.

user224@lemmy.sdf.org on 23 Nov 00:09 next collapse

I am sure at one point I had some auto skip extension in Firefox for this, but I don’t remember what it was.

fizzle@quokk.au on 23 Nov 08:18 next collapse

On one hand I agree that today, the easiest solution is freetube or similar.

However, this problem seems to become “unsolved” every other Wednesday.

QuinnyCoded@sh.itjust.works on 24 Nov 04:33 collapse

sounds like a case of the xy problem

Kolanaki@pawb.social on 22 Nov 23:46 next collapse

You could just use uBlock Origin on FireFox and they won’t exist at all to have a need to skip anything.

Lumidaub@feddit.org on 22 Nov 23:51 next collapse

If you use Firefox, try this addon: addons.mozilla.org/…/youtube-no-disturbance/

I’ve given up on uBlock for YT because frankly I was annoyed at having to update every two days (and whitelisting channels never seemed to work). Silencing ads is good enough for me.

Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world on 22 Nov 23:56 collapse

Been using uBlock for like 10 years.

Very occasionally, like once every 2 years, youtube acts funky. I don’t even update. I just deal with it, and a day or two later it goes back to normal.

Lumidaub@feddit.org on 23 Nov 00:00 next collapse

Idk, it kept breaking the site for me because of the arms race between YT and adblockers.

ivn@jlai.lu on 23 Nov 00:54 collapse

Something is off with your setup then, the past breakage was a few years ago, it’s working fine since. Do you have any other extension installed that could be detected? And you were using uBlock Origin?

Lumidaub@feddit.org on 23 Nov 03:31 collapse

It’s entirely possible that there was some interaction between addons that I was unable to find back then but I’m fine with how it’s working now and uBlock Origin (yes, that one) is working fine otherwise so I honestly can’t be bothered to tinker with it.

gigachad@sh.itjust.works on 23 Nov 08:24 collapse

I can confirm this behavior. If there is a “race” between ad blockers and YouTube, I am not noticing it.

theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world on 23 Nov 00:16 next collapse

Install KDE Connect on your PC and Phone (supported on Linux, Windows, Android, iOS, Mac OS), pair them together, use your phone as a media remote controller for the PC.

tyrant@lemmy.world on 23 Nov 01:58 next collapse

I do unlock origin on Firefox (or a Firefox fork) + sponsor block. The combination gets almost everything

Infrapink@thebrainbin.org on 23 Nov 10:07 next collapse

I use a dedicated video player instead of a browser. Quite a few desktop and mobile video players can directly play YT videos if you just feed them a URL.

thermal_shock@lemmy.world on 23 Nov 12:08 collapse

Same. It works crazily well for YouTube.

JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca on 23 Nov 03:02 next collapse

You mentioned you were still interested in a button.

How are your programming skills, and what’s your current setup? Are you using a PC? Is there a specific reason you want a bluetooth button instead of, say, a USB one? Or even just using a keyboard shortcut?

Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works on 23 Nov 13:03 collapse

How are your programming skills,

BASIC… Haha. In reality I know a little bit, enough to poke around and make a mess of things.

I want it for my toddler, trying to see if I can get it to skip a video to a new one in a playlist.

wildcardology@lemmy.world on 23 Nov 13:46 next collapse

My two cents. Toddlers shouldn’t be exposed to screens that early.

JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca on 24 Nov 00:43 collapse

Maybe look at Zigbee instead of Bluetooth. It’s meant for home automation stuff, but I think it might be easier to set up to perform an action on an input from a button.

Or you can look at Bluetooth remotes but I feel like you’d have to create custom software to take the input and perform an action.

That said, you can use ChatGPT or Claude to help you get started. It’s one of the things an LLM is good at. Tell it you’re a beginner and what you’re trying to do and it can help you through the steps of setting up and writing the basic app. Be warned, the LLM will eventually lose its way and stop making code that makes sense.

Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works on 24 Nov 00:59 collapse

Thanks. I will take a look into that.

altphoto@lemmy.today on 23 Nov 03:04 next collapse

My suggestion is to not watch YouTube videos.

urandom@lemmy.world on 23 Nov 11:09 next collapse

Besides the adblocker workaround, there’s also flathub.org/en/apps/rocks.shy.VacuumTube, which is a nice way to use youtube without ads

BootLoop@sh.itjust.works on 23 Nov 13:43 next collapse

Or is there a way to make it somehow auto skip?

uBlock Origin and Firefox

Uri@infosec.pub on 23 Nov 14:14 next collapse

On desktop Firefox+ ublock origin+ sponsored block.
On mobile: Tubular.
You won’t see a single ad not only no YouTube but also everywhere

Lfrith@lemmy.ca on 23 Nov 22:06 next collapse

Freetube is great too. Its like newpipe for desktop. Lets you subscribe, have view history, and save playlists locally. Has sponsorblock and dearrow and is accountless.

Sometimes breaks so have to go back to using firefox + ublock while waiting for update tp fix wharever youtube does.

Uri@infosec.pub on 24 Nov 04:22 collapse

I also use freetube btw

QuinnyCoded@sh.itjust.works on 24 Nov 04:30 next collapse

to add to this thread I use RVX (YouTube re-vanced extended) on mobile.
I also use Seal (ytdlp UI) to download videos on mobile.

I’ve also tried greyjay but it kept erroring out like every other week and id have to re-login every time. Also I’m not very interested in other platforms than YouTube.

On desktop i use your recommendations, but I use Parabolic (ytdlp UI) to download also.

Uri@infosec.pub on 24 Nov 04:38 next collapse

You may move to a newpipe or fork like tubular or pipepipe. On revanced, you are still running Google binaries. I don’t know how grayjay is for YouTube, but I use it for Odyssey. Pipepipe has some extra platform by the way.

Psythik@lemmy.world on 24 Nov 04:53 collapse

I thought RVX was dead? Did they bring it back? I’ve been using the normal ReVanced and it works great.

QuinnyCoded@sh.itjust.works on 24 Nov 08:02 collapse

tbh I don’t know the history of it. My normal revanced stopped working a couple months ago and when searching how to update it a reddit thread recommended it. I installed and it’s been working fine since ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Asetru@feddit.org on 24 Nov 07:16 collapse

On mobile: Tubular. Firefox+ ublock origin+ sponsored block.

FTFY

Treczoks@lemmy.world on 24 Nov 08:48 next collapse

Have you tried adblockers? They eliminate this ad problem, and you don’t even have to use a skip button.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today on 24 Nov 08:49 collapse

why not just use ublock origins.