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    Blocking Youtube Ads

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved pfBlockerNG
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    • KOMK Offline
      KOM
      last edited by

      Check your squid logs to see where they're coming from. I thought I had read recently that YouTube is now serving some ads from its own domains so you can't block them.

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      • T Offline
        thezfunk
        last edited by

        Good idea. I would need to install squid though as I don't currently use it. I do have ntopng installed but I don't usually have it running because it fills memory up on my router.

        I have found a couple other lists:

        https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HenningVanRaumle/pihole-ytadblock/master/ytadblock.txt
        https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HenningVanRaumle/pihole-ytadblock/master/googlevideo.com%20domains/adverisment.txt
        http://adblock.amroemischengutshof.de/youtube-ads-list.txt

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        • KOMK Offline
          KOM
          last edited by

          Duh, sorry. I saw this in the main feed and didn't see it was in the pfblocker sub. I don't use pfblocker but it must have some sort of access log similar to squid's.

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          • Raffi_R Offline
            Raffi_
            last edited by

            A few second ad is a small price to pay for the free, educational, entertaining content people provide on Youtube. Keep in mind some of the people providing that content rely on the ad revenue to continue providing that free content. That's like going to a museum with a "suggested donation" and not paying anything. It's thinking like that which turns free services into paid services. Once enough people decided I should stop watching ads, Youtube decides I should start charging for what was free before since I'm no longer making enough ad revenue on this platform.

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            • KOMK Offline
              KOM
              last edited by

              The corollary of course is when you drop money in the suggested donation box, and then a hammer pops out of the box and hits you in the crotch.

              Too many bad actors in every ad network on Earth posting shady ads or malware for me to every trust an ad network ever again.

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              • Raffi_R Offline
                Raffi_
                last edited by

                That is true as well. In the case of Youtube specifically though, the actors are usually quite good. Which is why we watch their content. I block ads on websites here at work so I'm hypocritical in that sense. I do it for security purposes, which proves exactly your point. There are a lot of bad actors out there trying to do harm.

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                • XentrkX Offline
                  Xentrk
                  last edited by

                  The blocking files block YouTube ads when watching using a web browser. I do get YouTube ads when using the app on my iPad or streaming media player.

                  pfSense 2.4.4_2 | Intel i5-3450 @ 3.10GHz  | AES-NI enabled |  pfBlockerNG | Snort
                  Blog Site: https://x3mtek.com || GitHub: https://github.com/Xentrk

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                  • T Offline
                    thezfunk @Xentrk
                    last edited by

                    @xentrk said in Blocking Youtube Ads:

                    The blocking files block YouTube ads when watching using a web browser. I do get YouTube ads when using the app on my iPad or streaming media player.

                    That's exactly what I am noticing. The web browsers are fine, it is the Amazon Fire TV's and Google TV's that still get ads. Sometimes my tablet and phone as well. There must be something else with those Android devices that allow them through.

                    RonpfSR BBcan177B 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • RonpfSR Offline
                      RonpfS @thezfunk
                      last edited by

                      @thezfunk
                      The devices DNS configuration point to pfsense ?

                      2.4.5-RELEASE-p1 (amd64)
                      Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q8400 @ 2.66GHz 8GB
                      Backup 0.5_5, Bandwidthd 0.7.4_4, Cron 0.3.7_5, pfBlockerNG-devel 3.0.0_16, Status_Traffic_Totals 2.3.1_1, System_Patches 1.2_5

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                      • T Offline
                        thezfunk @RonpfS
                        last edited by

                        @ronpfs said in Blocking Youtube Ads:

                        @thezfunk
                        The devices DNS configuration point to pfsense ?

                        Absolutely.

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                        • BBcan177B Offline
                          BBcan177 Moderator @thezfunk
                          last edited by

                          @thezfunk said in Blocking Youtube Ads:

                          @xentrk said in Blocking Youtube Ads:

                          The blocking files block YouTube ads when watching using a web browser. I do get YouTube ads when using the app on my iPad or streaming media player.

                          That's exactly what I am noticing. The web browsers are fine, it is the Amazon Fire TV's and Google TV's that still get ads. Sometimes my tablet and phone as well. There must be something else with those Android devices that allow them through.

                          DNS over HTTPS :)

                          "Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it."

                          Website: http://pfBlockerNG.com
                          Twitter: @BBcan177  #pfBlockerNG
                          Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/pfBlockerNG/new/

                          T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • T Offline
                            thezfunk @BBcan177
                            last edited by

                            @bbcan177

                            Anyway to get around that on Android?

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                            • M Offline
                              motific
                              last edited by

                              @thezfunk I’d packet capture the dns queries made by those devices and see what comes up.

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                              • T Offline
                                thezfunk
                                last edited by

                                I wonder if I block all traffic to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 will solve the issue since I don't use them for DNS anyway. I am sure Google must be using their servers for that purpose.

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                                • S Offline
                                  sesipod
                                  last edited by

                                  Any update to the 8.8.8.8 block ???

                                  T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • R Offline
                                    reg1982
                                    last edited by

                                    @BBcan177 just out of curiosity is blocking youtube ads still doable ? It worked for me a long time ago... thanks

                                    BBcan177B 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • BBcan177B Offline
                                      BBcan177 Moderator @reg1982
                                      last edited by

                                      @reg1982 I think it's always going to be hit and miss. There are some feeds that might help but YMMV.

                                      "Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it."

                                      Website: http://pfBlockerNG.com
                                      Twitter: @BBcan177  #pfBlockerNG
                                      Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/pfBlockerNG/new/

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                                      • D Offline
                                        dma_pf
                                        last edited by

                                        Not quite sure if I should put this in this thread or the pfBlockerNG-devel feedback thread. ButI have an alias in my pfBlockerNG-devel setup to block Youtube ads. I saw in on the widget on the firewall's dashboard that some packets were blocked. Here's a cut and paste of the widget:

                                        DNSBL_YoutubeAds 9,481 3680345 Oct 18 03:05:11

                                        I clicked on the 3680345 to bring up the Alerts for the alias and this is part of what I got:

                                        0_1539851786828_youtubealerts.png

                                        All of these alerts are coming from the same iPad. But the iPad was sitting on the kitchen counter at 4:25 in the morning and was on the charger and not being used.

                                        How can it be that the iPad is constantly reaching out to Youtube when it is not being used? And at some time stamps have upwards of 1700 duplicate attempts ?

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                                        • D Offline
                                          dma_pf
                                          last edited by dma_pf

                                          Since my last post above this came up in the Alerts
                                          0_1539852734051_youtubealerts.png

                                          Is that 36,132 accurate?

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                                          • D Offline
                                            dma_pf
                                            last edited by

                                            I did some more snooping around and checked Diagnostics/States and filtered it by the address of the iPad. I get what appears to be thousands of open states from the iPad to the DNSBL VIP that look like this:

                                            0_1539855927098_youtubestates.png

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