Howdy Pirates
Rant warning:
YouTube has suddenly become unbearable for me. Every mid-roll is now 90+ seconds of ads, and while the “skip ad” button appears, I have an older Chromecast that has no remote. That means I have to dig out my phone, unlock it, reconnect the app to the TV (because it loves clearing itself from memory), and by the time everything reconnects, a new ad has already started, so I get to wait another five seconds before I can skip. I’m losing about 40 seconds of my life per mid-roll just dealing with this shit, not to mention a concerning chunk of my sanity.
This only started in the past couple of days, but it’s made YouTube nearly unwatchable unless I’m literally holding my phone the entire time just waiting for ads to appear. If I’m gaming, cooking with messy hands, or doing anything away from my phone, it’s infuriating to stop what I’m doing for the fifth time in a 20-minute video just to find my phone to skip another barrage of ads. Otherwise, I’m forced to sit through a minute or more every time.
I get the commercial logic. I’m being served more ads than ever, and I’m guessing YouTube counts every “skip ad” press as engagement. Plus, skipping ads triggers extra in app pop-ups anyway. It’s just an endless creep of interruptions getting in the way of watching the content I actually want.
I’ve tolerated YouTube ads until now, but this is ridiculous. I use Adblock on my laptop, but that doesn’t help for iPhone -> Chromecast, and I prefer watching on my TV while cleaning/cooking/gaming. I’ve got an old Firestick somewhere, but I’m not sure if that’s any better.
TL;DR / Actual question:
What’s the best way to block YouTube ads when casting from iPhone to a smart TV? Is there a better device setup I should switch to? Is a Raspberry Pi solution realistically the easiest/reliable route?
YouTube Premium is out of the question, so I’m looking for alternatives that don’t involve giving in to the system.
Arrrrrr!
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When you're casting the phone does not matter. All the casting does is open the app on the TV and allow you to use the phone as a remote to control the playback.
If you have a Google TV, go with SmartTube. If you have a Samsung TV, go with TizenTube. If your TV runs WebOS, use youtube-webos.
FTFY
Anything for a TCL TV? Roku as well if that makes any difference.
For Roku there's Playlet.
Cool, thanks.
What about LG?
That's webOS
LG is WebOS
Install SmartTube.apk
if you can.
If your smart TV runs Android TV you can install Smart Tube Next. It does ad-free YouTube for itself, but also removes ads when you cast to it. If not get a cheap Fire TV stick (any except the Select) and just use it for Smart Tube.
Go to settings in Smart Tube, then to the Remote Control section, and turn it on. Smart Tube will then appear as a cast target in the YouTube app.
Has to be sideloaded but updates itself once installed.
I am using a Raspberry Pi with the Linux Raspberry Pi OS with a small Bluetooth keyboard. Watching Youtube from a browser with an add blocker. No issues at all. And I installed Kodi with some plugins to stream every movie and series there are.
Any old crappy laptop plugged into the HDMI port, Firefox + Ublock and a media keyboard.
Yeah I used a laptop first but it had difficulties with 4k movies. That is why I got the Raspberry pi.
running a pi-hole myself. don't know why I waited so long to set one up
Pi-hole doesn't block YT ads
If you have another one laying around I suggest looking at pihole. Great DNS wide adblocker
TizenTube for Samsung, TizenTubeCobalt for all android TV devices (even firestick)
Web Video Caster. Best app I ever purchased.
Use NewPipe or Tubular for any Android based device.
Smarttube had malware
Since updated and now safe.