5 hours ago
2
DuckDuckGo is going after YouTube ads. The privacy-focused company announced Wednesday that its free DuckDuckGo browser now blocks most video ads, including ads that run before and during YouTube videos. The new YouTube ad-blocking feature is turned on by default for iPhone, Windows and Mac users who have the latest version of the DuckDuckGo browser.
There are no settings to adjust to get started. DuckDuckGo says you can simply open YouTube in the browser and watch videos with fewer ad interruptions. The feature will be turned on by default for Android users soon, according to the company. In the meantime, Android users can switch it on in the DuckDuckGo browser settings.
There's one important catch, though: It doesn't work inside the YouTube app. If a YouTube link opens in the app on your phone, you'll need to open YouTube.com or m.youtube.com inside the DuckDuckGo browser to use the ad-blocking feature.
The company says its YouTube Ad Blocking feature is powered by community-driven filter lists from uBlock Origin, a free, open-source content blocker for web browsers, along with DuckDuckGo's own rules meant to improve compatibility and reduce breakage. DuckDuckGo also says the feature may cause some additional buffering before a video loads, but you shouldn't be interrupted by ads once playback starts.
The new feature is separate from Duck Player, DuckDuckGo's built-in YouTube viewer that offers a more stripped-down viewing mode with additional privacy protections. YouTube Ad Blocking is meant for the regular YouTube website experience inside DuckDuckGo's browser, which means features such as watch history and saving your place in playlists should still work.
DuckDuckGo is careful to say the feature blocks most video ads, not all of them.
