this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2025
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It's gotten to the point where I have to re-load each YT tab three times before the video ever starts playing - only because I use uBlock.
Still better than watching ads, but it is getting annoying.
I have a theory that YT deliberately makes you wait the length an ad would have been if you have uBlock Origin installed. Ive just let it "buffer" for 30 seconds or so and it will eventually load the video.
I think this is true, and I still prefer it to an ad. Even if it's longer than the ad would have been.
My despise to ads is so big that if someday ads are completely unavoidable I'll settle for a system that just blackens the screen and mute the volume for the duration of the ads. It will still be worth it.
I'd rather watch nothing than an ad trying to sell me something.
Still better tbh
I am fine if it means I don't have to watch some scam ass ad.
I have no problems with ublock on Firefox or Librewolf, unless I try to skip past what the video already loaded, then it's a dice roll whether it'll work or not
I have the same problem, and after you start clicking play, often you can wait it out and the video will eventually play on its own after 10-15 seconds
This mostly happens when you use youtube while being logged into a google account.
I fixed this by using firefox containers + https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/switch-container/
also has the nice benefit of not messing up your reccomendations when clicking on random yt-links from other sites
This does not work on phone OSes
I use Grayjay on Android, and it tends to do a good job. I can have subscriptions w/o being logged in to my YT account, and videos load after 5 secs or so every time.
Thank you. You are the best
It is like they know you're using adblocks, so instead of trying to force ads down your throat, they try making your experience miserable by breaking their own viewer or whatever. It is absolutely petty of them.
Leave a video sitting there in idle for too long, come back, it plays for 10 seconds then has to reload itself. Sometimes, it doesn't do this, so it requires a complete refresh.
They can do this bullshit all they want but I am not letting up on blocking ads.
For me, it works without reloading.... After a 15 second load and an insufferably laggy UI despite having no identifiable system bottleneck.
Yeah yt is basically unusable on Firefox with a blocker and it's 100% by design. Yt even gives a helpful pop-up offering to tell me why it's running so slow.
I switched from Chrome to MS Edge and don't have that YouTube ad-blocking issue with uBlock anymore. Other than that, MS Edge works exactly like Chrome.
MS Edge is Chrome, with a slight MS reskin.