PESKY WIKIPEDEA. and now YOUTUBE 'Changes Coming'... Yeah, ok

[Haenk]

Youtube really became annoying lately with their ads - however I do see the need of earning money at some point to offer these services for free. Also the content creators benefit (to some level) from the delivered ads - I doubt many of the content creators would be able to do their videos without any sort of income...

[PlainName]

I doubt many of the content creators would be able to do their videos without any sort of income...

Maybe if viewers had to pay actual money to watch, there would be many fewer videos available but of consistently good quality. And maybe stuff that should be in writing would actually be in writing instead of being read into a camera.

[MK14]

Rant: The Internet Archive,
https://web.archive.org/ has just apparently been considerably worse.

It puts up a money begging thing, which needs to be closed (like wiki). But then it also, puts up another pop-up window, which hides/blocks some of the needed webpage functionality, until you either remove it and/or fill out your name and email address, so they can hassle you in the future.

What makes it especially annoying, is that it seems to be poorly programmed, so on my computer setup, was a real pain to get rid of, and needed lots of messing around to eliminated, for now. Because the cancel button (X) was shown off the screen (i.e. it was NOT clickable). I hope that was an accident and not done on purpose.
I'd be annoyed if it was on purpose, maybe it was designed like that. How horrible, if that was the case.

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[MazeFrame]

Implementing a site-visits-"tracker" is rather simple:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9106720/keep-track-of-visit-count-in-cookies#9107220

Basically: Request count-cookie from client, if none, create. If exists: +1
No magic or evil database in that.

[thm_w]

Rant: The Internet Archive,
https://web.archive.org/ has just apparently been considerably worse.

I'm not seeing it with adblock disabled, maybe they got rid of it?
Usually to close an overlay you can press "Esc", but it doesn't always work.

Internet archive is worth a donation.

Tax filing: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/943242767

[Bud]

I doubt many of the content creators would be able to do their videos without any sort of income...

Ask any content creator why are they making videos and most of them will say "because I love making videos !". OK, so if they love making videos then they should make their goddamn videos and stop begging. And if they are unable to sustain then they should find a real job.

[ataradov]

Ask any content creator why are they making videos and most of them will say "because I love making videos !". OK, so if they love making videos then they should make their goddamn videos and stop begging.

I love programming, so I have a programming job. Loving something does not mean you have to do it for free. "Begging" is just a part of the job. Probably not the most pleasant part, but all jobs have unpleasant parts.  Nobody would give you money for a "real" job or otherwise if you don't ask for it.

[MK14]

Rant: The Internet Archive,
https://web.archive.org/ has just apparently been considerably worse.

I'm not seeing it with adblock disabled, maybe they got rid of it?
Usually to close an overlay you can press "Esc", but it doesn't always work.

Internet archive is worth a donation.

Tax filing: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/943242767

Putting aside who deserves a donation, which is a different and complicated question, and just concentrating on annoying nag screens. It does still show it for me (in the UK and who has used it a fair bit, somewhat recently).

Screen dumps shown here:
They haven't come out in the right sizes. The first one displays on screen, at full width (i.e. much bigger), but the second (last) one, comes out a fair bit smaller.

[thm_w]

OK now I see what you mean, it only showed up after I clicked through a result, and its just a banner at the top, I can scroll past it. There was no need to click the 'x' button.

edit: and now that I clicked 'x' it seems to not show again.

[MK14]

OK now I see what you mean, it only showed up after I clicked through a result, and its just a banner at the top, I can scroll past it. There was no need to click the 'x' button.

edit: and now that I clicked 'x' it seems to not show again.

I think it is because I originally clicked, 'maybe later'. Which made the second pop-up nag thing come up, and maybe made it more interested in repeating the message, or something.

When I'm concentrating on something, and want to just immediately know the answer to something, and/or get more information. E.g. Perhaps I'm reading another webpage, extensively, and just wanted to know what they meant by something, etc.
I can get frustrated, when the other web-page(s), attempt to distract me with annoying pop-ups, adverts and other stuff.

When I'm less busy/occupied, I would have more time and energy, to consider their monetary requests, and  spend time reading their stuff.

I'd much prefer them to just have a small/tiny banner/section/bit in the top right hand corner, called something like Donations/Funding-Help, rather than (annoying to at least me), pop-ups, which have to be clicked in certain ways to cancel/remove.

Don't get me started on these annoying EU regulated, we have cookies, jamming up many web-pages these days. Until you go through their (sometimes multi-pages and complicated), cookie details things, disable each section, one by one. Then have to find the accept/save options button. To unfreeze and then read the webpage.
We (UK) are not even in the EU now, and it could have been done in a much more user friendly manner. NOT semi-breaking the internet, kind of way.

[james_s]

Don't get me started on these annoying EU regulated, we have cookies, jamming up many web-pages these days. Until you go through their (sometimes multi-pages and complicated), cookie details things, disable each section, one by one. Then have to find the accept/save options button. To unfreeze and then read the webpage.
We (UK) are not even in the EU now, and it could have been done in a much more user friendly manner. NOT semi-breaking the internet, kind of way.

We (USA) have never been part of the EU and we get the same stupid popups on a huge range of websites. It's a poster boy of of unintended consequences!

[magic]

We are not in the US and have had a St Floyd protest last year. Welcome to globalism and tell me it wasn't your idea

As for nag screens, a lot of problems disappear if you disable MalwareScript in the browser. As expected.

[MK14]

We (USA) have never been part of the EU and we get the same stupid popups on a huge range of websites. It's a poster boy of of unintended consequences!

As for nag screens, a lot of problems disappear if you disable MalwareScript in the browser. As expected.

Thanks for the tip (eliminating nag screens). But, what I'm really looking for ...

On top of ad-blocking and malware etc blocking, some kind of method/program/technique/firewall-script etc etc. Which can completely eliminate the arguably broken, cookie nag screens, we seem to get all over the place.

When you are doing electronics and/or software and/or web-stuff etc. If it is something which is not a normal part of your experience, you use to be able to (every couple of minutes), highlight a search term (e.g. does Python perform array bounds checking by default ?), and almost instantly get to a webpage which answers that question ... 'yes'/'no'/'it depends..'.
Then carry on writing the script, or whatever one was doing.

These days, those annoying cookie nag screens, just completely mess up such work flows.

What I really want is something, which lets your web-browsing completely eliminate such annoying disruptions. I.e. like going back to 2015 (or whatever the safe years are), before that thing started.

I'm not sure if any such thing exists yet ?

The way it should have really been sorted, is that websites give an extra option, somewhere to change the cookie settings, if a user wants to.

[PlainName]

https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/

That takes care of the nag screens (except for sites that really REALLY want to piss you off). It doesn't deal with inappropriate cookies, but as someone that cares about them you would have some kind of cookie manager anyway which would delete or otherwise deal with them.

[MK14]

https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/

That takes care of the nag screens (except for sites that really REALLY want to piss you off). It doesn't deal with inappropriate cookies, but as someone that cares about them you would have some kind of cookie manager anyway which would delete or otherwise deal with them.

Thanks, that looks (not tried it yet, but from the details) brilliant!      

I'm going to be re-choosing browsers, and re-installing stuff and/or doing fresh install, somewhat soon. So, that will be a good time to test it out.

The ironic joke, is I don't really mind about cookies recording stuff, most of the time. Who knows what else the servers store and keep about people, anyway.
It is just those annoying pop-ups, which freeze the website until you have to fill them in and then click them, that really annoy me.

There are rumors floating about, that google chrome web-browser, is going to effectively ban ad-blockers (or something like that). Pushing me to change web-browsers anyway.

[james_s]

I don't think they will. All that would do is cause huge numbers of people to stop using Chrome. People who want to block ads are going to block ads, it does no good to try to force them not to.

[MK14]

I don't think they will. All that would do is cause huge numbers of people to stop using Chrome. People who want to block ads are going to block ads, it does no good to try to force them not to.

Some rumors say that you tube may start banning youtube users (viewers), who use ad-blockers, from their website and services (I guess).

Old article from Dec 2019:
https://techlapse.com/global/youtube-declared-war-on-ad-blockers-no-more-adblock-from-december-10/

From December 10th you will no longer be able to use Adblock on YouTube: the announcement comes from Google itself, which is sending a notification to users who access its service.

Update: Youtube VS Adblock Update: Claims policy is transparent, yet it is vague

For years, YouTube has allowed the use of Adblock, or software that could bypass advertising content, on its platform. Now, however, YouTube has declared war on Adblocks, and above all on users who use them.

Adblock on YouTube: from December 10th everything changes
The new rules clearly state that:

” YouTube may prevent access if it believes, in its exclusive direction, that the provision of the Service for you is no longer commercially viable “

This means that Google, and YouTube, reserve the right not only to exclude users from the video streaming platform, but also to terminate the provision of all services. That  ” commercially viable” indicates the status of users as exchange products: YouTube offers literally billions of videos for free, apart from the YouTube Originals content that are behind a toll barrier (paywall).

Since no user pays a penny, neither YouTube nor its advertisers, it is logical to think that the product to be sold is us users. In exchange for viewing advertisements, YouTube continues to provide a service for free that would otherwise cost tens if not hundreds of dollars a year.

It is therefore logical to think that Adblocks on YouTube are bad for the company to eradicate. Users on the other hand, always try to have the most comfortable and easy access to video content.

The blame for using Adblock, however, is often to be attributed also to the creators of content: it is not possible that in an 18-minute video there are 10 advertising breaks, including the pre-roll videos that are uploaded before you even watch the video.

Adblock on YouTube: is the ban risk real?
The risk for users who continue to use Adblock on YouTube is real. The company can freely exclude accounts that try to circumvent the new rules, using Adblock software or Adblock extensions.

Risk concerning the complete ban for other Google services, such as Gmail and Adsense, is less likely.

Much more recent, 10th December 2021:
https://securityboulevard.com/2021/12/google-nukes-ad-blockers-manifest-v3-is-coming/

Google Nukes Ad-Blockers—Manifest V3 is Coming
by Richi Jennings on December 10, 2021
Makers of ad-blocker and anti-tracking browser extensions are spitting blood. Google is planning to change everything, removing features in the Chrome browser APIs that these extensions rely on.

Google is doing it in the name of security, privacy and performance. But extension writers—including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)—smell a rat.

Google's (Youtubes), recent removal of the DISLIKE feature, from users (making it only visible to the videos owner), seem to show that google/Youtube/Chrome, are moving in directions, which may be completely against users interests, wants, desires, feelings, etc.

tl;dr
The recent removal of being able to see the number of DISLIKES, on videos, is making it much harder to prejudge the quality of unknown videos, from unknown video channels. Tending to make me ignore videos like that, more and more.

[magic]

In related news, Google discovers that TV was TV for a reason and becomes TV

For each user who is discouraged by lack of fair ratings, there is ten users who would have been discouraged by downvotes but now are not and will watch the crap.

[MK14]

In related news, Google discovers that TV was TV for a reason and becomes TV

For each user who is discouraged by lack of fair ratings, there is ten users who would have been discouraged by downvotes but now are not and will watch the crap.

It was NOT just about what one watches, or not. When someone is giving advise about something, you can use the number of dislikes (or rather the ratio between that, positives and viewing figures), to get a rough guide/feel as to how serious/safe/accurate the advise is.

If it gets a huge number of down-votes, then perhaps there is something wrong with the technical accuracy of the video, and/or it is inaccurate, and many other possible problems with the video, are being highlighted.

On the one hand, it is not as bad as I feared it would be. There are other signs and ways, of getting a feel of how good/accurate/reliable the video is. But it tends to waste more of my time, and makes it harder to find the good content on youtube, amongst a huge sea, of not so good videos.

[RJSV]

   Hahaha; Wikipedia didn't step on my action, today:
Had clicked into WIKI, from an eevblog posting I was reading... Did another couple of checks, and no; things look back to normal (no persistant pleas for donations, that had been asking "Don't click away..."

   Not sure there, but NOW, YouTube putting themselves, front and lower center, offer 'free trial'.
.......wait ....oh, I guess that's for the paid movies.
But, as someone else mentioned recently here, there was no place to click the youtube AD 'X' to skip AD, and also started putting crap, on a 'behind' box. That box was kinda behind (the real) stuff, but kept sneaking out, sort-of, between the front and center box, and poking out, partially;
   "FREE TRIAL OFFER..FREE TRIAL OFFER.."
I had some word definitions I needed to look up, and you know, also, how folks can get all sidetracked, by lame interruptions you can't control.

   NOW, I'm not going to 'whine out' every nit picking freagan time I see it.   Maybe just a representative 'sampling'.

[SiliconWizard]

Funnily enough, Wikipedia hosts an article about criticism of Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia

It's rather long. I didn't inspect it thoroughly to check whether there were biases in this article and/or missing information.