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I got a Android tablet...I can't recommend it. YT has gotten pretty toxic with the dark patterns. There are the usual interstitial ads, but after you skip and go full screen there's another ad widget in the lower left of the video. You have carefully navigate a popup menu to dismiss it without triggering an ad popup. If you pause or double-tap to -10s the video it restores down and shows an ad on the right side.

The Edge browser for has the best ad-free experience I've found so far on Android. It supports Widevine (DRM videos) and performance is good enough for most videos. I do get an occasional stutter with higher res videos. Firefox supports Widevine, but it didn't last week? Or I just didn't get the popup to "Enable DRM" for some reason. Edge claims to have blocked 15k YT ads in the last week with the built-in AdBlock Plus. It works with uBlock Origin as well (this week anyway).

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NewPipe is a YT frontend that blocks ads, allows downloading, can run in the background and is generally great. It's a killer app for Android in my opinion.

https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe

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Firefox works fine on Android, and supports ublock origin and playing youtube in a background tab/with screen off. Couldn't speak to DRM as I've never used it on any platform.
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On Android you can still patch the YouTube apk with Revanced and get rid of ads (and you can enable sponsorblock, etc).
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Oh yes they are. Occassionally when I am on a device which doesn't have an ad-blocker. I witness it and I am always left feeling shocked at how many ads Youtube can have. We really don't know the plight of so so many Youtube users. I feel sympathy for them and want to hug them and install an ad-blocker for them.

I actually used to install Revanced for all the relatives who ever complained about Youtube and some who didn't even ask! I just feel like Ad blocker is such a useful thing that I can do to people that I care about who don't know deeply about it.

I must say that it is one of the top entries of lists of most useful/time-saving things I have done in actually saving anybody's actual time.

I express gratitude towards the universe for Ublock Origin. Words can't comprehend how much I love it.

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Last time i tried to skim through a longer video on non ad blocked youtube i got two ads every time i skipped. Ended up watching more ad than video... at least until half way through it when I gave up.

And even if you watch one without skipping I'm not sure the amount of ads is even legal in my jurisdiction.

Pay for Youtube premium you say? But I only use it like once per month anyway. Easier to just not try.

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