YouTube adds overlay ads, TubeStop stops them

by Brad Linder Aug 23rd 2007

YouTube this week began placing video advertisements inside of... videos. Here's how it works. You're watching a movie, and then about 15 seconds in, a little banner ad shows up in the window. Sort of like when you're watching network TV and a silly icon shows up at the bottom of the screen telling you to stay tuned for the next show.

But this is the internet, so everything's interactive. Clicking on the ad pauses the video you're watching and brings up a commercial. Because that's what you really went to YouTube for in the first place. To watch commercials. Actually, that might be true. Those Japanese commercials are almost as wacky as the game shows.

Anyway, if you're satisfied with the level of distraction offered by YouTube, it turns out there's a pretty simple way to prevent the ads from popping up. TubeStop is a Firefox add-on that prevents YouTube videos from auto-starting. When you see a YouTube video embedded in a web page, you usually have to click the video to make it start. If you visit that video's page on YouTube it will auto-start, which is kind of annoying if you open a few tabs with different windows. TubeStop lets you start them one at a time without having to click pause on each video first.

Anyway, it turns out that TubeStop has magical properties that also prevent the new overlay ads from popping up. It's sort of like AdBlock for YouTube that way. The trick has something to do with the fact that the ads only show up on YouTube and not when a video is embedded on another site. Whatever the reason, we're just impressed that it took all of two seconds for someone to find a TiVo for YouTube ads.

[via gHacks]

Tags: commercials, in-line, video overlay, VideoOverlay, youtube

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jordan Running said 9:46PM on 8-23-2007

Oh, fantastic! I've been using TubeStop for a few weeks because I hate how YouTube videos auto-play (since I have a tendency to open a dozen of them in tabs simultaneously). So glad it'll also spare me the anguish of these overlay ads, too.

Mad Dick Bones said 9:54PM on 8-23-2007

overlay ads? that's weak. they're just asking to get less traffic.

thehack said 11:58PM on 8-23-2007

I imagine if youtube wants to keep its adertisers it will find a way around that little trick. Still nice to know randomness still occurs among tendrils of cyberspace.

http://geekwonk.com/

Mysterius said 7:17AM on 8-24-2007

@thehack: Maybe, maybe not. Given that only a small subset of users are likely to bother installing TubeStop, they might not bother.

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